I had the idea to start a random series about my adventures with the English language in a world that speaks German. English has become a part of my life when we moved to Buffalo 17 years ago. A few years after we were back again I started a daily email conversation with my best friend who lived in California. Although he is Swiss he felt more comfortable writing English. Since May 2014 I am running this blog and my daily working hours on it are increasing. Meanwhile, I can say that I spend 90 percent of my time in English rather than in German. That can be a little tricky…

Reading German words in English

There are words in English as in German that look exactly the same. But they have different meanings and are spoken out differently as well. For example, my name: “Kind” means “Child” in German and is spoken like “Keand”.

I remember the first time I went to the grocery store after we moved back from Buffalo where we spent 13 months. I went shopping with my mom since we stayed with my parents until we had a new apartment. I was in the fruit section standing at the side with the cart while my mom was picking some fruits.

Then I saw something which was very interesting. Above each different type of fruit, it said “Taste” plus a random number. I was completely confused. I thought: “Do they define the level a fruit tastes already?”I pondered about that for a while. When my mom came back to the cart I told her about my observation. She did not get me in the beginning but then started laughing! I read a German word in English. The word “Taste” means “Button” and of course, is spoken out completely differently.

Over here the types of fruit have numbers in order to get the correct price when weighing them on the scale in the store.

In Love and Light!