Spotlight - 14.2019

LANGUAGE CARDS

New words Spotlight — 07 — 2016

False friends 14/2019 Spotlight

New words

Pronunciation

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Grammar 14/2019 Spotlight

Idiom magic

(In)Formal English

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Translation 14/2019 Spotlight 14/2019 Spotlight

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Global English 14/2019 Spotlight

American speaker:

“You can pay with a buck or a deuce.”

Canadian one-dollar coins feature (zeigen) a picture of a
loon bird (Seetaucher) and so have the nickname loonie.
Two-dollar coins are called toonies. America has bills for
one and two dollars, and these are informally called bucks
and deuces [(du:sIz].

you only live once

fear of missing out

These acronyms have come from internet slang and are

often used in everyday conversation, especially by young

people. They are pronounced as words, as [(jəʊləʊ] and

[(fəʊməʊ]; for example, “I have to leave the party early, and

I have a serious FOMO.”

This saying means that a friend who helps you when you
are really in need of help is a true friend. A similar prov-
erb is found in many other languages and German is no
exception — Den wahren Freund erkennt man in der Not.

1. Who would you like to invite to your party?


2. He asked me out.


3. It’s my treat today.

The basic meaning of einladen is “to invite”. If you want
to ask someone to join you on a date, you can “ask them
out”. If you want to say that you’ll pay for someone’s food
or drinks, don’t use the word “invite”. Say instead: “It’s my
treat” or “The drinks are on me.”

1. There are more than 400 institutions of higher
   education in Germany.


2. Meine 11-jährige Tochter kommt im September in die
   Sekundarstufe.

A Hochschule is a university or college. “High school” refers

to a secondary school in North America. From a Hochschule,

you receive a degree. From a secondary school, you receive

a diploma (N. Am.) or school-leaving certificate (UK).

Some verbs can be followed by a “to”-infinitive or by
another verb in the “-ing” form. If the second verb is a
“to”-infinitive, it shows that the action of the first verb
happened before that of the second verb (in other words:
first I stopped what I was doing, then we had a chat). If the
second verb takes the “-ing” form, the action of the second
verb happened before that of the first verb (in other words:
I used to smoke, but then I stopped).

The term cisgender uses a prefix from chemistry (“cis-”)

which means that a molecule’s atoms are arranged on one

side of the molecule. When referring to gender (Geschlecht),

it means that someone’s sense of personal identity and

gender matches the physical sex with which that person

was born.

[rɪŋ] / [(bel )rɪŋə] [(fɪŋgə]

[sɪŋ] / [(sɪŋə] [(lɪŋgə]

In verbs that end in “-ing”, the final letters “-ng” are usually

pronounced [ŋ]. The “g” is not even pronounced separately

when “-er” is added to turn the verb into a noun that de-

scribes a person, as in “singer”. If a word ends in “-nger”, but

does not describe a person performing some action, the “g”

is usually pronounced separately, as in “finger”.