The 11 Healthiest Words in German
I translated Well's 11 healthiest food recommendations and turned it into a shopping list (pictured) theoretically fit for any Austrian or German supermarket.
It's actually two lists. First, I did as much as I could with the Berlitz German Compact Dictionary
that I'd picked up in the London airport. That's the first list.
The second list reflects what I couldn't find in Berlitz and so went to Leo.ORG, a helpful online German-English dictionary, to translate the rest. Now I easily could have done the whole list with Leo, but I wanted to see how far Berlitz would take me. Hopefully this will give you a slight idea of what it's like to live by Berlitz, and decide for yourself if you want to consider buying it.
It's up to you, but if I could do it over I'd pass on the Berlitz and invest in a better German dictionary. But until I find one I'll rely on Leo it's free, and maybe take Berlitz with me when I go shopping but up to now the idea hasn't been appealing.
Oh and one more thing: when looking up these words I didn't always pay attention to each word's gender (der, die and das) because at this point I've been employing an improvised pidgin of German mixed with English curse words which is surprisingly effective. Where I'm at right now, trying to approximate coherent German grammar isn't even a specter on the horizon yet.
Let's start with the Berlitz dictionary's list of English words and their meaning in German:
beets - Runkelübe or Rote Bete "red beets"
cabbage - Kohl
cinnamon - Zimt
(pomegranate) juice - Saft
dried plums - trocken "dried", Pflaume "plums" (i didn't look up "prunes")
pumpkin seeds - Kürbis "pumpkin", Samen "seeds"
sardines - Sardine
frozen blueberries - eiskalt or gefroren "frozen"*, Heidelbeere "blueberries"
grater - Reibe**
*i asked the cashier and she had yet a different word for "frozen" but I forget what it was
**okay this wasn't on the list but you can take a great to plenty of the foods
Now here's the Leo list:
Swiss chard - der Mangold (has got to be healthy)
pomegranate (juice) - Granatapfel
turmeric - die Gelbwurz or die Kurkuma
Not bad, Berlitz. You only missed like two and a half from the list. Still, I gotta say pomegranate is the coolest because the German word reveals the biblical origins, in high school I learned that the apple in the Garden of Eden was a pomegranate, according to some scholars, so it's interesting that it's Granatapfel because Apfel means "apple" in German.
So anyway basically I got annoyed/bored/tired as usual halfway through the shopping experience but made off with a few of the items. One uniquely Austrian health food is the pumpkin seed oil, it's pitch green and they sell it bottled like olive oil. I've heard it's very hard to find in the US. It's got amazing health properties and I bought the oil instead of the seeds which incidentally also were available but pomegranate juice wasn't, although apple juice was.
Here's to your Health.
It's actually two lists. First, I did as much as I could with the Berlitz German Compact Dictionary that I'd picked up in the London airport. That's the first list.The second list reflects what I couldn't find in Berlitz and so went to Leo.ORG, a helpful online German-English dictionary, to translate the rest. Now I easily could have done the whole list with Leo, but I wanted to see how far Berlitz would take me. Hopefully this will give you a slight idea of what it's like to live by Berlitz, and decide for yourself if you want to consider buying it.
It's up to you, but if I could do it over I'd pass on the Berlitz and invest in a better German dictionary. But until I find one I'll rely on Leo it's free, and maybe take Berlitz with me when I go shopping but up to now the idea hasn't been appealing.
Oh and one more thing: when looking up these words I didn't always pay attention to each word's gender (der, die and das) because at this point I've been employing an improvised pidgin of German mixed with English curse words which is surprisingly effective. Where I'm at right now, trying to approximate coherent German grammar isn't even a specter on the horizon yet.
Let's start with the Berlitz dictionary's list of English words and their meaning in German:
beets - Runkelübe or Rote Bete "red beets"
cabbage - Kohl
cinnamon - Zimt
(pomegranate) juice - Saft
dried plums - trocken "dried", Pflaume "plums" (i didn't look up "prunes")
pumpkin seeds - Kürbis "pumpkin", Samen "seeds"
sardines - Sardine
frozen blueberries - eiskalt or gefroren "frozen"*, Heidelbeere "blueberries"
grater - Reibe**
*i asked the cashier and she had yet a different word for "frozen" but I forget what it was
**okay this wasn't on the list but you can take a great to plenty of the foods
Now here's the Leo list:
Swiss chard - der Mangold (has got to be healthy)
pomegranate (juice) - Granatapfel
turmeric - die Gelbwurz or die Kurkuma
Not bad, Berlitz. You only missed like two and a half from the list. Still, I gotta say pomegranate is the coolest because the German word reveals the biblical origins, in high school I learned that the apple in the Garden of Eden was a pomegranate, according to some scholars, so it's interesting that it's Granatapfel because Apfel means "apple" in German.
So anyway basically I got annoyed/bored/tired as usual halfway through the shopping experience but made off with a few of the items. One uniquely Austrian health food is the pumpkin seed oil, it's pitch green and they sell it bottled like olive oil. I've heard it's very hard to find in the US. It's got amazing health properties and I bought the oil instead of the seeds which incidentally also were available but pomegranate juice wasn't, although apple juice was.
Here's to your Health.
Labels: german-words
Posted by Will at
12:12 PM
2 Comments:
In Austria(Carinthia) they call red beets Rote Rübe (had some nice beet, carrot soup yesterday). I've seen pomegranate juice in some stores and they have them at Eurospar right now, I got some for 1/2 off (the ripe ones-dumb asses!) Don't surprised if the locals call plums Zwetschken (try Zwetschkenschnapps). Heidelbeeren are also called Schwarzbeeren, but not on the package. If you find swiss chard, let me know. Try the market at Benediktinerplatz mon-fri till 12 noon. They have lots of good stuff there, but not always "bio". Gotta ask them, and they'll gladly tell you if they grew it themselves or if it's from a big farmer nearby. For Kurkuma and other exotic spices try the "Thai Shop" which is on the corner right by the market. In Eurospar they tend to sell an Asian spice or two, but you'll spend twice as much.
Pomegranate in English comes from French. Pomme meaning apple.
Have fun shopping!
Maybe you've learned by now that pumpkin seeds - the ones you eat - are Kurbiskerne. Samen are generally planted to produce the whatever you want to eat. And of course, what they say in Austrian German is not what we always use in Germany German!
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