A simple worksheet can give pupils confidence by showing them how many German words they already know.

What is it?

The concise but comprehensive handout shared by anyholland reveals the English words that have been borrowed from German.

It is divided into three sections, the first giving a list of 53 German words that pupils have to split into categories: dogs, food, sciencenature, history, drinks and sport. Pupils will recognise words such as Fahrenheit and musli (muesli). The second task is to ask pupils to match English words or descriptions with their German origin-words, such as broken with kaput and nursery and Kindergarten.

For the final activity, pupils will find German rolling off the tongue as they fill in the missing words. “I don’t know how to dance the ... waltz.” “There are so many strange noises and bumps, I’m sure we’ve got a ... Poltergeist.”

Use the activity for new students of German and get rid of those beginner’s nerves. Pupils who think that learning only 100 words in a different language is a challenge will be surprised by the end of the lesson when they walk away already knowing more than 80.