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Duden Das Fremdwörterbuch
Duden Das Fremdwörterbuch is Duden’s dictionary of foreign words in German: the borrowed vocabulary — from Latin and Greek through French and English to today’s global coinages — each word given with pronunciation, origin and meaning.
German grows by import, and its imports arrive unlabelled: the reader meets Computer and Renaissance, Kantine and Know-how, and must guess origin, gender and stress. The Fremdwörterbuch removes the guessing; it is the customs office where every foreign word in German is registered.
It is made for native readers and writers of every profession, translators and editors, and advanced learners whose German has reached the educated vocabulary where the foreign words live.
Every language has a border, and words cross it constantly — carrying their foreignness with them for generations: odd spellings, unpredictable plurals, stress in the wrong place by German rules, meanings narrower or wider than in their homeland. Das Fremdwörterbuch is the volume Duden devotes to these naturalised immigrants, and its entries give the full papers: how the word is pronounced, where it comes from and by what route, what it means in German now, its gender and plural, and the usage notes that keep writers safe. The territory is vast — the learned vocabulary of science and medicine, the French of diplomacy and cuisine, the Italian of music, and above all the great English influx that has reshaped modern German from Job and Team to Download and Feedback. For readers, the book decodes the newspaper’s learned pages; for writers, it prevents the humiliations of the mis-stressed, mis-gendered borrowing; for translators, it is a court of appeal between two languages’ shared Latin inheritance. Learners of advanced German discover in it an education by itself: to browse the Fremdwörterbuch is to watch European history arrive, word by word, and settle in.
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About This Book
This is Duden’s Fremdwörterbuch, the dictionary of foreign words in German: borrowed words from every source language, each with pronunciation, etymology, meaning, gender and plural — the authority on German’s imported vocabulary.
What Readers Will Find
Pronunciation and Origins
Every entry shows how the word is said and where it entered German from — Latin, Greek, French, Italian, English and beyond — because a borrowing’s history explains its behaviour.
Meaning in German, Now
Not the homeland meaning but the German one: borrowings shift as they settle, and this dictionary records what they actually mean in German mouths and texts.
Gender, Plural and Usage
The practical papers of each word — article, plural formation, register and cautions — the details that decide whether the borrowing sounds natural or foreign in the bad sense.
Key Features
Duden’s authority is the feature: the standard verdict on the language’s imported half. The etymological depth is the second — origin as understanding, not ornament — and the currency the third: new borrowings registered as they land.
Who This Book Is For
It is for native writers and editors, translators between German and any language, journalists and academics, and advanced learners reading educated German.
How to Use This Book
Reach for it whenever a word feels foreign — in writing, before the word goes out; in reading, the moment meaning wavers. Check gender and plural before first use in any important text, and read the origin note: remembering that a word arrived from French or Latin fixes its spelling and stress in memory better than any drill. Browsing it idly is legitimate study; its pages are a history of what German has wanted from the world.
Related Books
The synonym dictionary is Duden Das Wörterbuch Der Synonyme. The abbreviations dictionary is Duden Das Wörterbuch Der Abkürzungen.
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