What got me started on 'Denglish' was the writing on a car belonging to a carshare business in my hometown in Germany. It shows two sheep and the word 'sheep' as part of its signage, but what it really wants to convey is that it is 'sheeper' (cheaper) than other car-share businesses.
It has nothing to do with sheep except that that's the way Germans pronounce the word 'cheap'. "So why not use it?" must have been the thought of whoever came up with the name "sheepersharing", thereby creating yet another word in the dreaded 'Denglish' language which is used by everyone, but especially young people who consider it 'cool'.
Not only does Denglish include words borrowed from English — like "Show," "Lifestyle" or "Download" — you'll also find a series of unique pseudo-anglicisms, or words that sound English, but actually aren't — including "Beamer" (projector), "Handy" (mobile phone) or "Dressman" (male model). But it gets a lot lot worse! Remember how Mark Twain wrote, "I'd rather decline two drinks than one German adjective." Well, in 'Denglish', the same applies to the conjugation of verbs (I trust you still remember the difference between declensions and conjugations)
Take the perfectly good German word 'herunterladen' which means 'download', which is why those 'cool' young people are no longer happy to use 'herunterladen' but prefer 'download' --- BUT still conjugated the German way: for example, in the present tense it would be ich "downloade" / du "downloadest" / er,sie,es "downloadet" / wir/ihr/sie "downloaden"; and, of course, there are five more German tenses!
Many well-educated Germans shudder at what they view as the "bad" influences of English in today's German. Proof of this tendency can be seen in the popularity of Bastian Sick's 2004 humorous book "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod" ("The Dative is the Death of the Genitive").
The bestseller (another English word that is used in Germany) points out the deterioration of the German language (Sprachverfall), caused in part by bad English influences. It was shortly followed by two sequels.
I don't expect you to understand this video. I've put here for my personal enjoyment
A German business person may attend einen Workshop (der) or go to ein Meeting (das) where there's eine Open-End-Diskussion about the company's Performance (die). He reads Germany's popular Manager-Magazin (das) in order to learn how to managen the Business (das). At their Job (der) many people work am Computer (der) and visit das Internet by going online.
While there are perfectly good German words for all of the "English" words above, they just aren't "in" (as they say in German, or "Deutsch ist out."). A rare exception is the German word for computer, der Rechner, which enjoys parity with der Computer (first invented by the German Conrad Zuse).
The so-called "Deppenapostroph" (idiot's apostrophe) is another sign of the decrease in German-language competence. It too can be blamed on English and/or Denglish. German does use apostrophes (a Greek word), but not in the way often misguided German-speakers do so today.
Adopting the Anglo-Saxon use of apostrophes in the possessive, some Germans now add it to German genitive forms where it should not appear. Today, walking down the street of any German town, one can see business signs announcing "Andrea's Haar- und Nagelsalon" or "Karl's Schnellimbiss." The correct German possessive is "Andreas" or "Karls" with no apostrophe. An even worse violation of German spelling is using an apostrophe in s-plurals: "Auto's," "Handy's," or "Trikot's." Australians, who are serial offenders in the use of the 'plural'-apostrophe, love it!
The height of "Sprachpanschen" (language dilution) has to be the word-for-word translation of an idiom into another language. The very word 'idiom' stems from the Greek word 'idios' which means 'own, private’; therefore, an idiom is something private to that particular language. I am sorry but to translate 'It's raining cats and dogs' would be met with a blank stare by every German - and perhaps even by the odd English speaker who is unaware that this saying goes back to the days before decent street drainage, when drowned stray animals could often be found in the streets of cities after a storm. Here's a Denglish one:
Translated from the German "Mit ihm ist nicht gut Kirschen essen", it is a common idiom used to describe a person - 'ihm' - who is hard to get along with. Although I knew exactly what it meant, I had to look up its origin. Apparently, it dates back to the Middle Ages when cherry trees were rare and grew mostly in monasteries or in the gardens of the rich. So why translate it into Denglish? Because it sounds trendy and 'cool'?
Not to me! 'Denglish' ist ein No go für mich!
