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Russians like taking plurals of English words, add a Russian ending that denotes plural and attach a specific meaning to the newly minted word. For example, бутсы. It's pronounced "boots-y" where 'y' denotes plural. The word referes to these things https://www.google.com/search?q=%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%82%D1%81%D1%....

Also, "le week-end" comes to mind although it's not different from its English original. "Naan bread" is also interesting.

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In German the grammatical rules are to take the English singular and then apply German inflection to it.

So for example "community, communities" becomes "die Community, die Communitys". I personally struggle with this rule, because I think the number of German people knowing the English plural "communities" is actually higher than those knowing the inflection rules for foreign words, making you look stupid when using the correct form.

Another one is that people do not get how to form compound nouns with English words. If you use it in German, "social media manager" becomes "(der) Social-Media-Manager". The rule is so simple: Write everything together, foreign words get a dash. As these words are very common in programming related fields, almost all of the agency websites get them wrong.

The gender of the word is derived from words of similar meaning or just similar sounding words, which sometimes creates conflicts about which gender a word has.

For example we are divided on whether a blog is male or neuter (der Blog/das Blog), we are only sure it is not female.

Fun fact: loan words can become "naturalized" as their usage increases. Originally "Computer" was a loan word but now it's considered standard German, so "Computerspiel" is fine now but would have been written as "Computer-Spiel" before.

I'm not sure how this distinction is made. As far as I can tell "Business" and "Software" aren't quite there yet ("Softwareentwickler" is something I see relatively frequently but as far as I know it's still considered non-standard).

Jep, was about to include that as well, but kept it out to make it clear how easy the rule actually is. I have only a vague understanding on how to do it in English so I mostly use spaces everywhere.

> I'm not sure how this distinction is made.

The distinction is being made just like every other German word has been created: By more and more people using them like that and authorities like the Duden recognizing that.

What I dislike about foreign words from English or French is that they are written differently than they are spoken, making you switch language pronunciation mid-sentence while reading. Historically foreign words at some point were also spelled German, I would like to see that done again. At first it will be weird, but a hundred years ago people also found it weird to write "Büro" instead of the original French "bureau", which in everyday live nobody recognizes as originally French anymore.

what we really like to do is to append a bunch of affectionate diminutive suffixes to English common and proper nouns. It's just soooo entertaining. You can do it all day. Here's a few examples:

Mr. Obama (Обама) -> Obamushka (Обамушка) Mr. Trump (Трамп) -> Trumpuoshechka (Трампушечка)

My personal favorite: Okay (Окэй) -> Okaayshki (Океюшки)

If you curious you can fire up Google Translate and make it say all these words :-)

Do you use them to make fun of them or just to make the words sound nice?

I think Russian makes heavy use of diminutives, doesn't it? I worked somewhere where two women were called Natalia and Natasha and I am still confused what their actual name were, because Natasha seems to be the diminutive form of Natalia and sometimes Natasha called Natalia "Natasha".

I do not think that there are any German names which are the diminutive of other names.

I can't think of any German diminutive names but there are cases where the "short form" is distinctly different from the long form as in English "Bob" vs "Robert" or "Dick" vs "Richard".

E.g. "Jupp" is short for "Joseph" and "Kalle" is short for "Karl" (or variants like "Karl-Heinz").

In theory there is -chen or -lein - e.g. Katze -> Kätzchen, Obama -> Obamalein. But I don't think it's used very much practically.

The name Gretchen is a fairly ordinary English name, but it looks like it was originally a German diminutive of Greta/Grete? Which are themselves nicknames for Margarete.

Ha, yes. But I do not know if people were actually named Gretchen in Germany or just Gretas called this way. The name is also not currently given very much (or at all) in Germany, when used there is usually a "Oma"/grandma in front of it.

I guess "Benjamin" -> "Beni", "Daniel" -> "Dani" and so on are diminutives as well. But Gretchen is definitely rare for Germans that are not way past retirement age (might be more common in some regions but still "exotic").

Actually this holds true for many "German" names. East Germany generally has more "English" (and "French") names, e.g. Kevin, Justin, Steve and Jacqueline. Otherwise there seems to be a general trend towards more Nordic names (some jokingly blame it on IKEA: "naming kids after the furniture they were conceived on").

From what I know, it's Gretel. But both the name as well as the -el diminutive form are so long of style that they're practically not used anymore.

I think they have been popular in the generation of (and before) WW2 and Nazi Germany - though I don't know if there is actually a causal chain to the name vanishing.

But it isn't "Bob" to "Robert". You skipped middle step, and one final step.

First names were shortened.

Robert to Rob

Richard to Rich

William to Will

Then the shortened version had first letter replaced to make second diminutive form

Rob to Bob

Rich to Dick

Will to Bill

Finally you have third diminutive form, by adding ending

Bob to Bobby

Dick to Dicky

Bill to Billy

Russians do this to common nouns too. The short forms of the common nouns are less "common" (sorry for the tautology) in every day speech in English. Exceptions like mommy, daddy, granny, breakie, aside, of course.

Kinda like Dutch. I wonder if people from other related languages that don't do this think Russian sounds "cute" because of that (like how Germans often say everything sounds "cute" in Dutch).

Richard to Ric to Dick is mentioned here: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/04/how-dick-cam...

Also says that dick didn't mean cock until a lot later.

I'm not sure what it says about the English language that common given names also refer to genitalia, money, prostitutes' clients and toilets (e.g. dick, willy, john and so on).

Probably nothing, but still pretty awkward as a foreigner. You'd think these names would fall out of style but apparently everybody tries their best to be mature about it.

"Natalia" would be the name she'd use in official documents like a birth certificate or passport.

"Natasha" is a less formal form of "Natalia". It's indeed a diminutive but I wouldn't call it an affectionate diminutive like "Robert -> Billy". If I'm good friends with "Natalia" I'd probably call her "Natasha".

If you drop the last "a", "Natash" sounds more affectionate.

If you are a 5yo and a neighbour girl from a house across the street hit you with a toy shovel in the head you would probably come back running to your mom/dad, "Mom, Dad "Natashka" ("Natka") hit me with a shovel! She's baaaaaaadddd" :-)

> Okaayshki (Океюшки)

So basically, Russians like to talk like Flanders? :P

My personal favourite is sportsmenki which means female athletes. The corresponding word for male athletes is sportsmeny and the singular for a male athlete is sportsmen.

Don't forget businesswoman: "Businessmenka"

It could be used as a joke, but don't use that word seriously, it could offend. It's either businesswoman (with Russian pronunciation "бизнес-вумэн") or something like "предпренимательница" (enterpreneur-woman).

Thanks, I did not know that. My Russian is not very good, and this is a word that I've heard in a serious setting. I've never had opportunity or need to use it, though.

That sounds as something ppl would only use in the early 90s

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