Homophones Part II: Homographs

In a previous Yabla German lesson, we discussed heterographs. Today, we'll be taking a look at homographs. These are homophonic words, which means they are words that sound the same and are spelled the same, but have different meanings. Homographs can be quite confusing in spoken language, because the only way to know the meanings of the words—since they sound the same—is by the context in which they are used. In German, the gender of the word can play a significant role. The word "homograph" comes from Ancient Greek and literally means "written the same."

Note too that in German, regional differences in pronunciation can sometimes make a set of words homophones in one region, but not in another. Keep in mind that because of the capitalization of nouns in German, in order for two words to be true homographs, they must both be the the same case, with the first letters either lower or upper case. So while the adjective arm ("poor") may be the same letters and sound the same as the noun der Arm ("arm"), they are homophones but not strictly homographs because of the difference in cases. Since all nouns are capitalized in German, this means that a noun can never be a homograph of a verb, adjective, or adverb in German. This makes for very few homographs in German compared to English and other languages! Here are a few examples.

Zu seiner Überraschung fielen alle sieben Fliegen auf den Tisch.

To his surprise, all seven flies fell onto the table.

Caption 12, Märchen - Sagenhaft - Das tapfere Schneiderlein
Play Caption

Angst vor dem Fliegen hat sie jedenfalls nicht.

Fear of flying, in any case, she does not have.

Caption 4, Im Höhenflug - Ariadne (die Ex von Lothar Matthäus)
Play Caption

The plural of the insect "fly" (die Fliege) is die Fliegen, and the noun das Fliegen comes from the verb fliegen ("to fly"). We can invent some funny sentences with these word combinations: Haben Fliegen Angst vor fliegen? ("Are flies afraid of flying?") What a silly question!

Im Sommer verschmäht er auch Insekten und Spinnen nicht.

In summer, it does not reject insects and spiders, either.

Caption 15, Die letzten Paradiese - Schätze der Natur: Südtirol
Play Caption

Dieses Konzept ermöglicht das Spinnen von zwei verschiedenen Garnfeinheiten gleichzeitig.
This concept enables the spinning of two different yarn counts simultaneously.

The plural of the arachnid "spider" (die Spinne) is die Spinnen, and the noun das Spinnen is yet again a noun derived from the verb spinnen ("to spin"). Sind die Spinnen an all das Spinnen gewöhnt? ("Are the spiders used to all the spinning?") It's logical that the German words for "spinning" and for "spiders" are nearly the same. Spinning webs is what spiders do best, right?

Mit dem ersten Band kündigt die junge Autorin ihre literarischen
Ambitionen an.
With the first volume, the young author is announcing her literary ambitions.

Die Band ist eingespielt; die Models wissen, wie sie laufen müssen.

The band has warmed up; the models know how they must walk.

Caption 29, Mode - Backstage auf der Modenschau
Play Caption

Daher umsäumt ein helles Band den Weißensee und gibt ihm seinen Namen.

From that, a bright band surrounds the Weissensee and gives it its name.

Caption 14, Alpenseen - Kühle Schönheiten
Play Caption

In the three examples above, we see der Band, die Band and das Band, three words that are spelled and pronounced the same, but have different genders and meanings. Der Band means a volume in a set of books; die Band comes from the English word "band" as in a musical group; das Band has the most meanings, and can mean a band such as a silk band, or a belt, ribbon, strap, tie, tape or even the belt in a conveyor belt, depending upon the context. Note too that the three words have different plurals: Der Band = die Bände; die Band = die Bands; das Band = die Bänder (alternately: die Bande). The easiest one here to remember is that since die Band comes from English, its plural is from the English too with -s.

Let's go for all three in one sentence, shall we?

Welcher Band der Diskografie der Band wurde auf Band aufgenommen?

We can decrypt the above by gender: Welcher Band in the nominative case makes for der Band, thus "volume"; der Band is in the genitive case, thus in the nominative case is die Band, or "band" as in musical group; the last Band has no pronoun, but the verb aufgenommen (recorded) tells us it must be referring to magnetic recording tape, thus das Band.

Which volume of the band's discography was recorded on tape?

Or in plural:

Welche Bände der Diskografien der Bands wurden auf Bänder aufgenommen?
Which volumes of the bands' discographies were recorded on tapes?

Luckily, this is about as complicated as German gets! In most cases, people would use das Tonband (die Tonbänder) for "recording tape" too. Let's just take a deep breath now and know that even some native German speakers might have some problems with this one.

Further Learning
Take a look at these examples of German homophones on Wikipedia and find some examples of the words used in a real-world context on Yabla German. Then see if you can create some German sentences using both homophones in the same sentence. You are allowed to make up silly sentences if you want to, of course!

Signup to get Free German Lessons sent by email