There's plenty of obvious cognates. Without thinking too much, with rather rusty German, and from your comment: I = ich have = habe hear = hören before = be

There's plenty of obvious cognates. Without thinking too much, with rather rusty German, and from your comment: I = ich have = habe hear = hören before = bevor [in some meanings to be fair] and = und [Your first half sentence is a good example :)] is = ist can = können [and in general the whole can/können, shall/sollen, will/wollen connection - though the meanings have drifted a bit apart] when = wenn learn = lernen see = seeen word = wort More generally, my experience is that literal (i.e., word-for-word) translations from German to English sound weird, but often comprehensible, while literal translations from French usually end up as gibberish.