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As a Dutch person, we were taught German in secondary school and Meer/See were the textbook example of false friends: het meer - der See - the lake de zee - d
by Basje 15d ago
As a Dutch person, we were taught German in secondary school and Meer/See were the textbook example of false friends:
het meer - der See - the lake
de zee - das Meer - the sea
I don't remember being taught "die See" but I also dropped my German course after one year (which I now regret). Anyway, I always thought this was an interesting development in our languages.
- samus 15d ago"die See" refers to the sea in general, not to a specific body of water, unless it is part of a name, like "Nordsee". The English word "sea" is also sometimes used in this sense, but it's less apparent since "the" carries no gender: "He liked living close to the sea." - doesn't really refer to a specific sea or ocean even though the definite article has been used. (I'm happy to be corrected if this is an ungrammatical sentence since I'm not a native English speaker)