I'm not disagreeing, but even from my modest knowledge of German as a second language, I find myself inserting German words (or at least wanting to) into Englis

I'm not disagreeing, but even from my modest knowledge of German as a second language, I find myself inserting German words (or at least wanting to) into English because of gaps in English. It's not that I can't say "create" or "make" and tack on some extra words to imply a craft/handicraft/tinkering meaning. I just find that without the word "basteln", a lot of times even though I could, I don't. "Basteln" is a great word for everyday speech that there simply isn't a good equivalent of in English. (Ok, for gamers, you can probably use "craft" as a verb and get the basic meaning, but most people don't use the word that way.) I don't find it hard to believe that I would use that meaning more often if I had a simple word for it.