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- Topic: German >
- "Das Haustier"
48 Comments
I like how, since pets are often kept in homes and apartments, "haustier", which means pet, sounds like "house"-tier. German has a lot of that kind of thing.
It doesn't just sound like it; the German word literally means "house animal".
German and Scandinavian languages are similair and are just as litarally. "Husdjur" in Swedish and "husdyr" in Danish = hous animals.
Interesting. I thought "haus" look like "house", but I didn't want to blindly as English borrows vocabulary from its mother (French) as it does from its father (German).
FYI-- French is not the mother of English, but the stepmom, thanks to the Norman Conquest. English is part of the West Germanic language family. There are thousands of words in English of French origin, but that’s just an added layer of vocabulary.
Sure, just as "cupboard" literally means "cup board" in English, i.e. a horizontal board to put cups on.
I kid. That's not what "cupboard" actually means.
The etymology or origin of a word is not always a good clue to what it means nowadays.
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I grew up in a farm area where animals were referred to as "house pets" or "barn animals". It was one or the other, so it it actually seems strange to not use the "house" part.
I have only lived in America 71 years so perhaps I have missed something here. In my experience, Americans use house pet interchangeably with pet to refer an animal kept in the house (dogs, cats, etc.). For instance, I might have a dog who is a pet but is kept outside. That dog would be a pet but not a house pet. On the other hand the two indoor cats I have that drive me nuts daily are very definitely house pets. I do not ever recall seeing "Haus Haustier" used to refer to these pets and so I would think that either pet or house pet ought to be acceptable as a translation for Haustier. I'm guessing here that German does not differentiate where as English does. Might be wrong on that.....still learning.
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We are, indeed, two nations separated by a common language. I'm a UK resident and I have never once heard the expression "house pet". This is not a criticism of the American usage; I'm just pointing out that we don't say that here.
I imagine just "haustier" was used instead of something like "haus haustier" to simplify it. Kind of like how you might only learn "can" as a metal cylinder that holds food, instead of learning that and trash can, which is more of a bucket.
Is it just me or the man's an the woman's pronunciation are somewhat different? It seems that the man says something like Haushtier, but the lady doesn't have this -sh- sound..
It should sound like Haus + Tier -- the -s-t- belongs to separate syllables and so it shouldn't make the sht sound.
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i wrote 'domestic animal' and it accepted it as well. i kinda guessed the word since there was no example before
It’s just Haustier, whether the critter lives inside or outside. They just don’t make that distinction.
Is there a grammatical reason why Haustier is neuter? I though with compound words in German that the gender is determined by the final element? Tier being the final element, isn't tier masculine? Or is this some weird exception and "Haustier" is more of an independent word than other compound words are?
is "haustier" pronounced with sound "s" or sound "f"? I heard both.when I click on the word she said "f"
With /s/ always. There’s no /f/ sound in that word at all. However, because Duo uses text-to-speech software, not a live human voice, it’s possible that the two voiceless fricatives /s/ and /f/ might sound similar to some people.
How can i get back into the comments after finishing the exercise Although even if someone answered i won't be able to see it
You have to learn it when you learn the word.
i.e. don't learn "Löffel = spoon"; instead learn "der Löffel = the spoon" so that you remember that "Löffel" takes "der".
It's a little simpler in a compound noun like this one: compounds always take the gender from the last part. So if you know that it's das Tier (neuter), then you know that it must also be das Haustier. (And das Faultier "the sloth", das Trampeltier "the Bactrian camel", etc.)
I don't understand the question. ein never goes with die.
The word Haustier is neuter, so it's das Haustier when it's definite and ein Haustier when it's indefinite.
A feminine word such as Katze would be die Katze, eine Katze.
In the lesson preceding the quiz, it was said that haustier means pet house, was it because "Das" before it that the meaning changed? If not, how can one figure out the difference?
haustier means pet house
Are you sure?
Haus means a house and Tier means an animal, but Haustier is a pet (not a "house animal", which would be the literal translation). It's certainly not any kind of house.
And it has to be capitalised, since it's a noun.
What exactly did you type, and what was the response message from Duo? Without that, we can’t really help you... a screenshot works.
Is HAUSTIEE is also correct answer? or a typo?
I typed instead of HAUSTIER typed so, but its showing as correct answer!
It’s a typo. However, possibly if you typed in all caps it may have ‘confused’ the software.
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Annoyed to have gotten this one marked wrong. I wrote 'house pet', which is what the word 'pet' derives from, and is almost a literal translation of the German word. Grrrr
I wrote "house pet" and it was marked wrong. There are pets you know, that do not go in the house. (horses, pigs, etc.)
