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TN al Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-18-09 02:44 PM
Original message
German language question
What is the difference between cousin and Kusin or Cousine and Kusine?
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Brickbat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-18-09 02:53 PM
Response to Original message
1. It's a gender thing.
Edited on Wed Nov-18-09 02:55 PM by Brickbat
Der Cousin OR der Vetter = the cousin, male.
Die Cousine OR die Kusine = the cousin, female.

ETA: "Vetter" can imply a closeness, like you might call a male friend "brother" even though he isn't your brother.
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TN al Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-18-09 03:09 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Is there any significant difference because of the spelling?
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Brickbat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-18-09 03:41 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Not that I know of.
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Lydia Leftcoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-18-09 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. In pronunciation
"Kusin" is pronounced "koo-zeen."

"Kusine" is pronounced "koo-zee-neh."
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Eurobabe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-18-09 07:48 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. Cousin is from French
and germanized using the article, while Kusine is repackaged to play better with typical Germanic spellings. Many foreign words in German retain their original spellings: ie portemonnaie, also French.

http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&lang=de&searchLoc=0&cmpType=relaxed§Hdr=on&spellToler=on&chinese=both&pinyin=diacritic&search=Cousin&relink=on
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