"Do you have a birthday today?" is a direct translation from German: "Hast du heute Geburtstag?".

In English, you would instead ask: "Is it your birthday today?"

Ja. French is confusing too, about having certain age instead of being certain age. In Czech we say "It is 35 years to me". Lol.

but it is not a direct translation, is it. Why do a 'direct translation' but then correct the word order?

I would say, in English, “isn’t it your birthday?”. Goodness, I didn’t go to Bullers Wood grammar school for girls for nothing in my day

Depends on if you think it is probably their birthday but aren’t 100% sure “isn’t it your birthday today?”, or you don’t know but then something makes you ask (like you see a card on their desk) “Is it your birthday today?”

Another Slavic mother tongue speaker: "It is 12 years to me" is correct, albeit a bit archaic; the more common variant is like in French, "I have 12 years". My daughter says "I am 12", which is a word for word translation from English, and definitely wrong.


Edited as it's not worth another post. It's not just that German has invaded my English, it is also that typical mistakes of German native speakers don't sound so wrong any more. For example, "This is how it looks like" used to really grate, now it's... just one of the ways people say it (though I still don't, and hopefully never will).

I think you've actually "nicked" it from the French.

Them. Again.

Indeed. There are only a very few specific occasions when I would use ‘Isn’t it your birthday?’

TBF that was the text used in the OP, and anyway I don't think 'direct translation' implies 'word for word' without translating the grammar; certainly not how I'd use the expression.

But I am grateful for those who quoted the German, as I had no idea of how you'd normally say it and therefore the thread didn't make much sense. If it were me I'd almost certainly use a direct translation from English, something like "Ist es Heute deine Geburtstag?" including the lack of correct case and gender that it almost certainly contains.

(Life's too short, etc. and since I've been out of German-speaking areas I really can't be bothered any more with trying to be grammatically correct on the odd occasions I need to deal with clients in German.)

Back to the OP - no, I can't really say I accidentally drop (mis-)translated foreign words or phrases into my English like that. As someone else mentioned I've become more accepting of some of the more common mistranslations used by non-native speakers, but as far as I'm aware I've never inadvertently used "actual" to mean "current", for example.

In Italian, you state the year you were born rather than your age.

Tom

I shared an office with a Swedish guy once. We switched German and English within the sentences (what ever word came to mind first) and we were so fast that other people could not follow us. That was fun as it was really nice and easy to discuss things.
But very difficult to stop after. My mind still does it and sometimes I need to look up the German word which only comes to mind in English although I learnt German 13 years before I learnt English.
It worries me sometimes but for example I can't learn Spanish anymore (my first language ever although shortly) because the Italian gets in the way big time. I admire people who speak Spanish and Italian - separately

__________________
It's all a matter or perspective.
So move your butt and look at it from the other side

"You become money from me"

This happens in German too. My husband will be talking about people in their 40s. “He’s older than me he’s 74 and I’m 77”

I think it's even tougher for people who speak Catalan or Valencian and Spanish because so much vocabulary and expressions are just literal transpositions and a lot of stuff that just sounds totally wrong is actually acceptable. Especially when you move out of the cities and into the deep sticks where people don't speak "official" Catalan but some dialect.

I love to hang around in places like the vegetable market just to listen to people speak.

Your ticket is not guilty on this train.

Last year I had to slap myself when, talking to friends about drinks later, I said "We'll see us at 6". But yes, I find I am forgetting some standard English words and my Dutch GF , who is pretty much fluent in English, often helps me out.

But even she sometimes struggles to find the correct word in English, 2 years ago she wanted to use the word "often", but just could not remember it, so she said it in a different way which made sense to her... "very sometimes". Now I use that often, sorry, very sometimes, instead of often (sorry, very sometimes).

I like that. Think I'll start using it just for fun.

you're almost welcome

Why should you have it better than the rest of us? There are tons of often weird or incorrect English terms creeping into pretty much all other languages... like „shit storm“ being used on German TV news or in non-tabloid papers.

Yes, Gemeinde/commune is a good one. in British English you would never say "I'm going to the borough/parish", although of course you might get a letter from the council.

People who say "the Bahnhof" are a minor irritation though...