Mein Freund

In this lesson I noticed they said “Mein Freund Boris”

I’ve read in the past the term Freund or Freundin means boyfriend or girlfriend in German so I’m always careful as to how I should go about using it. It’s so common in English to just say, me and my friend, or my friend Sean. I just send out a writing submission and I was careful to say Mein guter Freund, is this always necessary so they don’t think I’m gay? Obviously the example above shows you can use it with a name but I was wonder if some native Germans could someone shed some light on this topic.

The confusion persists! When I was young we were careful to distinguish between “ein Freund”, “ein Bekannter” und “mein Freund”. “Ein Bekannter” was possible material to become “mein Freund”, the real thing, a boyfriend. I would never have referred to anybody as ‘mein guter Freund/meine gute Freundin’. For the purposes of showing neutrality I’d have said “ein guter Freund/eine gute Freundin”.

I’d recommend the use of the informal ‘Kumpel’ as in “Mein Kumpel Sean und ich” to avoid any confusion in an informal setting. But as I am definitely too old for the dating scene, whether in the UK or in Germany, you’d better be guided by some more contemporary views… (and in any case do young people still worry about sexual orientation?)

As far as sexual orientation I could care less what other people do but I just don’t want to make the mistake of suggesting in a writing submission my friend is my boy-friend, not that I think there’s anything wrong with been gay, most Canadians I know (the younger generations and the less religious) are pretty tolerant. Unfortunately I know a lot of religious people who have strong negative feelings towards gay people.

This is just one of the quirks between languages we take for granted. I use the term friend so often and loosely in English and then to be so concerned about it in writing in German seems so odd.

I guess it’s just a matter of time as I get used to the idiosyncrasies of the language. Kumpel I guess makes more sense just to clear up any confusion.

I think it depends on the person. My German friend writes me in e-mails “Mein Freund Evgueny” and I write the same to him though we are not gays. But some gays can obviously address “Mein lieber Freund” to their partners.
I believe that some people in the Western countries become more and more confused in their "tolerance’ and see and make diffuiculties where no real difficulties exist. Don’t make the elephant from the fly and your life would be happier.

Ich stimme Evgueny zu! Ich habe auch immer “Mein Freund Jan” gesagt, obwohl ich mit ihm nie eine Beziehung hatte. “Mein Kumpel” klingt für mich völlig blödsinning, das ist mehr so jemand, mit dem man in die Kneipe gehen würde. Was man schon zur Eindeutigkeit sagen könnte ist “ein Freund von mir” oder “eine Freundin von mir”. Bei Frauen sage ich auch einfach “Meine Freundin XY”, da denke ich mir gar nichts dabei, aber über einen männlichen Freund, der nicht mein Partner ist, habe ich mir schon mehr Gedanken gemacht.

As someone who’s had very little exposure to the language, I’m still getting used to what’s considered normal and what’s not. Over time I’m sure I’ll feel comfortable expressing myself in the language after enough exposure. Some mini courses online made a big deal about it so it got my attention, but like I said, massive real world exposure to REAL language would help me figure it out on my own.

Thanks Evgueny and Sanne for the input, I guess its just a matter of listening to a lot of content and deciding for myself what seems right, as there seems to be varying opinions out there.

Klar, dass eine Frau keinen Kumpel hat, wir haben nur gute oder alte Freunde :slight_smile:

@nateg, you are right, exposure is the key!

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Here´s what I´d use

  • mein Kumpel Dennis (that´s informal, but I rarely talk about my friends in formal situations…)
  • ein Freund von mir/einer meiner Freunde (a friend of mine)
  • if he was my boyfriend, I´d say “mein Freund”, “Mein Schatzi” or something like that.

When the person I´m talking to already know´s who Dennis is, I just say “Dennis”.

Helo:) What about ‘kamerad’ ?

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I think as a guy you can use “mein Kamerad”, it’s a synonym to “mein Kumpel”, but for me as a female person, I would use neither “mein Kamerad” nor “mein Kumpel”.

That´s how Neo-Nazis adress each other. Do a youtube search for “mein Kamerad” and you´ll find a ton of Nazi-music…“Sturmwehr”, “Sleipnir”, “Frank Rennicke”…

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mein+kamerad

Oh, that’s awful! :frowning:

I am not familiar with Neo-Nazis, so I didn’t know that they misuse this word “Kamerad”. In the military (i.e. in the German “Bundeswehr”) soldiers use the word “Kamerad” as a synonym for “collegue”.