All German word comparisons · Back to the topic overview
Meaning, sentence patterns and examples
| Word | Core meaning | Typical context | Grammar |
|---|---|---|---|
| fremd | foreign; unfamiliar; someone else’s | a stranger; an unknown place; others’ belongings | adjective; etwas ist jemandem fremd |
| ausländisch | from or relating to another country | companies, qualifications or currencies | adjective; attributive endings |
fremd
Meaning and usage: Fremd can describe an unfamiliar place or person, something that belongs to another person, or something from outside your usual environment. It also has a foreign-origin meaning. Context decides which sense applies: fremdes Eigentum is someone else’s property, not necessarily property from another country.
Grammar: Adjective: ein fremder Ort, eine fremde Person. Predicative fremd stays uninflected. In Die Umgebung ist mir fremd, the person experiencing unfamiliarity is dative. Comparative fremder; superlative am fremdesten where meaningful.
Die Straßen in dieser Stadt sind mir noch fremd.
The streets in this city are still unfamiliar to me.
ausländisch
Meaning and usage: Ausländisch explicitly concerns another country or countries outside the relevant country. It is useful when discussing a qualification, company, currency or source. It does not tell you whether an object or person is unfamiliar, nor is it a description of how well someone speaks German.
Grammar: Adjective: ein ausländisches Unternehmen, ausländische Abschlüsse. Predicative use stays uninflected. Ordinary country-origin classification is not normally graded with a comparative. There is no required object or fixed preposition.
Sie arbeitet für ein ausländisches Unternehmen, das ein Büro in Berlin hat.
She works for a foreign company that has an office in Berlin.
Overlap and context
Eine fremde Sprache and eine ausländische Sprache can overlap, but fremd often concerns the language’s relation to the learner, while ausländisch points toward a country perspective. Something ausländisch can be familiar to you. Something fremd can come from your own city. When discussing people, use the relevant information precisely; nationality, residence, family origin and familiarity are different facts. The adjectives do not establish all of them at once.
Common mistakes
- Do not translate “a stranger” as an ausländische Person unless foreign origin is specifically meant.
- Fremde Sachen may be other people’s belongings, not imported goods.
- Avoid using ausländisch to infer language ability or how long someone has lived in a country.
Memory aid: Ausland points to another country. Fremd points to something outside what is your own or familiar; it can also have the country sense.
Try it
An unfamiliar street is in your own town. Which adjective fits: fremd or ausländisch?
Show the answer
fremd
The contrast concerns your familiarity, not another country.