M. Kharis, Kisyani Laksono, Suhartono Suhartono, Korakoch Attaviriyanupap
This study aims to describe how well Indonesian and Thai students of German as a Foreign Language (GFL) comprehend German neologisms related to COVID-19 and their strategies for comprehending these neologisms. The yes/no test format was used to assess vocabulary mastery. This test was created according to four criteria: type, lemma, flemma, and word families. The word selection was based on standard terminology, grammar, abbreviations, and encyclopedic entries. The test was done by 129 students, which consists of 62 Indonesian students and 67 Thai students. The investigation revealed that on average 80.4% of Indonesian and 76.1% of Thai students knew neologisms associated with COVID-19. The most well-known vocabulary contained terms used in, or is similar to, the English counterparts, such as coronapositiv and positivgetestet, whereas the least-known vocabularies contained abbreviations. It proves that they do not like Denglisch, a mashup of several German and English words, such as boostern, zoomen, webexen, and teamsen. Based on the average score, Thai students benefitted more from understanding new Denglisch vocabulary than Indonesian students. Meanwhile, the Indonesian and Thai students used several strategies to comprehend the new words: including guessing, matching to English, ignoring the word/word combination entirely because other parts of the word are understandable, making use of a translator application, both printed and digital, and asking friends or lecturers questions. © Silpakorn University. All Rights Reserved.
Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia; Faculty of Letter, Universitas Negeri Malang, Indonesia; Faculty of Arts, Silpakorn University, Thailand
