Weird German

Typical Friday night - 'studying' German while watching mediocre American made-for-TV movies translated into German (although this one, oddly, was made in Germany in English). I always notice odd things in German when I'm half-learning like this - a few of my current ponderables:

German has a lot of similarities to English - prepositions, for example, that can only be used in certain ways - ponder the difference between 'throw out', 'throw in' and 'throw up'. The prepositions in German are similar enough to English to cause a lot of confusion - for example, in Germany, your house is 'in a street', but you walk 'on the street' - exactly switched from English.

Sometimes I try to learn word roots and build from there. This doesn't always work:

• 'Verwalt' means administration, 'Gewalt' means violence, 'Anwalt' is a lawyer. What's a 'Walt', I must ask, and just how do those three words relate?
• 'Gift' in German means 'poison'.
• 'Mist', instead of being a nice light fog, means 'manure'.

Oh well, back to work.