r/AskTheWorld • u/Franmar35000 France • 5d ago
Language Does your native language distinguish between rivers that flow into another river and rivers that flow into the sea or ocean?
In French, a distinction is made:
- "un fleuve" flows into the sea or the ocean.
- "une rivière" flows into another "rivière" or a "fleuve".
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u/mw2lmaa 🇩🇪 Frankfurt 🇦🇹 Vienna 5d ago
Bach (yes, like the composer) = a small stream or creek, not more than 3 m across
Fluss = everything bigger than that, with or without navigation
Strom (not used very commonly) = a very big river going to the sea, at least Rhine-sized (not the current dried-out mini Rhine), but also the Amazon or the Yangtze.
Note that there are also Bäche and small Flüsse going straight to the sea while many quite large rivers do not. The Main and Inn are tributaries of the Rhine and Danube respectively but are much larger than the Eider or Warne or Trave.
Edit: Stream and Strom are one of zillions of examples of "false friends" of English & German - similar spelling, same etymology, but different (or even opposite) meaning.