Here's a nice easy one - this is obviously that creamy, white stuff you spread on your toast. It's also pronounced the same as in English, assuming you like short u's that is. I don't want to start blathering on about genders, which is frankly very dull, but the good news for anyone who can't remember if BUTTER is masculine, feminine or neuter - well, you've got a two-in-three chance of being right (as opposed to a one-in-three chance in most other cases). That's because it's die Butter in most of Germany but, for some weird reason, der Butter in Bavaria. So if anyone pulls you up short, just look dumb and pretend you learnt your German from some cretinous farmer in Fürstenfeldbruck.

There are a couple of other words that rhyme with butter that are kind of easy to guess: MUTTER for mother and FUTTER for fodder (food for animals). Unfortunately, if you thought other English words like "cutter", "gutter" and "nutter" had similar German equivalents, well tough - they don't. I have no idea what a gutter is in German - probably something like Dachrohrwasserlieferungsgerät. (Actually Katja tells me it's REGENRINNE.)