Question

Fruite.g:- I put the fruit in a bag.

Accepted Answer

Das Obst /oːpst/ (no plural), die Frucht /fʁʊxt/ (Plural: Früchte).

e.g:

- Ich gab das Obst in eine Tüte.

Observation: what is the difference between the two words?

Short answer: you refer to Obst as a culinary term (fruit substance), whereas Frucht is a biological/botanical word (for example a tree consists of the stem, leaves, fruits...).

Long answer: it is not very easy to make a 100% clear difference between them. If you say:

Ich esse gerne Obst.

or

Ich esse gerne Früchte.

you mean the same thing. It is mostly a linguistic habit to prefer one of them in some fixed phrases. Obst refers more to culinary situations and Frucht refers more to biological terms, but you can often use them as synonyms in the colloquial language.

Obst always implies something edible. That is not always the case with Früchte. For instance, rowan berries are not edible, but they are Früchte of rowan trees.

Früchte can also be used in metaphorical sense, for example: Früchte seiner Arbeit.

As for some other tips on the actual use of these words, if you want to refer to different single fruits, we usually use the word "Früchte" for grammatical convenience. If if want to refer to a whole bunch of fruit, we can use "Obst" (Eine Schale Obst = A bowl of fruit). If you have something containing bits of fruit, but for some reason you don't want to name that fruit, we use "Frucht-" for the combined word, like "Fruchtjoghurt", "Fruchtsaft" and so on. "Obst-" is usually used when we talk about a variety of whole fruits or something that has to do with fruit indirectly, like "der Obsthändler" (the fruit vendor), or "das Obstmesser" (the fruit knife). For "fruit salad", we can say both "Obstsalat" or "Fruchtsalat".

Fruit Obst Ich Refer E.G Das Difference Culinary