The same German word means the ground beneath your feet and the reason for something. Aus welchem Grund? — from what ground? Im Grunde genommen — taken at bottom.
In German, the cause of a thing and the floor of a thing are the same word. You have not found the reason until you have hit the bottom.
Grund is the ground — the bottom of a thing. Gründlich means going down to it.
English thorough comes from through: covering the whole extent. The German word is not about extent. It is about depth, and specifically about reaching the floor.
Right and fair. A fixed German pairing, and billig here is not the modern word for cheap. It is the older sense: equitable, proportionate, what is due. The drift of billig from fair to cheap is one of the more telling movements in the German language, and the old meaning survives only in this phrase and in the law.
Zuverlässig — reliable, from sich verlassen auf, to rely upon. The same word is used of a machine and of a person, and it is among the strongest compliments in German for either.
Es läuft — it runs. Said of a machine, a process or a business, and it means everything is as it should be.
Da kann nichts passieren — nothing can happen there. The German assurance, and it is stated absolutely.
To come to the matter. The German for getting to the point, and the metaphor is different from the English one.
A point is a place in an argument. Die Sache is the thing under discussion. English asks you to be concise. German asks you to arrive at the substance.
Celebration-evening. The German word for the end of the working day, and there is no English equivalent because English has no word for the thing.
Ich mache Feierabend — I am making Feierabend — is a complete sentence and a complete explanation. The day’s work is over, and what follows is not called leisure or free time. It is called a celebration.
Sache is the matter, the thing itself. Sachlich means pertaining to the matter and nothing else.
English has no clean equivalent. Objectivity suggests neutrality of the observer. Matter-of-fact is a description of manner. Sachlich is neither — it names a discipline: keeping to the substance and out of everything around it.
A German asking you to be sachlich is not asking you to be calm. They are asking you to talk about the problem.
The German word for a contract comes from vertragen — to bear, to tolerate, to get along with one another. Sich vertragen is what quarrelling children are told to do. The contract is named after the state of getting along, not after the bargain that produced it.
To think with. Said of a colleague who anticipates what is needed, and said of a product that does the same. Das Gerät denkt mit. The same verb praises a person and a machine, and it is the highest praise either receives.
In German usage the word carries no suggestion of weakness or of principles surrendered. Ein tragfähiger Kompromiss — a load-bearing compromise — is the standard phrase, and the metaphor is structural. The compromise is a thing that has to hold weight.