Let me confirm this, indeed, we have some of those in our language. There are plenty of words which are phonetically same, but depending of the context, they can be nouns or e.g. adjectives. This is why it is so important to focus on case sensitivity when writing German.
The example of @ownerofdark only works phonetically. In writing "helping old birds" is "alten Vöglen helfen", whilst "helping elderlies fuck" is written "Alten vögeln helfen"
I was talking about case sensitivity. So it depends on where you put the upper case. Something barely applicable to English. What you've mentioned is widely spread in all languages and is constantly changing. Such as "solid dick" used to be an expression for "straight talk".
Another (better) example in this case:
Der gefangene Floh. (the captured flea)
Der Gefangene floh. (the prisoner fled)
Unfortunate synonym. "Wachsen" is to grow - actually, I think that's why we say the moon "waxes." "Wachsen," unfortunately, means "to wax," too. There's no spoken difference. One is "Let your hair grow" and one is "to let your hair (be) waxed."
Point. Synonyms are actually also rarer in German than in English, but less rare than homonyms. I think it might be because German has a lower proportion of foreign loan words and did not, at any point in its history, decide to adopt both the Greek and Latin roots for half of its concepts.
Can confirm?
The example of @ownerofdark only works phonetically. In writing "helping old birds" is "alten Vöglen helfen", whilst "helping elderlies fuck" is written "Alten vögeln helfen"
Another (better) example in this case:
Der gefangene Floh. (the captured flea)
Der Gefangene floh. (the prisoner fled)