They overlooked "hausfrauenpanzer":
German expressions that don’t exist in English
41–50 of 184 posts
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#42I'm not even German, but I know this... Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell Awesome YouTube channel, BTW. ;)
> Kurzgesagt That's not actually a German word. It's two words: "kurz gesagt" which is literally "briefly said".
Correct. It's an expression that a considerable amount of Germans would write as a single word. Zusammen oder getrennt, composed or separate is one of the most tricky questions in German orthography.
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#43Let’s not forget schadenfreude!
You mean epicaricacy?
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#44While we're proposing useful words, may I humbly suggest two useful adverbs:
"fei" (Bavarian): in contrast to what I think you're assuming. "Des is fei da letzte" -- "This is the last one, and I think you thought there would be more".
"als" (Allemannic/Suabian): something like "in the default case, which is also frequent".
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't speak German but I use weltschmerz and reisefieber
Kindergarten is also a word, that has found its way into anglo-saxon languages.
I always forget how kindergarten is in english, then remember “kindergarten” and my brain says “nope, that’s deutsch”. Similarly for weil (while), frustrating sometimes.
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#46Doesn’t every language have such a thing? What makes German more exceptional than English? Or Chinese more exceptional than English? I’m certain there are expressions that don’t exist in every language, and even if you translated them, they might not translate well due to cultural or linguistic issues (try translating Monty Python to Chinese while keeping British wit and hoping your average Chinese viewer understands the context of the humor).
This might sound overgeneralized but I think every language has its own qualities. Most languages have evolved out of cultural needs (consider words like “Internet,” “email,” and “texting”).
For example, Chinese has a word distinguishing language (e.g 英文, literally English culture) and the language itself (英語, literally English language). Most people in normal parlance would say 英文 over 英語 for English, because the culture is inseparable from the language. That’s why Chinese speakers use -文 for languages over -語, such as 中文、英文、日文、西班牙文.
For the example of Entschuldigen or “apologize,” Chinese uses several expressions such as 對不起、抱歉. In the case of 對不起 it literally means the speaker cannot face the recipient, as in loss of face. Or another expression is 「不好意思」; this literally means “poor meaning or intentions.” Its English equivalent is approximately “excuse me.”
I’m not trying to put down the value of the article. It’s highly intriguing. I just find the exceptionalism a little off-putting when languages like Japanese have similar constructs.
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#47No, these expressions exist in English, they just have a slightly different meaning. And in the case of “Entwicklung”, the English pendant “Development” even has the exact same origin: to unwrap or unfold (the opposite of envelope). There certainly are German expressions that do not exist in English, but this list does not do a good job at collecting them. My personal impression is that German makes it easier to expr…
Right, English often does the same thing but disguises it with Latin. This first struck me with "unmittelbar", which is exactly the same as "immediate" except it feels more literal because all the components are German.
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#48Although German language is full of great words, the expressions from the post exist in other languages, even in my native tongue Turkish, which belongs to a completely different language family. However in Germany these expressions are regularly used on TV,press and literature. They have become and are powerful building blocks of a German speakers thoughts, giving them an advantage to think better.
So while we're in the market for "words your language doesn't have" -- any recommendations for Turkish words you haven't seen in other languages?
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#49I've been struggling to find an equivalent for 'overengineered' in German - there's verschlimmbessern, a portmanteu verb of 'verbessern' (improve) and 'schlimm' (bad), it's what you use when you want to improve something but the end-product is worse. However, German tech (to me!) has a overengineering problem, not a verschlimmbessern problem, there's nothing being improved. Just look at modern German cars, impossible…
We don't have a word for it because we don't see it as overengineering, we see it simply as engineering ;) On a more serious note, there is this idea that at their core systems are about accepting inefficiency in order to gain consistency and simplicity. From this perspective us Germans accept inefficiency for consistencies sake but not for simplicity.
As can be seen in the design of German ww2 Panzers Compared to say a Sherman.
Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English
#50"Wehmut" literally: 'The courage in feeling pain'. This is powerful. I feel like this courageous curiosity has been the primary virtue or trait that I've been exploring and aiming to cultivate more than any other during the past couple of years. As a non-German speaker I'd be interested how this relates to melancholy (these to me feel like quite different emotional states).
You say that somebody is wehmütig when he is purposefully trying to be sad and down on him or herself or everybody, so Wehmut is somewhat derogatory. If you tell somebody that they are wehmütig, it means that they are actively being dumb, basically. Melancholy is more like a wistful sadness also considered negative but connected to some tragic event or maybe when thinking about better times in the past a bit too much.