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German expressions that don’t exist in English

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Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#61

Post by coldtea »

deanjones wrote: post #51

Alternative title: "One language that has different close compounding rules than another language has different compound nouns than that other language". Auf Deutsch: Verscheidenzusammengesetztesgebotesprachen haben verscheide zusammengesetztes Substantive.

>Alternative title: "One language that has different close compounding rules than another language has different compound nouns than that other language".

And different cultural and historical sensibilities expressed in those compound nouns - which is the main point of the article one would assume, not the mechanics...

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#62

Post by deng »

These are good examples of what linguists call a "Volksetymologie", meaning a usually wrong derivation of words which are no longer correctly understood or have changed meaning. A popular example is when a German newspaper did one of those stupid surveys for the "most beautiful German word", and the winner was "Habseligkeiten". The cited reason was because it combines "Haben" (to have) with "Selig" ("blessed"), the profane with the heavenly, but the real etymology is actually different.

As is already mentioned here, the "-mut" in Wehmut does not mean "courage" but is actually identical to the English "mood". I would also highly doubt his interpretation of "Einsam". The suffix "-sam" usually means simply to having something. "Liebenswürdig" is difficult, because "Liebe" means many things (from simply "friendly" to modern romantic "love"), and "-würdig" is more in terms of being adequate or appropriate. When you say "Er ist sehr liebenswürdig", this does not mean that HE is worthy of love, but simply that he is a friendly person, meaning he knows how to treat people properly. As was also already mentioned here, "Entwicklung" and "development" are literally the same, and the same goes for "Ursprung" and "origin".

There is also the simple fact that German allows for building compositions, so what would be considered an expression in English can be one word in German (like "Sinneswandel" for "change of mind"). But this does not mean that it "does not exist".

As a German, the word I'm really missing when speaking English is the simple word "doch", which more or less means "No, but yeah". If you've ever watched German kids in a "Nein! Doch!" match, you know how powerful that simple word is. I think there was actually an article here some time ago that English used to have this with "Yay" and "Nay" in addition to "Yes" and "No", but that this got lost. Of course German is not unique in having "doch", most other roman languages have it as well (the French have "Si", which in Italy is the normal "Yes").

EDIT: Found the article:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-part-of-no-...

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#63

Post by lispm »

skytreader wrote: post #57

Me: Moved to Hamburg this year, has 320 days on Duolingo and finished an actual beginner's German course so far. I can only partially agree to the statements made in this thread about the quality of this list but I've been fascinated with German words that have no English counterparts, at least not completely. My favorite one so far is "Waldeinsamkeit"--literally "forest soltitude" but the translation does not captur…

Hamburg has a Lichtkonzept: https://www.hamburg.de/contentblob/3486350/1bb71bada5b286281...

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#64

Post by distances »

camillomiller wrote: post #34

As an Italian living in Germany, and as a lover of the German language, I think this is not a good list. It reads like it was put together to fit the author's approach to coaching. Entwicklung, indeed, is the best example of this. It is exactly the same in English. What's really fun about German: as a non native you can get to a point where you create involuntary neologisms by putting together words you already know.…

Interesting that you find beautiful days to be a rare occurrence in Berlin. Perhaps because you're coming from Italy? I have the opposite attitude -- summer days are easier to spend inside in Berlin, as the weather is generally very good and there's always another beautiful day coming!

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#65

Post by habet »

"Entschuldigen" is a pretty fascinating verb, but not for the author's reasons. It literally means to remove guilt from someone (not specifically from oneself as the author states) and is kind of equivalent to "forgive". Commonly it is misused in German: people say "ich entschuldige mich", literally meaning they're removing their own guilt from theirselves and thus forgiving theirselves, which is kind of impossible and not what's actually meant. The right phrase would be "um Entschuldigung bitten" (to ask to be excused) which actually is rarely used.

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#66

Post by jablan »

skytreader wrote: post #57

Me: Moved to Hamburg this year, has 320 days on Duolingo and finished an actual beginner's German course so far. I can only partially agree to the statements made in this thread about the quality of this list but I've been fascinated with German words that have no English counterparts, at least not completely. My favorite one so far is "Waldeinsamkeit"--literally "forest soltitude" but the translation does not captur…

Fellow Hamburg immigrant here. I admire your optimism and the will to perceive an intention behind the darkness (which was also one of my first impressions of Hamburg). Unfortunately, I don't see it that way, but more as general unfriendliness of the city towards a random individual. Other things in the same vain that I noticed (coming from the Balkans, if important) are: very few overhangs that the buildings offer as means of shade from the rain - often there is no place for a pedestrian to shelter from the rain, which is absurd with amount of wet days Hamburg has. Another thing that irks me is the lack of public water taps. Such a basic and affordable civilization achievement - and yet not a single one in a 2M city.

Of course, I adore and enjoy the city, these are just few things that I can't really understand.

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#67

Post by skytreader »

lispm wrote: post #63
skytreader wrote: post #57

Me: Moved to Hamburg this year, has 320 days on Duolingo and finished an actual beginner's German course so far. I can only partially agree to the statements made in this thread about the quality of this list but I've been fascinated with German words that have no English counterparts, at least not completely. My favorite one so far is "Waldeinsamkeit"--literally "forest soltitude" but the translation does not captur…

Hamburg has a Lichtkonzept: https://www.hamburg.de/contentblob/3486350/1bb71bada5b286281...

My German is not at this level yet but this is fascinating to learn. Thanks for linking this!

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#68

Post by snypox »

jablan wrote: post #66
skytreader wrote: post #57

Me: Moved to Hamburg this year, has 320 days on Duolingo and finished an actual beginner's German course so far. I can only partially agree to the statements made in this thread about the quality of this list but I've been fascinated with German words that have no English counterparts, at least not completely. My favorite one so far is "Waldeinsamkeit"--literally "forest soltitude" but the translation does not captur…

Fellow Hamburg immigrant here. I admire your optimism and the will to perceive an intention behind the darkness (which was also one of my first impressions of Hamburg). Unfortunately, I don't see it that way, but more as general unfriendliness of the city towards a random individual. Other things in the same vain that I noticed (coming from the Balkans, if important) are: very few overhangs that the buildings offer a…

Interesting. I didn’t even know public water tap is a common thing in other countries.

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#69

Post by joezydeco »

Hermel wrote: post #31

No, 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…

Funny thing, I see a lot of software development job listings in German that use 'Entwicklung' as a synonym for 'Developer'.
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