German expressions that don’t exist in English • Hacker News Board

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#121

Post by akavi » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #104

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…

The article didn't mention Schadenfreude. There's "epicaricacy" in English, but I've never heard anyone use that word. Any other attempt to explain it is several English words.

Schadenfreude’s been an English word for a long time now.

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#122

Post by ulfw » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

goto11 wrote: post #105

missosoup wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some languages are inherently less expressive than others. English is not very expressive and therefore a large number of words phrases and idioms don't have an analogue that makes sense in english. Trying to reduce them to something that makes sense is like trying to explain a joke. It defeats the purpose. Anyone who speaks >1 languages is aware of this.

> Some languages are inherently less expressive than others. English is not very expressive... I call bullshit. Do you have any justification for this claim?

Do you have any justification for calling bullshit on him?

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#123

Post by donjoe » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

My favourite German expression which doesn't exist in English is still "Ohrwurm". It refers to a catchy song/tune stuck in someone's mind [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#124

Post by allendoerfer » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

deanjones wrote: post #71

allendoerfer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the non-native speakers: "Verscheidenzusammengesetztesgebotesprachen" looks long and German, but is not a German word. Maybe its parts were auto-corrected.

As that great Germanic comedian Mr Arnold Schwarzenegger might have said: "And here are the jokes ..." :-)

And I am sitting here, thinking you actually wanted to say, "verschiedene Substantivzusammensetzungsrechtschreibverordnungen" lead to "verschieden zusammengesetzte Substantive", while you were just making jokes. Silly me :-)

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#125

Post by watt » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

smitty1e wrote: post #25

Here's a massively useful term, particularly in the case of watching the news: Fremdschämen See: https://www.leo.org for good discussion.

I think basically it means "cringe".

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#126

Post by ulfw » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

kieckerjan wrote: post #103

On a lighter note, one of my favorite German words is "Warmduscher", literally "someone who takes hot showers", aka a wimp or a candy-ass. Be aware that by using it you imply that you yourself only take cold showers and you may get called out on that. (Of course I take cold showers so I feel no compunction about using this word.)

I hate that word. Signs of a machismo culture to imply only "real men" take "cold showers"

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#127

Post by sagichmal » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

donjoe wrote: post #123

My favourite German expression which doesn't exist in English is still "Ohrwurm". It refers to a catchy song/tune stuck in someone's mind [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm

You linked to the literal English translation of it, which definitely exists?

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#128

Post by missosoup » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

goto11 wrote: post #105

missosoup wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some languages are inherently less expressive than others. English is not very expressive and therefore a large number of words phrases and idioms don't have an analogue that makes sense in english. Trying to reduce them to something that makes sense is like trying to explain a joke. It defeats the purpose. Anyone who speaks >1 languages is aware of this.

> Some languages are inherently less expressive than others. English is not very expressive... I call bullshit. Do you have any justification for this claim?

Yeah I speak 3 languages and all 3 have mutually exclusive constructs that can't be translated while carrying over the 'true meaning'. English is by far the least expressive of the 3.

A common example is slavic мат. A repertoire of profanities that simply have no English translation, no equivalent, not even a meaningful loose translation/explanation. The best you can do is find the nearest approximate meaningful English construct, but it's a bit like projecting 3d space onto a 2d plane. You fundamentally lose information.

I'm not sure what you're calling bullshit on. The fact that not all languages 1:1 map to each other especially when some classes of languages have fundamentally different constructs like gendered variants of every word, or the fact that some languages are more or less expressive, or the fact that English falls to the side of the less expressive scale. All 3 of these statements are trivial to verify with a couple google searches without even being a multilingual speaker.

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#129

Post by Redoubts » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #85

goto11 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will dispute that it is "easier to combine terms and create new meanings" in German than in English. You can combine words to create new words in either language.

The fact that "you can" doesn't mean that (1) people often do, (2) the language encourages it, (3) the terms are accepted as valid (e.g. when seen in an article or spoken), (4) there are as many compound words in English as in German, (5) it's as historically customary to create compound words and several other things besides. So I don't think one can dispute that it's easier in German.

I’d replace compound words with gerunding in English.

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#130

Post by mamcx » Mon, Dec 30, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

georgeplusplus wrote: post #80

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…

I dislike when people say “this cannot be translated correctly into your language” as it logically doesn’t make sense. perhaps they mean word for word? I’m sure any language can conjure up a similar feeling and combination of words. Maybe not a literal translation, but by virtue of being a human construct, any language can be crafted and molded into anything.

> This cannot be translated correctly into your language

You must also take in account culture and other adjacent factors. I born in Colombia, and you don't imagine how HARD is to try to translate tech terms to Spanish.

Even where a "oficial" translation exist, use it could convey so much wrong ideas that I must use the spanglish version of it most of time (except if the translation is of COMMON use).

And the oposite. Is very funny when a foreigner come here and discover that not only need to know spanish, but also the "Colombian" variety and the "my city" variety too.

One funny? My brother (know english and work as mandarin translator) list to a foreign friend how many ways we say "hello!". Are DOZENS of it in use here! Several of them are INSULTS! You say an insult to other and we know when is a HELLO!

Nuts!