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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

#151
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.

Sure, you can translate what it approximately means, but it's nearly impossible to carry the same connotation, rhythm and meaning in a reasonable amount of text.

For example the saying in Estonian: "Keelan, käsen, poon ja lasen!" It's often used in the context of someone having too much power, but the tone of the saying is not formal compared to when people start to talk about the separation of the three powers. I suspect the joking/informal tone comes from the fact that the saying rhymes and has a nice rhythm. Direct translation of it, "I forbid, order, hang and shoot!" just doesn't pack the same punch or carry the same meaning because it's not just words that have to be translated. I think that's what people mean by saying "this cannot be translated correctly into your language".

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#152
post #122
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The fact that information density across languages was measured and there was no significant difference[0]. How can a language be more expressive yet contain just as much information.

[0]: https://www.science20.com/content/information_density_all_la...

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because we fairly recently stole it!

Not that recently, it's been used italiced and capitalised for a century, only recently it's been properly absorbed by losing those decorations. In contrast, the French absorb foreign words almost instantly, see the verb "liker" (to like on Facebook) for example.

Interesting, when I was a boy, my mother (who was a German Teacher), always used it as an example of one of these great German words without a direct translation. Back then it didn’t seem to be used in popular culture, now I seem to hear it on a weekly basis!

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#154
post #94
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are correct. The direct translation is "urskulda" which is a Swedish word meaning "justify" or "excuse".

In Norwegian unskyld means i'm sorry which corresponds to german. Many of these words just change a bit over time like geld/gjeld which is money in German and debt in Norwegian.

That sounds like "Unschuld" = innocence in German.

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#155
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'.

Entwickler = developer; Entwicklung = development

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#156
post #134
post #62

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 p…

> Of course German is not unique in having "doch", most other roman languages ... Slightly off topic but from a historical linguistics perspective, German is not a Romance language.

True but I read it as an error in writing not in understanding. It should read something like “it is true in other languages including romance languages.” Or something similar but a bit more elegant

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that recently, it's been used italiced and capitalised for a century, only recently it's been properly absorbed by losing those decorations. In contrast, the French absorb foreign words almost instantly, see the verb "liker" (to like on Facebook) for example.

Interesting, when I was a boy, my mother (who was a German Teacher), always used it as an example of one of these great German words without a direct translation. Back then it didn’t seem to be used in popular culture, now I seem to hear it on a weekly basis!

I definitely saw it in the English music paper, the New Musical Express, in the late `70s (very Punk at the time), I remember having to look it up ...

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#160
In Dutch we use more or less the same words, but for me the top word is "wetenschap" (which is probably similar in German). Literally translated it's "knowledgeship", which would be a better word for science.

You can believe things, and you can know things. Science is knowing things, and what better word to describe that than "knowledgeship"?

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