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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

#101

Post by goto11 »

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.

But do you have data for any of those points? People combine terms in both languages all the time. It just looks different because English more often use compounds with space between the terms, e.g. "light bulb" rather than "lightbulb".

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#102

Post by deng »

LeonW wrote: post #99

Another word someone brought up is "Geborgenheit", which translates to comfort or security. Briefly researching the origin it, it seems to come from the terminology around "Burg" (castle), and the feeling of safety and comfort we feel when we're inside one. In my understanding it also has a considerable amount of warmth next to the sense of safety and comfort. Overall, definitely one of my favorite words that I think…

It comes from "bergen", meaning "in Sicherheit bringen" (to shelter), as in "ein Schiff bergen", "wir verbargen uns im Schrank". From this stem nouns like "Herberge" and also "Geborgenheit". However, it seems the word "Burg" simply comes from "Berg" (mountain).

Of course I don't know this by heart, I recommend looking this up in

  https://www.dwds.de
Careful, you can easily spend hours there...

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#103

Post by kieckerjan »

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.)

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#104

Post by tyingq »

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.

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#105

Post by goto11 »

missosoup wrote: post #86
georgeplusplus wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#106

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#107

Post by drfuchs »

limmeau wrote: post #44

While 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".

As an American, I observe that the Brits use “isn’t it” to express something similar to “fei”. Example: “That’s the entrance, isn’t it?” seems to mean “You thought that that is the exit, did you? You’re an idiot.” The closest we Yanks have is the sarcastic “That’s an exit? Yeah, right.”

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#108

Post by selimthegrim »

limmeau wrote: post #44

While 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".

English uses the Latin pace for the first case

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#109

Post by kenmendin »

limmeau wrote: post #48
kenmendin wrote: post #35

Although 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?

I don't have a list of such expression handy. But there is one specific feature of Turkish language which I find interesting and really smart.

Check these words:

At, aş, it, us, su, ev, er, te, ot, et, ar, ön, an, in, un, en,

Literally translated: horse, food, dog, intelligence, water, house, man/soldier, far, grass, meat, honor, front, moment (time), shelter/cave, flour, most/width,

Many important aspects of daily was are words as short as possible and have survived thousand years of change and part of modern Turkish language. There are also a large number of 3 letter words for further important things such as ana (mother), soy (ancestry), boy (length/race), toy (young/unexperienced), and (promise).

Re: German expressions that don’t exist in English

#110

Post by filoeleven »

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 reminds me of liget, the feeling of wanting to behead someone. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/06/01/5298768...

In like with what the sibling commenter wrote, some languages appear to be more expressive than others. The English translator of the book The Last Temptation of Christ wrote about how difficult translating it from its original Greek was, due to the Greek language’s inherent multiple layers of meaning. He gave at least one example, which IIRC took him a few paragraphs to describe all the meaning wrapped up in one sentence, and said that most sentences in the book contained the same richness.

So, perhaps “cannot be translated correctly” is better understood to mean that you may have to read pages of footnotes to understand the full meaning of a small phrase. Some cultural constructs that its language relies on are even more deeply rooted, and nothing but a period of immersion in the culture itself will help you to understand it. “Cannot be translated correctly” seems like an adequate shorthand.

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