German Words

Started by Eltu Lefngap Makto, December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

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Eltu Lefngap Makto

Useful German:


  • Feierabend: a festive frame of mind at the end of a working day
  • Drachenfutter: ("dragon fodder") a peace offering to a wife from a guilty husband
  • Erminenfloh: ("ermine flea") a sycophant to the powerful
  • Fachmensch: a narrow specialist
  • Fingerspitzengefühl: ("fingertipfeel") intuitive sensibility, confident sureness of touch
  • fisselig: nagged and flustered to the point of incompetence
  • pomadig: "like hair oil," resourceful, confident, able to slip through difficulties
  • Schlimmbesserung: an intended improvement that has made things worse
  • Stammplatz: a favorite, usual spot, as a table at a café
  • Torschlusspanik: ("gate closing panic") fear that time is running out to act
  • Wundersucht: a passion for miracles
  • Zivilcourage: courage to express unpopular opinions
  • Zwischenraum: the space between things
The contraceptive pill is the Antibabypille. "I can understand German as well as the maniac that invented it," wrote Mark Twain, "but I talk it best through an interpreter."

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2011/12/11/the-right-word/

also see
http://matadornetwork.com/abroad/20-awesomely-untranslatable-words-from-around-the-world/
and
http://www.cracked.com/article_17251_the-10-coolest-foreign-words-english-language-needs.html
'Ivong, Na'vi!

Plumps

Sometimes I wonder where people get these words ;D
Of course we can produce very long compound words in German but that doesn't mean that it makes sense all the time ;)
With these, it's very useful to check our Duden (the German Thesaurus or Webster's)
If a very literal word has changed its meaning, it will appear there.


Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • Drachenfutter: ("dragon fodder") a peace offering to a wife from a guilty husband
I've never heard that before... to me this is literally food for a dragon... with this terminology I'd say that a few husbands would call their mothers-in-law 'dragon' :P

Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • Erminenfloh: ("ermine flea") a sycophant to the powerful
Doesn't exist. ,,Hermelinfloh" but even that is very literal. I think the closest according to that definition is ,,Arschkriecher" ('xcuse my French :( ) or ,,Schleimer" (one translation of sycophant) and there are a lot of circumlocutions for that...

Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • Fingerspitzengefühl: ("fingertipfeel") intuitive sensibility, confident sureness of touch
This can even mean that one has to be very careful to do something. If you want to defuse a bomb for example, you need Fingerspitzengefühl to not tip it off ;)

Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • pomadig: "like hair oil," resourceful, confident, able to slip through difficulties
This is a very old word and no longer in use in this sense ;) To me this sounds more like the language that Thomas Mann would have used. In casual use it can mean letxiluke ;)

Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • Schlimmbesserung: an intended improvement that has made things worse
I only know Verschlimmbesserung... I don't use it because to me that's a nonsense word but it is in use ;)

Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • Torschlusspanik: ("gate closing panic") fear that time is running out to act
I love this one! :)
This lì'fyavi goes back to the Middle Ages, where the gates of a city were closed at dusk because of security reasons. Inhabitants that were not back at this hour where the gates closed (Torschluss) had to spend the night outside the city walls where they were subject to robbers, wild animals etc.


Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • Wundersucht: a passion for miracles
Never heard that before.

Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • Zivilcourage: courage to express unpopular opinions
Not only that but also if you get to somebody's help against the odds... When somebody is attacked in public and somebody else comes to the rescue although the others are in the majority, s/he shows Zivilcourage

Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 11, 2011, 08:37:51 AM

  • Zwischenraum: the space between things
Totally normal word. In a fence there are Zwischenräume (spaces), you can also have Zahnzwischenräume (the spaces between your teeth – not the gum, mind you ;) but another word for tooth gap)

Hope that helps to shed some light on these :)

Eltu Lefngap Makto

Srane, nga srung soli.  I was just trying to get out my English bubble and imagine other words.  :)
'Ivong, Na'vi!

Plumps

Kea tìkin :)

Right, I also love to do that... Sometimes it's really mind blowing to see how different languages have words for concepts one needs to describe otherwise in one's own language.

Ricardo

I never heard Wundersucht, Drachenfutter and Erminenfloh.
Is there really no English version of Zwischenraum?
I thought that English is the perfect language for words like this and to name things especially exact.

Ftxavanga Txe′lan

German is such a fantastic and fascinating language.. <3 Everything has its logic, and it all makes perfect sense, but at the same time there are always weird exceptions and strange things happening in the grammar. ;D Anyways, thanks for those words! :) 

Toruk'makto

Kaltxì
If anyone is coming to the meeting in Seattle 2012 you can see ca5 german people :)
So we can talk in different languages.  ;D
But for my part. I'm really glad that German is my native Language and English is the Language I learned at school, because the german Grammar must be terrible for People who learn it.  :)
The English Grammar is easier than the German one.
But I don't know really many about the dialect in other languages. That must be really interesting :)
I must talk about is in Seattle :)

Die Himmelsmenschen haben uns eine Botschaft gesandt, dass sie sich alles nehmen können was sie wollen und dass niemand sie aufhalten kann. Aber wir schicken ihnen auch eine Botschaft; fliegt so schnell wie euch der Wind nur tragen kann; ruft die anderen Clans herbei. Sagt ihnen Toruk'makto ruft sie zu sich. Ihr fliegt jetzt mit mir. Meine Brüder, Schwestern und dann zeigen wir den Himmelsmenschen, dass sie sich nicht alles nehmen können was sie wollen und dass dies unser Land ist.

Ningey

Quote from: Ftxavanga Txe′lan on December 11, 2011, 08:12:42 PM
German is such a fantastic and fascinating language.. <3 Everything has its logic, and it all makes perfect sense, but at the same time there are always weird exceptions and strange things happening in the grammar. ;D Anyways, thanks for those words! :) 

Well, now that you mention it, that usually is the way how the cow over the moon jumped (especially in sub-clauses in German)! ;D


"Sawtute ke tsun nivume - fo ke kerame!"
-- Neytiri te Tskaha Mo'at'ite

"There are two things that are infinite: Human stupidity and the universe. However, I'm not yet sure about the universe."
-- Albert Einstein

"He who gives up freedom for security deserves neither and loses both."
-- Benjamin Franklin

Carborundum

Quote from: Toruk'makto on December 12, 2011, 02:21:04 PM
But for my part. I'm really glad that German is my native Language and English is the Language I learned at school, because the german Grammar must be terrible for People who learn it.  :)
The English Grammar is easier than the German one.
I don't mind the grammar, except for the damned genders! If not for der, die and das, German would be a walk in the park (well, not quite, but that's what it feels like :P).
At least German is easier to spell than English.
We learn from our mistakes only if we are made aware of them.
If I make a mistake, please bring it to my attention for karma.

Eltu Lefngap Makto

I think we all have a long shopping list of things we'd love to avoid in languages

  • Case
  • Number
  • Gender
  • Aspect
  • Tense
  • Mood
  • Voice
etc., etc.
German is nice compared Estonian or Navaho.  Among Conlangs, Tolkien's languages are general meant to be "natural" and so are highly irregular.  Speaking two European and one Asian language is a great way to see the depth of possibilities of grammar.

But learning a million languages will still not show you what some group of people somewhere consider worthy of its own word.  The Scottish have a word that means "the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip before taking a sip of whiskey"!  Or there are the famous 27 words for snow.
'Ivong, Na'vi!

Carborundum

Quote from: Eltu Lefngap Makto on December 13, 2011, 06:32:00 AM
But learning a million languages will still not show you what some group of people somewhere consider worthy of its own word.  The Scottish have a word that means "the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip before taking a sip of whiskey"!  Or there are the famous 27 words for snow.
The interesting question isn't really which concepts have their own words, but rather which have their own roots. Swedish, for example, has a single word for "northern Baltic Sea coast artillery reconnaissance flight simulator facility equipment maintenance follow-up system discussion post preparation work" (Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten). Agglutinative languages, such as Swedish, Hungarian and Turkish, can form compound nouns of infinite length.

The "27" words for snow are not all roots, but rather declensions of just a few roots.
We learn from our mistakes only if we are made aware of them.
If I make a mistake, please bring it to my attention for karma.

Ricardo

Quote from: Carborundum on December 13, 2011, 06:46:22 AM
Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten)

Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft

A very long German expression.

Toruk'makto

Kaltxì
Yes "Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft" is in the Guinnes-World-Record Book as the longest German Word.
Die Himmelsmenschen haben uns eine Botschaft gesandt, dass sie sich alles nehmen können was sie wollen und dass niemand sie aufhalten kann. Aber wir schicken ihnen auch eine Botschaft; fliegt so schnell wie euch der Wind nur tragen kann; ruft die anderen Clans herbei. Sagt ihnen Toruk'makto ruft sie zu sich. Ihr fliegt jetzt mit mir. Meine Brüder, Schwestern und dann zeigen wir den Himmelsmenschen, dass sie sich nicht alles nehmen können was sie wollen und dass dies unser Land ist.

Eltu Lefngap Makto

tam tam, ma agglutinative-a Na'viya!  I was curious about the things like
Dépaysement
which takes a paragraph to explain in English.  Just because you don't put spaces between your words doesn't make them unique ideas.
'Ivong, Na'vi!

Ricardo

#14
Of course not.
But with the spaces there would be no sense in the sentence.

Ftxavanga Txe′lan

Quote from: Carborundum on December 13, 2011, 06:17:17 AM
Quote from: Toruk'makto on December 12, 2011, 02:21:04 PM
But for my part. I'm really glad that German is my native Language and English is the Language I learned at school, because the german Grammar must be terrible for People who learn it.  :)
The English Grammar is easier than the German one.
I don't mind the grammar, except for the damned genders! If not for der, die and das, German would be a walk in the park (well, not quite, but that's what it feels like :P).
At least German is easier to spell than English.

I agree, the articles are nasty but the rest of the grammar is manageable. :P I also think the pronunciation is rather easy - but only if one is able to do the ich-Laut and the ach-Laut. Some people are unable to do them properly, even with much practice, and in such case I imagine it must be a pain to speak German.

Quote from: Ricardo on December 13, 2011, 02:19:09 PM
Quote from: Carborundum on December 13, 2011, 06:46:22 AM
Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten)

Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft

A very long German expression.

Awesome! ;D I love those. :)

Ricardo

Quote from: Ftxavanga Txe′lan on December 18, 2011, 08:45:39 AM
I also think the pronunciation is rather easy - but only if one is able to do the ich-Laut and the ach-Laut.

Remembers me at our guide in London.
He tried to say sechsundsechzig (sixty-six). There you have to speak the first "ch" like "ks" or "x", the second like in "ich": Sexundseshzish easily written.
He used both times the ach-laut which let him sound like a bad Hitler imitator.

Plumps

Hm, it just occured to me that if you are searching for fun words that German has but English (or Na'vi) doesn't then maybe Ohrwurm is the word to start with :P

In English this is best translated as 'a tune, melody' (that you can't get out of your head) ... literally this is 'ear worm' in German ;D

Eltu Lefngap Makto

'Ivong, Na'vi!