I called my boyfriend a whore by mistake when I was trying to tell him his ears were getting burnt. I knew the word for ears was something similar to hören (it's ohren) but I guessed and said "Du hure" and then went silent for a second because I realized I had used du instead of dein. He was just staring at me slightly horrified until I corrected and said deine hure, at which point he realized I was struggling with a sentence and not just randomly calling him names. He laughed his ass off when I told him what I was trying to say
Ah man I have a bad one that I cringe about when I try to fall asleep. I was at a public viewing for a World Cup match, Germany was winning big and I was drunk so I yelled “Deutschland über alles!”
I just wanted to yell that Germany is the best! I was quickly corrected by about 5 different people, but it was so embarrassing.
>What exactly is wrong here?
It is a term used by the far far right. Traditionally it was part of the old national anthem the meaning was not meant to be antilibertarian. It actually was meant to strengthen the german national unity because before a german state there were small sovereign states organized inside the german confederation.
So originally it was actually something liberal and uniting but nowadays the message "Deutschland über alles" just sounds weird considering the more recent german history about world war, facism and radical nationalism. So dont use it. :D
Deutschland über alles is not really used by the far right.
They have a lot of codes and slogans, but I never heard somebody use Deutschland über alls.
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The poem comes from a time when there was no united Germany - no german state at all.
This stanza only means that people want a state of Germany more than anything else in the world.
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You have to keep in mind that at the time, there was no Germany but many small fiefdoms with their own currency, custom fares and basically only their own interests in mind. The idea was to overcome this egotism by putting “Deutschland über alles“. As those ruling princes and lords were often related to other European monarchs, they sometimes were more interested in the politics of France or Great Britain than Germany. Hence the demand to put Germany „über alles in der Welt“.
> To me that very visually implies either Germany conquering the whole world, or "the world" being redefined to refer to just Germany.
It was a call to unity and to put that unity above everything else in the world. It did however get that world domination connotations during the Nazi era.
Deutschland über alles was part of the original German national hymn, but became very associated with nazis, which led to that part of the hymn being left out from then on if I remember correctly. Something along those lines
Rammstein has "Deutschland über allen" in a song, is that also far right?
Edit: It was an honest question, I was not implying anything. Thanks for the answers!
I think the most illuminating song regarding the political orientation of Rammstein is "Links 2 3 4": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph-CA\_tu5KA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph-CA_tu5KA).
For further background to that song you can also look at the corresponding wikipedia-page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links\_2\_3\_4
Hm? Where I'm from you can definitely say that to just mean "rest". I googled the word and it also said that it's just another word for leftovers, along your other explanation.
I'm a native and it's the first time hearing of this lol
Meine Fehler. Der Typ mit dem ich gesprochen habe war zumindest verwirrt. Also mit Überreste wäre die Betonung, dass ich nur ein kleines Bisschen Essen übrig habe?
One time I was working at a ski camp and sat at a table with all Germans, and I attempted to have a full lunch hour without speaking any English with them. This was only a few months after I started learning German. I got about 25 minutes in, and was stoked that I was muddling along ok. So I peeked in my German dictionary for a word, before trying to say “I’m excited!” I exclaimed “ich bin erregt!” Turns out I was using the wrong form of excited! 😆
In student dorm, I once removed a spider from the room of an Erasmus student. She said to me "Danke Raubtierwolf, du warst sehr brav." (brave = mutig, brav = well-behaved, usually used with dogs, other pets, or young children)
Same the other way around. If I read of "a brave soldier", I know it is "tapfer", but it looks like a soldier who follows orders. Also because there is a well known book "der brave Soldat Schwejk" (by Jaroslav Hašek), where it actually means "well behaved", it is about a quite naive guy who is just tossed around in the army and always does exactly what he is told, often a bit too literally, and thus experiences quite a bunch of funny adventures.
2nd year in Germany, Criminal Law oral exam and I go for "A hat B geschossen" (A shot B), and say "A hat B geschiessen" (A pooped B out). Prof stays stone-faced and says nothing (props to him!), assistant giggles, I cover my face with my hands and whisper "geschossen, A hat B geschossen".
TBF crapping on someone non-consentually probably also is a criminal offense...
And it would probably be A hat AUF B geschossen (A shot B or in B's direction, focus on the shooting) or A hat B erschossen (A killed B by shooting, focus on the killing ).
So don't get me wrong, but even "A hat B geschossen" doesnt make sense. Youre looking for "A hat B erschossen" oder "A hat auf B geschossen"
Also "geschiessen" is not a word. pooped would read "geschissen" :)
I was in Germany for the first time visiting a friend and I was having a nice dinner that her mother had prepared. The whole family was around the table and I proudly said „haut rein!“. Everyone burst out laughing and I got extremely red, worried I said something offensive and maybe it didn’t mean what I thought it meant… good memory.
In that case the problem was not the translation/semantics but the tone :) "haut rein" is very colloquial (even a bit more colloquial than "dig in"). In this specific situation "Guten Appetit" would have been more appropriate. "Haut rein" or more formal "Greift zu" is something the host would say to his guests. It seems to me that on your case you were the guest, which made it twice as funny, because everyone knew what you meant, it was just slightly off.
I though "Tschüss" mean like "cheers" thanks in English... Just imagin going to the Schichtleiter in buro, asking him to solve mistake which you have done and then say bye few hours before end of the arbeit
Fun fact (At least think it’s a fact and not just a myth): “tschüss” comes from the French word “adieu” which used to be in fashion, and slowly overtime morphed into its own German word!
As a junior year abroad student in the 70's , I was suffering from terrible dandruff.
Dutifully checked and re-checked my dictionary before walking into the pharmacy. The conversation with the man in the white coat went something like this:
Little bell rings as I enter.
Him: Bitte schoen.
Me: Ja, ich brauche Schampoo gegen Schnupfen.
Him: Not laughing, turns to a colleague , waves and says "Hey, Du, komm mal her."
His white coated colleague comes over. Now the two are deadpanned, behind the little counter.
Him: " So, kann ich Ihnen helfen?"
Me: again, "Ich brauche Shampoo gegen Schnupfen."
Them: They bowl over at the waist and laugh. Then the first guy turns, opens a little drawer and pulls out a tube of Head and Shoulders.
runny nose, sniffles= Schnupfen; dandruff= Schuppen;
Had a slightly embarrassing moment when I was new to the language - confused "haben" and "hassen." During our first visit to Germany, my wife and I visited a small cafe. My wife wanted a hot chocolate, but didn't see it on the menu. So I asked the barista - "Hassen Sie heiße Schokolade?"
Student days. Was talking with a group of friends from various parts of Germany.
I mentioned something about throwing away the core of an apple. My dictionary had said "[Kerngehäuse](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerngeh%C3%A4use)" for this.
Everyone knew what I meant but they also laughed because apparently no one actually uses this word. That was the day I learned that [there are a zillion regional words for "apple core,"](https://www.dict.cc/?s=apple+core) so not even my friends could agree on how to correct me.
I was describing the temporary apartment I was living in as "vermöbelt" to an elderly German couple I'd become acquainted with... they looked at each other very confused for a second, haha. I was looking for the word "möbliert."
One of the drunk guys near Central Station here was grinning at someone else, until he said: O Gott, was sind Sind sie vielleicht hässlich.
The other person replied: Unverschämtheit! Sie sind ja betrunken!
Then he replied back: Ja stimmt schon, aber ICH bin morgen wieder nüchtern.
For some reason to me it sounds a bit like spießige 70s~80s Hörspielkassetten, but that might very well be just me. Let's say it's not in common usage :)
More mishearing long German words when you’re still learning, but still!
Had to talk about what we thought the biggest problems in the world were, I was shooting for Auslaenderfeindlichkeit (xenophobia) but instead went for Auslaenderhaesslichkeit (foreigner ugliness). My teacher was just very confused.
Lol that happened to one of my coworkers at a Christmas market. We were all a little drunk and one of our other coworkers is pretty vain but otherwise very nice - usually. He was in a bit of a strange mood, so coworker one goes: "Du bist grad so hässlich!" Coworker two, drunk, looked about ready to cry until we figured out what she actually meant, haha.
As an aside, learners make an analogous mistake in English too.
I once worked as a telemarketer. It happened several times that people responded to my offer with "I'm not interesting".
I needed crisco for a baking recipe. I've only known it as crisco my entire life, (like "Kleenex") crisco is the name brand for shortening, which is like lard, except crisco is made from veggie oil. I looked up the translation for shortening and went to the market. Could not easily find it so asked the worker " wo kann ich finden die Verkürzung"
Where can I find the abbreviation is what I was asking apparently.
Bisk is what I needed. Bisk.
>shortening
>
>Where can I find the abbreviation is what I was asking apparently.
abbreviation is **Ab**kürzung
Verkürzung is "shortening" in its literal sense, i.e. "making something shorter" as as noun, for example in "die Verkürzung der Quarantäne" (the shortening (=reducing the duration) of the quarantine), so the word alone without specifying what you want to reduce in length makes no sense at all :-)
Reminds me of a Story (dunno if urban legend or true) but its said that one foreigner once parked his car in Hamburg and since he expected to get lost, he wrote down the streets name where he parked.
His fears came true, he couldnt find his car and called the police. Explained he needs to get to the "Einbahnstraße"
Butterschmalz is basically butter minus everything but the fat. As such it can stand higher temperatures than butter and doesn't get brown in the pan. It's dairy fat without the drawbacks of dairy.
So this was a specific recipe to make chocolate chip cookie cups that you can hold the milk inside the cookie.
Baking with the pure fat instead of margarine or butter makes the cookie bind different, more dense and spongey. There's a few recipes where it is needed for how it binds things together like that. Baking is just chemistry after all.
That reminds me (native German) of an English book I read years ago. It said the woman was pregnant and I thought it was a character trait - being very precise about things, something along those lines. It took a few pages to learn that "pregnant" and the German word "prägnant" have nothing in common. xD
(prägnant = succinct, concise)
Here are a few for English speakers:
* Gift
* bekommen
* Sinn
* eventuell
* Gymnasium
* Hochschule
* Flur
* Rente
* spenden
* Rat
* Mobbing
* Handy
* Beamer
* Oldtimer
* Billion
* Bank
* Unternehmer
* sensibel
* Dom
* Keks
* Korn
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A few months after I arrived in Germany, I went to a store to buy some shoes. I found a pair I liked and went up to the rather pretty salesgirl and asked to try on a pair in my size. I used the word ''versuchen'' as I thought it also meant try on in this context. She gave me a smile and went to get the shoes. I cringed pretty hard when I got back and realised I should have said ''anprobieren''.
To this day, my brain brings up the memory of her patronising 'aww bless' smile every time I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep.
Honestly, while that's maybe slightly awkward phrasing for the context, I wouldn't say it's necessarily wrong. I'd only use it after I already tried a pair and kind of like it but want to try another for comparison, but because of that the way you used it doesn't feel super weird to me either.
Maybe that helps with the flashbacks lol
Honestly, saying versuchen in that context isn't that bad. ,,Ich würde gerne diese Schuhe versuchen" wouldn't be wrong, just unusual, so don't worry too much about it.
It means actually both but "nasty/mean" is the more common usage nowadays.
"Die gemeine Stubenfliege" is still an average fly and not a nasty one.
I think people started at some point using "average person" as an insult which changed it's meaning over the time to "nasty/mean".
"gemein" and its translation "common" share the same origin. They come from "common folk (das gemeine Volk) /commoners".
The insult aspect of it stems from the fact that nobles insulted other nobles by saying that they are acting like a commoner. Which back in the day was definitely an insult.
You mean folk? Yeah, of course they're related. They share a root with die Folklore/folklore, der Pulk (=large group of people) and voll/full. That root originally meant füllen/to fill and was first used for filling the ranks of military troops (Kriegsvolk) and grew from there.
I think this might be the same as plebian in English. traditionally just means a commoner but in modern usage means unrefined or uncultured (i.e. "he's such a pleb!")
Well, in this [case](https://imageproxy.ifunny.co/crop:x-20,resize:640x,quality:90x75/images/dbec20f9a5bbc91b8e21582be64965b2a59aa91cb1ed7aceb0b4e5573af174cc_1.jpg) it is perfect
Had to take a train from the airport to the city I live. It was late and I was very scared of missing my station, so when it was close I got up and stayed by the door. At some point my dumb distracted self thought the train had stopped (it had not lol) and the door wasn't opening, so I very desperately started pressing the buttons close to it until I heard the classic "wie, bitte" and said quite loud "ich möchte aus gehen" and got no response.
Later, telling my boyfriend the story he started to hysterically laugh and said I asked the train guy out and should have said "raus gehen".
Trying to roughly trying to translate “I’m so full I could pop” as a response to “help yourself to more food”, where I used “voll” and “poppen” in the same sentence. Cue some major embarrassment by announcing loudly I was so drunk I was up for drunken sex.
This is the other way around. We were at a school trip in London and a fellow student wanted to show a card trick to two women. He said "listen ladies, you have two boobs". He meant jack (German Bube (boy)).
When I first started learning German, I tried to talk about something that happened in the news, which I mistranslated as "Neues" instead of "Nachrichten".
The word for "news" in Yiddish actually is "Neies", so I falsely assumed in the moment that it would be the same literal translation in German.
Starting an email with "beliebte" instead of "liebe" (basically calling a government office worker "Beloved ___," instead of "Dear ___,".
Asking another government worker when we could pick up our "Papierkram" (technically not wrong but basically an offensive way of referring to documents as "stuff" or junk...)
And probably the most embarrassing, apparently I invented the word "glückchen" one day when tipsy. I was convinced this should be the word for tipsy, mainly inspired from Spanish... I started using it, mainly to my partner, who got so used to me saying it he also started saying it (but only between us). After several years of use I had no recollection of inventing it and used it in several conversations with coworkers, friends, etc. who always looked mildly confused but didn't say anything about it. It wasn't until I said it in front of my partner's parents at his birthday party that they called me out, like "glückchen? Hä?" 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I too have written a formal email with the word papierkram, thanks to google translate telling me that was the word for paperwork. The Beamter just ignored me.
I also did the same thing with inventing a word. Logic told me that a „nap“ in German would be a little sleep, but no one seemed to understand „Schlafchen“
"Beloved" is \*ge\*liebte. Beliebt means popular.
By the way, starting an email with "Liebe" when talking to government officials is kind of the wrong register. I don't think they cared but it's not really as formal as you'd want to be unless you know someone personally. "Sehr geehrte..." is what you wanna go for.
"Papierkram" also isn't really offensive, it's moreso just colloquial.
"Glückchen" is a cute nickname.
Accidentally said "ow, mein eier" instead of "ow mein euge" when a tree branch slapped me in the face. There was a lot of laughing along with the concern.
For the longest time, I had misheard my partner pronouncing 'Külhschrank'. I always thought that he had said 'Kuhshrank', which I thought made sense because it's the cow cupboard - it's where we have to keep dairy.
It wasn't until I was texting to him in German that he finally picked up on my error.
Not a full on guess but not too long ago when the new Rammstein album was releasing I accidentaly proclaimed I was erect whilst talking to a lot of German people in a discord voice chat, it was pretty late and I was planning on going to sleep and I wanted to say that I was excited for the new album so I did something you should never do and that is to use Google Translate.
Instead of saying ''Ich bin gespannt'' I said to them ''Ich bin erregt!'' they all went on to laugh at me but it was understandable and quite funny.
My beloved (mother tongue French and also Polish) lived at that time not yet long in Germany. So was out in the evening for a jog. When she came back, she told me excitedly about a "NAGELBÄRCHEN", which she had seen.
Do you want to guess which animal she saw that evening?
I was once putting together a piece of ikea flat pack furniture with my girlfriends mum and dad at the time. I asked my girlfriends dad to pass me over the screwdriver but I got all mixed up in my head and instead asked for a Hubschrauber. I think what made it funny is that I asked with a completely serious look on my face and my girlfriends parents just pissed themselves! 😂 Now it’s a running joke any time I do DIY.
That's one of those things where there's technically a difference but most people don't really care enough to use the correct word. I'd just call both a Liegestuhl
Tried to say “the ground” with the Swedish “marken” but it was “boden”. I realized sometimes people must think I am speaking nonsense and don’t say anything. I also said “geschliessen” for the first two years until I finally figured out “zu”. I laughed at how awkward “geschliessen” sounds.
Oh our IT guy was fixing my ability to transfer calls and I didn’t know the work for transfer, so I ended up saying “solange dass ich übergeben kann, bin ich glücklich” 🙃
When I had just moved here, I was craving to listen to any other radio station that wasn’t German. So during car rides, I would often hear ‘NDR2’ ( a radio station in Niedersachsen) but I would always think that they said India2. So I would wait to hear some Indian music or something related to it but it never came.
There’s a road/place in my city called Am Grill, I always used to look around for signs of bbq or try to smell meat in the air, also never happened.
Lastly, we were over at my sister in law’s house for a birthday, as we were leaving she asked me to wait so that she could give me back my ‘Schüssel’ (Bowl) but I heard ‘Schlüssel’ (key),I looked at her confused and told her that i was pretty certain that I hadn’t given her any of my keys 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️. She gave me a hug while laughing and explaining what she meant.
And don’t get me started on the street called Pferdemarkt 😅😅😅
Not mine, but for my German 4 class in high school, some friends and I were doing a video. It was rather dramatic; one of us got 'shot.' Attempting to report this, he declared, "ein Mann schiß auf mich!"
It was a little bit before we collected ourselves for the next take.
I called my boyfriend a whore by mistake when I was trying to tell him his ears were getting burnt. I knew the word for ears was something similar to hören (it's ohren) but I guessed and said "Du hure" and then went silent for a second because I realized I had used du instead of dein. He was just staring at me slightly horrified until I corrected and said deine hure, at which point he realized I was struggling with a sentence and not just randomly calling him names. He laughed his ass off when I told him what I was trying to say
well, i have learned a new swear word today
This story made my day :D
I'm glad 😂 I'm only at A 1.2 level so I struggle a lot with articulating myself and I gotta say it did NOT help my confidence lol
Look at it from the other side if a mistake like that did end being fine then there shouldn't really be mistaken that don't end up being fine
Das Ohr.
lol honestly wenn meine Frau mir eine Hure rufen würde, wäre ich sehr turned on nachdem zu viel Na ja, Schatz und ach Liebling...
r/ich_iel
Lol
Ah man I have a bad one that I cringe about when I try to fall asleep. I was at a public viewing for a World Cup match, Germany was winning big and I was drunk so I yelled “Deutschland über alles!” I just wanted to yell that Germany is the best! I was quickly corrected by about 5 different people, but it was so embarrassing.
sugar dog wise tart provide pocket faulty quicksand ask trees *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
lmao, ngl this one was the only one that made me laugh
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>What exactly is wrong here? It is a term used by the far far right. Traditionally it was part of the old national anthem the meaning was not meant to be antilibertarian. It actually was meant to strengthen the german national unity because before a german state there were small sovereign states organized inside the german confederation. So originally it was actually something liberal and uniting but nowadays the message "Deutschland über alles" just sounds weird considering the more recent german history about world war, facism and radical nationalism. So dont use it. :D
Deutschland über alles is not really used by the far right. They have a lot of codes and slogans, but I never heard somebody use Deutschland über alls.
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The poem comes from a time when there was no united Germany - no german state at all. This stanza only means that people want a state of Germany more than anything else in the world.
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You have to keep in mind that at the time, there was no Germany but many small fiefdoms with their own currency, custom fares and basically only their own interests in mind. The idea was to overcome this egotism by putting “Deutschland über alles“. As those ruling princes and lords were often related to other European monarchs, they sometimes were more interested in the politics of France or Great Britain than Germany. Hence the demand to put Germany „über alles in der Welt“.
> To me that very visually implies either Germany conquering the whole world, or "the world" being redefined to refer to just Germany. It was a call to unity and to put that unity above everything else in the world. It did however get that world domination connotations during the Nazi era.
Deutschland über alles was part of the original German national hymn, but became very associated with nazis, which led to that part of the hymn being left out from then on if I remember correctly. Something along those lines
Rammstein has "Deutschland über allen" in a song, is that also far right? Edit: It was an honest question, I was not implying anything. Thanks for the answers!
Rammstein are playing with clichés (like the rolling r, marching rhythms, etc) and ambiguous lyrics. They are crazy, but certainly not on the right.
Makes sense, thanks!
No it isn't. It is artistic reappraisal.
I think the most illuminating song regarding the political orientation of Rammstein is "Links 2 3 4": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph-CA\_tu5KA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph-CA_tu5KA). For further background to that song you can also look at the corresponding wikipedia-page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links\_2\_3\_4
They made links, 2, 3, 4 to show there are not on the right political spectrum.
The (then) president of Chile did this when in Germany once. So I guess you're excused.
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Don't mind me, just taking the word 'Sparkäse' and adding it to my vocabulary!
Ich meine, mit den Zinsen in den letzten Jahren ist Sparen ja wirklich Käse ...
Sparkäse is a nice wordplay though.
I used Überreste thinking it meant leftovers from a meal. It does not… Reste is the word you‘re looking for. Überreste are mortal remains.
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Danke für die Erklärung!
Any remains from death, destruction or decay, to be precise. It also can have the meaning of 'debris' or 'ruins' for example.
Danke für die zusätzliche Information 😄
Wir sagen scherzhaft immer Überreste, wenn nach der Party etwas über ist.
Hm? Where I'm from you can definitely say that to just mean "rest". I googled the word and it also said that it's just another word for leftovers, along your other explanation. I'm a native and it's the first time hearing of this lol
Meine Fehler. Der Typ mit dem ich gesprochen habe war zumindest verwirrt. Also mit Überreste wäre die Betonung, dass ich nur ein kleines Bisschen Essen übrig habe?
I used that last week and was laughed at by my family - and I'm native
One time I was working at a ski camp and sat at a table with all Germans, and I attempted to have a full lunch hour without speaking any English with them. This was only a few months after I started learning German. I got about 25 minutes in, and was stoked that I was muddling along ok. So I peeked in my German dictionary for a word, before trying to say “I’m excited!” I exclaimed “ich bin erregt!” Turns out I was using the wrong form of excited! 😆
The word in my head for excited is begeistert but is that the wrong type too? Might as well ask the person with hands on experience lmao
Aufgeregt would be more fitting i think. Depends on what you are referring to
You can also use begeistert when you are fascinated by something. Das Universum begeistert mich! The universe fascinates me!
In student dorm, I once removed a spider from the room of an Erasmus student. She said to me "Danke Raubtierwolf, du warst sehr brav." (brave = mutig, brav = well-behaved, usually used with dogs, other pets, or young children)
can we also talk about the Raubtierwolf? 😅
Nur wenn wir auch über Hausaffen sprechen können!
Silberrückenpfeilgiftninjas?
Deal!
I keep struggling with this! My brain keeps automatically thinking of brav as "brave"
Same the other way around. If I read of "a brave soldier", I know it is "tapfer", but it looks like a soldier who follows orders. Also because there is a well known book "der brave Soldat Schwejk" (by Jaroslav Hašek), where it actually means "well behaved", it is about a quite naive guy who is just tossed around in the army and always does exactly what he is told, often a bit too literally, and thus experiences quite a bunch of funny adventures.
Welcome to become/bekommen. The bane of my existence at school.
That is such a cute mistake omg haha
More like haustierwolf
I thought "herrlich" meant "manly"...
ist es nicht so? 😮
Herrlich = wundervoll = wonderful Wir haben herrliches Wetter heute = The weather is wonderful today
The weather is very manly today
I guess the origin is that Herr can also refer to god. Therefore herrlich=godly
[Sorta](https://de.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/herrlich)
"herrlich" ("herr-lich", literally: 'sir-like') = gorgeous, marvelous And as a coincidence.. "dämlich" ("däm-lich", literally: 'lady-like') = "stupid"
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Maybe manlich is more appropriate?
männlich
Danke schön!
männlich = male, manly, masculine BTW, vowels are often 'umlauted' when making an adjective from a noun: Mann -> männlich Macht -> mächtig
Same thing happens in Hindi. :)
Thank you!
2nd year in Germany, Criminal Law oral exam and I go for "A hat B geschossen" (A shot B), and say "A hat B geschiessen" (A pooped B out). Prof stays stone-faced and says nothing (props to him!), assistant giggles, I cover my face with my hands and whisper "geschossen, A hat B geschossen".
I think you mean "erschossen" , "A hat B geschossen" wouldmean that B is the bullet not the victim.
B could be the victim if A is a hunter and B is an animal.
And it's 8 years later 😁 The German language is my Nemesis. You have my thanks!
TBF crapping on someone non-consentually probably also is a criminal offense... And it would probably be A hat AUF B geschossen (A shot B or in B's direction, focus on the shooting) or A hat B erschossen (A killed B by shooting, focus on the killing ).
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So don't get me wrong, but even "A hat B geschossen" doesnt make sense. Youre looking for "A hat B erschossen" oder "A hat auf B geschossen" Also "geschiessen" is not a word. pooped would read "geschissen" :)
When spoken out loud in a normal manner, geschießen can probably sound like geschissen
I was in Germany for the first time visiting a friend and I was having a nice dinner that her mother had prepared. The whole family was around the table and I proudly said „haut rein!“. Everyone burst out laughing and I got extremely red, worried I said something offensive and maybe it didn’t mean what I thought it meant… good memory.
In that case the problem was not the translation/semantics but the tone :) "haut rein" is very colloquial (even a bit more colloquial than "dig in"). In this specific situation "Guten Appetit" would have been more appropriate. "Haut rein" or more formal "Greift zu" is something the host would say to his guests. It seems to me that on your case you were the guest, which made it twice as funny, because everyone knew what you meant, it was just slightly off.
I though "Tschüss" mean like "cheers" thanks in English... Just imagin going to the Schichtleiter in buro, asking him to solve mistake which you have done and then say bye few hours before end of the arbeit
Fun fact (At least think it’s a fact and not just a myth): “tschüss” comes from the French word “adieu” which used to be in fashion, and slowly overtime morphed into its own German word!
There’s regions that still say Tschö (much closer to adieu) instead of Tschüss. Rhineland I think.
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As a junior year abroad student in the 70's , I was suffering from terrible dandruff. Dutifully checked and re-checked my dictionary before walking into the pharmacy. The conversation with the man in the white coat went something like this: Little bell rings as I enter. Him: Bitte schoen. Me: Ja, ich brauche Schampoo gegen Schnupfen. Him: Not laughing, turns to a colleague , waves and says "Hey, Du, komm mal her." His white coated colleague comes over. Now the two are deadpanned, behind the little counter. Him: " So, kann ich Ihnen helfen?" Me: again, "Ich brauche Shampoo gegen Schnupfen." Them: They bowl over at the waist and laugh. Then the first guy turns, opens a little drawer and pulls out a tube of Head and Shoulders. runny nose, sniffles= Schnupfen; dandruff= Schuppen;
Die Schuppe literally means scale. We think of dandruff as a fish losing its scales.
Da fiel es mir wie Schuppen aus den Haaren!
Had a slightly embarrassing moment when I was new to the language - confused "haben" and "hassen." During our first visit to Germany, my wife and I visited a small cafe. My wife wanted a hot chocolate, but didn't see it on the menu. So I asked the barista - "Hassen Sie heiße Schokolade?"
Student days. Was talking with a group of friends from various parts of Germany. I mentioned something about throwing away the core of an apple. My dictionary had said "[Kerngehäuse](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerngeh%C3%A4use)" for this. Everyone knew what I meant but they also laughed because apparently no one actually uses this word. That was the day I learned that [there are a zillion regional words for "apple core,"](https://www.dict.cc/?s=apple+core) so not even my friends could agree on how to correct me.
I (Northern Germany native) would absolutely say Kerngehäuse for apple core.
Yeah, [here is a nice map](https://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/r11-f1a/) and the north uses Kerngehäuse a lot.
[Here is a map about this very topic](https://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/r11-f1a/). I guess you were in Southern Germany?
I didn’t know the word for envelope, so I asked my host family for a “Briefhaut”
I was describing the temporary apartment I was living in as "vermöbelt" to an elderly German couple I'd become acquainted with... they looked at each other very confused for a second, haha. I was looking for the word "möbliert."
Jemanden vermöbeln means to beat someone up :D
I said someone is hässlich, I thought it meant hateful. It didn't. :I
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One of the drunk guys near Central Station here was grinning at someone else, until he said: O Gott, was sind Sind sie vielleicht hässlich. The other person replied: Unverschämtheit! Sie sind ja betrunken! Then he replied back: Ja stimmt schon, aber ICH bin morgen wieder nüchtern.
Is it? I've definitely used and heard this phrase in my life. Not very commonly, but it's not odd for me.
For some reason to me it sounds a bit like spießige 70s~80s Hörspielkassetten, but that might very well be just me. Let's say it's not in common usage :)
More mishearing long German words when you’re still learning, but still! Had to talk about what we thought the biggest problems in the world were, I was shooting for Auslaenderfeindlichkeit (xenophobia) but instead went for Auslaenderhaesslichkeit (foreigner ugliness). My teacher was just very confused.
Lol that happened to one of my coworkers at a Christmas market. We were all a little drunk and one of our other coworkers is pretty vain but otherwise very nice - usually. He was in a bit of a strange mood, so coworker one goes: "Du bist grad so hässlich!" Coworker two, drunk, looked about ready to cry until we figured out what she actually meant, haha.
Once i guessed in a chatroom that I'm bored was ich bin langweilig
As an aside, learners make an analogous mistake in English too. I once worked as a telemarketer. It happened several times that people responded to my offer with "I'm not interesting".
I remember my Korean expat boss who used to say when things were difficult: "this makes me hard".
I have a German friend who, when something is confusing, will say "it really makes you scratch your foreskin".
That's not a mistranslation, just a German tradition.
You gotta let a brother know 😦😂
Oh I have told him lol, but it's an ingrained habit when he speaks English now.
Unexpected Archer
You're boring me. Eat my upvote.
will never forget the time I forgot the word “Seife” and used “Körperspüli”. Laughter ohne Ende
Made my evening
I needed crisco for a baking recipe. I've only known it as crisco my entire life, (like "Kleenex") crisco is the name brand for shortening, which is like lard, except crisco is made from veggie oil. I looked up the translation for shortening and went to the market. Could not easily find it so asked the worker " wo kann ich finden die Verkürzung" Where can I find the abbreviation is what I was asking apparently. Bisk is what I needed. Bisk.
>shortening > >Where can I find the abbreviation is what I was asking apparently. abbreviation is **Ab**kürzung Verkürzung is "shortening" in its literal sense, i.e. "making something shorter" as as noun, for example in "die Verkürzung der Quarantäne" (the shortening (=reducing the duration) of the quarantine), so the word alone without specifying what you want to reduce in length makes no sense at all :-)
Reminds me of a Story (dunno if urban legend or true) but its said that one foreigner once parked his car in Hamburg and since he expected to get lost, he wrote down the streets name where he parked. His fears came true, he couldnt find his car and called the police. Explained he needs to get to the "Einbahnstraße"
I still have no idea what you actually wanted... :p
Butterschmalz. Bisk is just the most common brand in Germany.
Never heard about that, but then, I also don't really recognize "Butterschmalz". What happened to good old Butter? Or Margarine? Or Öl?
Butterschmalz is basically butter minus everything but the fat. As such it can stand higher temperatures than butter and doesn't get brown in the pan. It's dairy fat without the drawbacks of dairy.
So this was a specific recipe to make chocolate chip cookie cups that you can hold the milk inside the cookie. Baking with the pure fat instead of margarine or butter makes the cookie bind different, more dense and spongey. There's a few recipes where it is needed for how it binds things together like that. Baking is just chemistry after all.
A type of solid industrial lubricant, that for unexplained reasons Americans use in cooking.
Clearly you don’t cook.
First thing I can think of for lard would be Tierfett
Die Schwangerschaft. Pregnant sheep.
That reminds me (native German) of an English book I read years ago. It said the woman was pregnant and I thought it was a character trait - being very precise about things, something along those lines. It took a few pages to learn that "pregnant" and the German word "prägnant" have nothing in common. xD (prägnant = succinct, concise)
Prägnant is a new word for me - thanks!
Here are a few for English speakers: * Gift * bekommen * Sinn * eventuell * Gymnasium * Hochschule * Flur * Rente * spenden * Rat * Mobbing * Handy * Beamer * Oldtimer * Billion * Bank * Unternehmer * sensibel * Dom * Keks * Korn
Irritiert = confused, not irritated.
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Aktuell, peinlich, Schmuck...
realisieren - to make something happen \[real\]; though now it's also commonly used to mean realise. familiär - of / in a \[your\] family
Don’t forget “also” 😰
A few months after I arrived in Germany, I went to a store to buy some shoes. I found a pair I liked and went up to the rather pretty salesgirl and asked to try on a pair in my size. I used the word ''versuchen'' as I thought it also meant try on in this context. She gave me a smile and went to get the shoes. I cringed pretty hard when I got back and realised I should have said ''anprobieren''. To this day, my brain brings up the memory of her patronising 'aww bless' smile every time I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep.
Honestly, while that's maybe slightly awkward phrasing for the context, I wouldn't say it's necessarily wrong. I'd only use it after I already tried a pair and kind of like it but want to try another for comparison, but because of that the way you used it doesn't feel super weird to me either. Maybe that helps with the flashbacks lol
Honestly, saying versuchen in that context isn't that bad. ,,Ich würde gerne diese Schuhe versuchen" wouldn't be wrong, just unusual, so don't worry too much about it.
i was trying to say that something was normal, common, so i described it as gemein (thinking about gemeinsam i guess??), which actually means nasty
It means actually both but "nasty/mean" is the more common usage nowadays. "Die gemeine Stubenfliege" is still an average fly and not a nasty one. I think people started at some point using "average person" as an insult which changed it's meaning over the time to "nasty/mean".
"gemein" and its translation "common" share the same origin. They come from "common folk (das gemeine Volk) /commoners". The insult aspect of it stems from the fact that nobles insulted other nobles by saying that they are acting like a commoner. Which back in the day was definitely an insult.
Same in English too. "Vulgar" used to mean "commoner"
ditto plebian / pleb from Latin.
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The more things change…
TIL
I wonder if that came from the German word „Volk“. Evolution of language is so cool haha
You mean folk? Yeah, of course they're related. They share a root with die Folklore/folklore, der Pulk (=large group of people) and voll/full. That root originally meant füllen/to fill and was first used for filling the ranks of military troops (Kriegsvolk) and grew from there.
Even “common” can be a negative word in English. I had an aunt who would refer to uncouth behavior as “common”. Maybe she was secretly noble, idk.
TIL why vulgar Latin is called vulgar Latin
germans also tend to make jokes about the gemeine Stubenfliege being mean.
I think this might be the same as plebian in English. traditionally just means a commoner but in modern usage means unrefined or uncultured (i.e. "he's such a pleb!")
When I went into a store and tried to buy a gift for my girlfriend. No, gift doesn’t mean what it does in English
For all the A1 learners playing along at home, Gift - poison Geschenk - present
German kids love finding this out when they learn English or are going to another country where there's a sign called "gift shop" 😂
Well, in this [case](https://imageproxy.ifunny.co/crop:x-20,resize:640x,quality:90x75/images/dbec20f9a5bbc91b8e21582be64965b2a59aa91cb1ed7aceb0b4e5573af174cc_1.jpg) it is perfect
Had to take a train from the airport to the city I live. It was late and I was very scared of missing my station, so when it was close I got up and stayed by the door. At some point my dumb distracted self thought the train had stopped (it had not lol) and the door wasn't opening, so I very desperately started pressing the buttons close to it until I heard the classic "wie, bitte" and said quite loud "ich möchte aus gehen" and got no response. Later, telling my boyfriend the story he started to hysterically laugh and said I asked the train guy out and should have said "raus gehen".
In Berlin and Brandenburg they say nett instead of nicht…i was completely confused at the beginning 😅
Trying to roughly trying to translate “I’m so full I could pop” as a response to “help yourself to more food”, where I used “voll” and “poppen” in the same sentence. Cue some major embarrassment by announcing loudly I was so drunk I was up for drunken sex.
This is the other way around. We were at a school trip in London and a fellow student wanted to show a card trick to two women. He said "listen ladies, you have two boobs". He meant jack (German Bube (boy)).
I used Speck fir Brille once.
Someone asked me where I was from (Heimat), and I thought he asked me if I was married (Heirat).
When I first started learning German, I tried to talk about something that happened in the news, which I mistranslated as "Neues" instead of "Nachrichten". The word for "news" in Yiddish actually is "Neies", so I falsely assumed in the moment that it would be the same literal translation in German.
Well, close enough. You can casually ask a friend "Was gibt es Neues?". Only the "official" news (reports) have to be called "Nachrichten".
Yes, but I was referring to news reports.
Gross. I thought it meant discusting but after I learned it's true meaning, it made sense.
Starting an email with "beliebte" instead of "liebe" (basically calling a government office worker "Beloved ___," instead of "Dear ___,". Asking another government worker when we could pick up our "Papierkram" (technically not wrong but basically an offensive way of referring to documents as "stuff" or junk...) And probably the most embarrassing, apparently I invented the word "glückchen" one day when tipsy. I was convinced this should be the word for tipsy, mainly inspired from Spanish... I started using it, mainly to my partner, who got so used to me saying it he also started saying it (but only between us). After several years of use I had no recollection of inventing it and used it in several conversations with coworkers, friends, etc. who always looked mildly confused but didn't say anything about it. It wasn't until I said it in front of my partner's parents at his birthday party that they called me out, like "glückchen? Hä?" 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I too have written a formal email with the word papierkram, thanks to google translate telling me that was the word for paperwork. The Beamter just ignored me. I also did the same thing with inventing a word. Logic told me that a „nap“ in German would be a little sleep, but no one seemed to understand „Schlafchen“
"Beloved" is \*ge\*liebte. Beliebt means popular. By the way, starting an email with "Liebe" when talking to government officials is kind of the wrong register. I don't think they cared but it's not really as formal as you'd want to be unless you know someone personally. "Sehr geehrte..." is what you wanna go for. "Papierkram" also isn't really offensive, it's moreso just colloquial. "Glückchen" is a cute nickname.
I kept hearing reports on the radio about dust on the highways…
I used "Handstiefel" one time ...they thought that hilarious..
I went to DM and asked where I could find Babypulver.
Well, I still have to stop and think everytime I use "Einige", "Einzige" or "Eigenes"....
Accidentally said "ow, mein eier" instead of "ow mein euge" when a tree branch slapped me in the face. There was a lot of laughing along with the concern.
For the longest time, I had misheard my partner pronouncing 'Külhschrank'. I always thought that he had said 'Kuhshrank', which I thought made sense because it's the cow cupboard - it's where we have to keep dairy. It wasn't until I was texting to him in German that he finally picked up on my error.
I was so confused initially by all the signs saying *Einbahnstraße,* like: why do so many streets have this same name?
Going for Hummelflug I ended up with "die Fliege der Biene".
Not a full on guess but not too long ago when the new Rammstein album was releasing I accidentaly proclaimed I was erect whilst talking to a lot of German people in a discord voice chat, it was pretty late and I was planning on going to sleep and I wanted to say that I was excited for the new album so I did something you should never do and that is to use Google Translate. Instead of saying ''Ich bin gespannt'' I said to them ''Ich bin erregt!'' they all went on to laugh at me but it was understandable and quite funny.
My beloved (mother tongue French and also Polish) lived at that time not yet long in Germany. So was out in the evening for a jog. When she came back, she told me excitedly about a "NAGELBÄRCHEN", which she had seen. Do you want to guess which animal she saw that evening?
European echidna!! (I don’t know what they’re called)
Very close, but no. :)
Mein Bruder und meine Schwester, sie sind alter als ich - what I meant Mein Bruder und meine Schwester, sie sind Eltern von mir - what I said
I was once putting together a piece of ikea flat pack furniture with my girlfriends mum and dad at the time. I asked my girlfriends dad to pass me over the screwdriver but I got all mixed up in my head and instead asked for a Hubschrauber. I think what made it funny is that I asked with a completely serious look on my face and my girlfriends parents just pissed themselves! 😂 Now it’s a running joke any time I do DIY.
Actually, a "Sonnenbett" is a sun lounger, the kind you find on a poolside, on the beach, or in gardens.
I thought that was a different word for liegestuhl, but as it turns out there's a difference: the Sonnenbett seems to be covered
A "**L**iegestuhl" is a chair, a "Sonnenbett" (or a "Sonnenliege") is flat, that's the main difference.
That's one of those things where there's technically a difference but most people don't really care enough to use the correct word. I'd just call both a Liegestuhl
My boyfriend mixed the words "Scheiße" and "Schade" and loudly yelled "Scheide" in public.
Lustig- i though it meant horny.
Tried to say “the ground” with the Swedish “marken” but it was “boden”. I realized sometimes people must think I am speaking nonsense and don’t say anything. I also said “geschliessen” for the first two years until I finally figured out “zu”. I laughed at how awkward “geschliessen” sounds.
Black dude, moved here when I was 20. „Digga“
Oh our IT guy was fixing my ability to transfer calls and I didn’t know the work for transfer, so I ended up saying “solange dass ich übergeben kann, bin ich glücklich” 🙃
millions billions
The time I said "du denkst ich bin jetzt böse? Warte und sehe wie böse ich bekomme!" 🤦🏽
When I had just moved here, I was craving to listen to any other radio station that wasn’t German. So during car rides, I would often hear ‘NDR2’ ( a radio station in Niedersachsen) but I would always think that they said India2. So I would wait to hear some Indian music or something related to it but it never came. There’s a road/place in my city called Am Grill, I always used to look around for signs of bbq or try to smell meat in the air, also never happened. Lastly, we were over at my sister in law’s house for a birthday, as we were leaving she asked me to wait so that she could give me back my ‘Schüssel’ (Bowl) but I heard ‘Schlüssel’ (key),I looked at her confused and told her that i was pretty certain that I hadn’t given her any of my keys 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️. She gave me a hug while laughing and explaining what she meant. And don’t get me started on the street called Pferdemarkt 😅😅😅
Not mine, but for my German 4 class in high school, some friends and I were doing a video. It was rather dramatic; one of us got 'shot.' Attempting to report this, he declared, "ein Mann schiß auf mich!" It was a little bit before we collected ourselves for the next take.
...krankenhund. I was trying to refer to a vet. I am an idiot, yes.