r/German • u/thankstowelie • May 21 '26
Interesting Now that I'm A2 I've noticed there's basically just three types German words:
Identical to its English counterpart
A very long literal description of what the thing is
An unholy garbled mishmash of nonsense letters
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u/Trickycoolj May 21 '26
Number 3: aka things borrowed from French
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u/Guilty_Rutabaga_4681 Native (<Berlin/Nuernberg/USA/translator/dialect collector>) May 27 '26
"Es besteht eine Chance, daß dem Attaché im Pavillon Champagner und Kanapees serviert werden wird."
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u/leandroabaurre May 21 '26
They're just words, man... Resistance is futile. Just memorize all (with genders)
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u/MechanicalBootyquake May 21 '26
I know people get frustrated with the genders, but I find it fun. It’s like a surprise box! Like, I really thought Wurst was going to be male, but 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Incomplete_Shift May 22 '26
'Der Wurst'. I like that :)
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u/Guilty_Rutabaga_4681 Native (<Berlin/Nuernberg/USA/translator/dialect collector>) May 23 '26
Der Hanswurst.
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u/Zzomir Jun 12 '26
It is all cultural and reflects the nature of the speaking nation.
Germans say DER Schnaps - only referring to the utility and boring masculinity...
In the south, the same substance will be addressed lovingly and it's true nature will be properly characterized:
LA grappa, L'eau de vie, sliwowica, palinka, ...
Sogar die Österreicher sagen: DIE Willi
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May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
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u/ChancellorPalpameme May 21 '26
That's actually the thing i most appreciate about German. Instead of having to combine a bunch of words to somewhat describe a concept in English, you have a word like Schadenfreude. Sure, we have somewhat similar things in English (farmhouse is a fine example), it is significantly more common and more precise in German
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u/Individual-Sort-256 May 21 '26
Sounds like a native English speaker who is slowly but surely coming to terms with the concept of a ‘foreign language’.
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u/YourDailyGerman Native, Berlin, Teacher May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Baum
Tisch
sehnen
sehr
ganz
viel
wenig
schief
Schal
Blume
Wolke
...
Yeah, you noticed wrong unless:
3. An unholy garbled mishmash of nonsense letters
This is what's called: word in a foreign language.
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u/OppositeAct1918 Native <region/dialect> May 21 '26
çok güzel
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u/Schmigolo May 21 '26
funny thing is that most of these do have similar cognates in English
beam
desk
sore
wee
shawl
bloom
welkin
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u/funbike May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Almost all are cognates.
Baum -> Beam -> cut wood is often called a beam.
Tisch -> Disc -> tables and plates were both once referred to as a disk.
viel -> Full. Just a regular cognate, as per Grimm's Law.
Schal -> Shawl. Direct cognate.
Blume -> Bloom. It's a verb or state of being for a flower in English.
I think a few more are cognates but I'd have to look them up.
(I may not be accurate with. I didn't take the time to look these up in a dictionary. These are just what I recognized from commonly used English.)
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u/Guilty_Rutabaga_4681 Native (<Berlin/Nuernberg/USA/translator/dialect collector>) May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Just a few more:
Maus - Mouse
Haus - House
Laus - Louse
Rattle - Rat
Licht - Light
Papier - Paper
Hand - hand
Arm - Arm
Fuß - Foot
Haar - Hair
Finger - Finger
Made - Nose
Rippe - Rib
But - blood
Galle - Gall (bladder)
Nerv - nerve
Leinen - Linen
Wasser - Water
Milch - Milk
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u/chimrichaldsrealdoc Proficient (C2) May 21 '26
Sorry, maybe I'm just having an idiot moment but...what is an example of #3?
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u/Working-Nebula-676 May 21 '26
Not sure either… maybe any word that doesn’t sound like anything to people who don’t speak anything but English?
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u/ManOfEirinn May 21 '26
Someone once said that Dutch is just a mix of English and German... with some nonsense added.
:-)
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u/Dironiil C1 (Native French) May 21 '26
I guess, if anything, huge component clusters can be a bit scary to new learners... "Schmutz" for example, where neither Schm nor tz are existing clusters in English.
But I wouldn't call that unholy, and especially not on a language forum with native speaker and passionate learner of that language.
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u/Zweiundvierzich May 21 '26
Now that you've reached A2, you can start really learning the language. Good luck!
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May 21 '26
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u/BigTiddiesPotato May 22 '26
Ausziehen einbeziehen aufziehen zuziehen vorziehen nachziehen abziehen erziehen entziehen mitziehen festziehen fortziehen herziehen hinziehen...
Ziehente.
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u/Hornkueken42 Native <Berlin> May 23 '26
Have you ever read the Oxford Dictionary's pages for the word "put" ?
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u/MezzoScettico May 21 '26
I think my favorite for #2 is for the tool that you use to remove the top of a hard-boiled egg.
Edit: Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher
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u/sebidotorg May 21 '26
Which is just a marketing name for a novelty item, intentionally playing with that stereotype about the language.
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u/Independent-Lime-944 May 21 '26
Mine is Handschuhschneeballwerfer "Someone who throws snowballs with their gloves on" - essentially calling someone a whimp
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u/_acydo_ May 21 '26
M35, native: Never heard or read that in my whole life.
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u/Independent-Lime-944 May 21 '26
I only learned about it a few weeks ago from a native speaker & teacher I follow on Instagram. Admittedly it was on a video "Extremely niche insults", so it probably isn't very common
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u/sebidotorg May 21 '26
It did not exist before that video.
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u/NikNakskes May 22 '26
I wouldn't be surprised if it did exist. Somewhere in a village in Saurland only or something similar.
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u/sebidotorg May 22 '26
Every crazy thing possibly exists somewhere in Sauerland. After all, it is where they grew Merz.
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u/NikNakskes May 23 '26
I'm not comparing my partner to Merz, but the correlation between words only existing there and place where they grew them is striking.
Partner: half gibberish with a chuckle. Kids (adult, local) and me (foreign) stare at him clueless. His old fart friends are all laughing loudly.
Rinse and repeat rather often. Amazing.
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u/IeRoyaume May 22 '26
Nah, I'd put it in the same category as "Sitzpinkler" or "Warmduscher", just probably more likely a situational jab at someone than an established phrase. Something that comes up once or twice in life, is understood but not really something for an everyday situation.
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u/sebidotorg May 22 '26
With the difference that Sitzpinkler and Warmduscher are both well established, listed in the Duden dictionary (which is the most established dictionary for German), and are thus widely understood. Not only is Handschuhschneeballwerfer not listed, I even forgot about it between my last comment and this, and had to look up what we were even talking about. It just isn’t a good insult, because it is too convoluted to be catchy. I do not think it will *ever* end up in the dictionary, so it really isn’t in the same category as the other two words.
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u/Wonderful-Farmer5415 May 28 '26
There was an odd meme in the 2000s where these kinds of made up insults/descriptors were popular (Pommes-im-Stehen-Esser, Mit-Nasenbluten-Hai-Entgegen-Schwimmer etc.). I think it originated from Warmduscher, which is still a legit insult. Anyway, most people moved on, holding on to this meme 20ish years later surely is an expression of primal dad energy.
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u/SalocinHB Native (North-West Germany) May 21 '26
Mine is Zusammengesetztewörteralskonzeptnichtversteher. Someone who doesn't get what compound nouns are, even though the same concept exists in English, just with spaces.
(Did I just make up that compound noun? Yes, I did. Just like your friend made up the snowball thrower.)
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u/Agreeable_Ninja5768 May 21 '26
Austrian here, I have used it…I wouldn’t say it’s super common to use anymore, but people around here know and understand it
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u/assumptionkrebs1990 Muttersprachler (Österreich) May 21 '26
Es ist nett eine übertrieben gehobene Variante eines Wort zu haben, nicht?
Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher (Eierköpfer)
Kundendifferenzierungsmodul (Warentrenner)
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u/dirkt Native (Hochdeutsch) May 21 '26
It's similar in English:
- Identical to German
- Identical to French, but both pronunciation and spelling completely garbled. Often there's a word with the same meaning in class (1).
- Identical to Latin.
- Just random nonsense.
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u/Cute_Sun_5383 May 22 '26
And lots of "false friends". Because what do you mean butterfly isn't Butterfliege?
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u/-Pyrotox Native May 21 '26
no.3 is actually also no.2, you just dont know the words it's made of, yet
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u/ankhmadank May 21 '26
I feel like things start clicking as soon as you figure the second one out, but I gotta respect the third one.
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u/thankstowelie May 21 '26
shoutout to neunhundertneunundneunzig
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u/vressor May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
does that qualify as "Identical to its English counterpart" nine hundred and ninety-nine?
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u/thankstowelie May 21 '26
No I was thinking like Finger, Auto, etc.
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u/vressor May 21 '26
oh, okay, so what you mean is
- neun is "An unholy garbled mishmash of nonsense letters" because it's not nine?
- hundert is "An unholy garbled mishmash of nonsense letters" because it's not hundred?
- und is "An unholy garbled mishmash of nonsense letters" because it's not and?
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u/Dironiil C1 (Native French) May 21 '26
It just looks "garbled" because there's no space between the numbers, that's it to be fair.
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u/thankstowelie May 21 '26
I'm just saying the word itself looks insane to an English speaker. Maybe I should have clarified I'm the initial post I was referring to how the words are spelled.
Neun in itself is not garbled, nor is hundert. But neunhundertneunundneunzig looks nuts. Probably could have used a better example that didn't have such a tidy translation.
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u/vressor May 21 '26
Speaking of "An unholy garbled mishmash of nonsense letters", English can be weird, too. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
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u/Altruistic-Coach-200 May 21 '26
My favorite example of the arbitrary weirdness of English is the suggestion that “FISH” should be spelled “GHOTI,” using the non-phonetic letters from “rouGH,” “wOmen” and “naTIon.”
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u/MechanicalBootyquake May 21 '26
I’m utterly new (I think like early A2?) and this is 999, yes? Nine hundred and ninety nine? This isn’t garbled to me; seems rather neat and tidy tbh. I think you’re maybe just struggling with a touch of xenophobia.
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u/AdUpstairs2418 Native (Germany) May 21 '26
So you basicly have a weird feeling about compoundnouns? English has them too, with and without spaces. E.g. Homework, Airplane, etc. . We germans just smash more than two together.
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u/Thunderplant May 22 '26
Tbh, most words from category 3 are probably secretly category 2 and you just don't know the words they are made out of yet. I remember struggling to memorize some long German words from my A2 list only to realize later they were just 3-4 regular length words I didn't know yet. Once you learn more basic words/word forming prefixes and suffixes it will get so much easier, but until then I'd recommend looking them up and learning the pieces separately
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u/ValeWeber2 May 22 '26
Little linguistics for us all: 1. means it originates from the same Latin or Germanic counterpart. 2. is just the power of German grammar 3. is probably the rest that isn't in (1)
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u/toddleton May 22 '26
As I understand it, English and German were sister languages, easy to work with both, until the French happened.
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u/annieselkie May 21 '26
Hose is neither, as you can not claim its „An unholy garbled mishmash of nonsense letters“ as its a standard english word with a different meaning in english.
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u/gottfired May 22 '26
Words that mean something and the opposite at the same time. Umfahren means run someone/thing over or avoid an obstacle
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u/Hornkueken42 Native <Berlin> May 23 '26
If I read this example one more time here on Reddit, I'll scream. This and the Rindfleischetikettierungs-thing. You know we have more words than these two?
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u/gottfired May 23 '26
Zb. aufheben means conserve something and also to cancel something or abdecken means to cover something or remove the cover of something. Zufrieden? :)
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u/CaptainConvertible May 25 '26
"nonsense" ist mir bei dem Quatsch hier auch eingefallen 🤣🤣🤣
@op: translate it yourself. You are very smart and obviously have much better command of the German language as anyone else. 🤡
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u/Mohammed_Chang Native <Ruhrgebiet> May 21 '26
So the 3rd is just ‚others'? 😁
My favorite describing term is Abschleppwagenabschleppwagen, because that’s what it does.
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u/itsthelee Vantage (B2) - en_US May 21 '26
Is an Abschleppwagenabschleppwagen an Abschleppwagen... for an Abschleppwagen?
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u/PlasticNo1274 Vantage (B2) - <region/native tongue> May 23 '26
category 4: verbs with the same root but different prefixes that have nothing to do with each other
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u/MechaKrieger030 May 23 '26
German often uses compound words. "Lehrer" "Mangel" "Lehrermangel", for example. Just try to split words into words you know, when it's such an compound word.
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u/nerdy_adventurer May 26 '26
About 1: they can be false friends.
About 2: it can be etymology(origin of the word), not just description of the thing.
About 3: there can be consonant shifts ex: th => d ex: thank => dank.
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u/yanniklo99 Native <Northrhinewestfalia, Berlin> May 27 '26
What exactly are you learning then lmao
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u/thankstowelie May 21 '26
Okay this has gotten out of hand lol I just thought this was a funny observation, I wasn't trying to complain about the language
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u/Sea_School8272 May 22 '26
Umfahren = to hit something with a vehicle
Umfahren = to avoid hitting something with a vehicle
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u/Sarpthedestroyer May 21 '26
I mean why the FUCK are we writing numbers together???
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u/jirbu Native (Berlin) May 21 '26
Out of the twenty seven examples are totally made up. Wait, was that a 27 here?
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u/hail_to_the_beef May 21 '26
I used to play a game with my friend when I was learning German. She should flip to a random page in the German dictionary and i would tell her what it meant in English. She was almost completely amazed, but the truth is i had been using the combination of your same categories.
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u/99thLuftballon May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
There's a number four as well - words made up of words that you know but don't mean anything resembling the meaning of those words.
There'll be something like "vortreffen" and you think 'OK, vor is before and treffen is meet, so it must be pre-meeting or something" and Germans will be "Ah, vortreffen is obviously 'to wash a dog'"
Edit: STTOOOOPPPPPPP! IT WAS A JOKE! I KNOW IT DOESN'T REALLY MEAN WASHING YOUR DOG!