Word of the Day – “treffen”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will have a close look at the meaning of:

treffen (pron.: traffn) 

Treffen is a word many people … mind the bold… ENCOUNTER at some point, even when they do not intend to learn German. Like Steve:
Steve does not speak German at all. Steve is traveling from London Gatwick to Berlin Schönefeld with Easyjet, the airline where the price and the carry-on are equal in pounds… yes… they are THAT cheap. On the flight, Steve is refreshing  himself with an  ice-cold Coca Cola while enjoying Transformers 3 on his ever so sharp and one-digit-inch IPad, from Apple … sweet… this subliminal product placement just earned me so much money… you have no idea…
Anyway… so Steve is heading to Berlin to see nice things and drink stuff. The best place for that, so Steve was told, is a bar so there he goes and meets a German girl. As I said, he does not speak her native tongue, and yet he is very interested in it… … (badumm tish) … Hoping that his English accent will get him access, Steve decides to make an essay to express his delight about that contemporary acquaintance of his…  in German.
Dictionary to the rescue!!!
But just as a dictionary brought my last sentence to the brink of nonsense, it gives less than perfect advice to Steve:

• Schön, dich zu treffen.

That is the literal translation of

• Nice to meet you.

That is, while totally understandable and ok, NOT the genuine thing to say. If you meet someone for the first time, the best verb in German is kennenlernen… literally this is learning to know, less literally it would be getting to know, not literally it is meeting for the first time and illiterately it would be hjaugebtcniaun … ok … that last one was kind of mean I guess. I am being a bit stupid today… please indulge me .
So…. the phrasing Steve was looking for is:

• Schön, dich kennenzulernen.
• Nice to meet you.

And that concludes this completely off-topic introduction and we will continue straight with act 2.

Act 2 is usually the time in a drama when the well established hero encounters an obstacle to overcome. Sadly, act 1 didn’t establish our protagonist at all, so we have to squeeze that in here the best we can. Who is our main character anyway, you ask? Well it is and has always been the word treffen … 
Treffen is not a hard word. Sure… it does have to main meanings to meet and to hit but they can easily be thought of as one and the same underlying idea. Not so easy you say? Well one needs to think German to learn German so let’s take a negative outlook on things…

• I missed my brother at the train station.

This can either mean that I did not meet him or that I did not hit him. So it seems like to miss is the opposite of either of the 2 verbs, to meet and to hit, and hence they are the same… or at least close enough .
Let’s do some examples.

• Ich treffe dich am Kinn.
• I hit you on the chin.

• Ich treffe dich am Brunnen.
• I meet you at the fountain.

• Thomas hat seinen Boss in Rom getroffen.
• Thomas met his boss in Rome.

• Thomas hat seinen Boss in den Magen getroffen.
• Thomas hit his boss in the stomach.

The context will make it clear, which treffen is intended. However, a statement like this will raise questions:

• Ich habe meinen Freund auf dem Schießplatz getroffen.
• I met/ hit my friend on the firing range.

Still people would assume it is to meet as the other option is just too serious for small talk. Anyway… treffen leaves ample opportunity for word play. Just imagine if there were only one word in English.

• I treffe my brother down south.

Droll, isn’t it?

So, what’s with the conflict treffen has to face? It is looming, don’t you worry, for soon, treffen will be confronted with one of the most viscous villains in language…
but first let’s have a look at a more abstract use of the word treffen or the part that means to hit to be precise. In German, you do not need a physical object to hit someone… you can also do it with an insult or with disrespectful behavior. Also events can hit someone in a more abstract sense. In those cases the English translations would be to hurt or maybe  to get to someone.

• Was du gesagt hast, hat mich sehr getroffen.
• It really hurt me, what you said.

• Der Tod seines Hamsters hat den kleinen Timmy sehr getroffen.
• The death of his hamster really got to little Timmy.

So whenever you read something that doesn’t really make perfect sense as to hit or to meet, maybe the main point is the injury or impact caused by the hit, that matters in that case.

And now we are ready for the big reveal… and actually treffen does not only have to deal with one super villain… it has to deal with 3 of them at the same time: grammar, structure and cases. GOD DAMN.
The following things only apply for the meeting-treffen. I am sure some of you have been wondering about the differences between the possible phrasings with treffen. There are basically 3.

• Ich treffe heute abend meinen Bruder.
• Ich treffe mich heute abend mit meinem Bruder.
• Ich und mein Bruder, wir treffen uns heute abend.

Let’s do one more group.

• Maria trifft heute ihren Freund.
• Maria trifft sich heute mit ihrem Freund.
• Maria und ihr Freund treffen sich heute.

So… what is the difference between just treffen and the reflexive sich treffen mit? Well… the essence of the 2 is the same. All 3 sentences in the examples above do convey the same information. But there is a difference in use. I would say, that in everyday speech sich treffen mit is WAY MORE USED. A possible reason is to avoid confusion with the hitting-treffen.

• Thomas trifft seinen Professor.

As I’ve said before, context would indicate that he meets his professor but the sentence does not make it 100% clear. The reflexive phrasing does.

•  Thomas trifft sich mit seinem Professor.

Translating this with to hit leads to the really stupid:

• Thomas hits himself with his professor.

So… sich treffen mit can only mean to meet and is thus more clear. Appart from that it does have a strong notion a planned event and all people were actively involved. If I treffe mich mit someone, we have agreed on that before. It was on purpose. If i just run into someone, that would be just treffen.

• Ich treffe meinen Professor in der Cafeteria.
• I meet my professor in the cafeteria (by chance).

• Ich treffe mich mit meinem Professor in der Cafeteria.
• I meet (with) my professor in the cafeteria (to discuss my thesis….  they are painting in his office)

So just treffen has a notion of “by chance” to it, while sich treffen mit is definitely always planned.
By the way… in German newspapers and radio news they sometimes avoid to use sich treffen mit. They replace it by the rather odd zusammenkommen mit.

• Beim Gipfel ist Angela Merkel mit dem Französischen Präsidenten zusammengekommen.
• At the summit Angela Merkel also met the French President.

I don’t really know why they do that. Maybe sich treffen is a bit too casual but … zusammenkommen is a really stupid word. Write it as 2 words and you get what couples try to achieve when having sex.

Anyway… so just treffen… meeting by chance… sich treffen mit … meeting on purpose. I have to say though, some people might use just treffen also for planned meetings so that is not a fixed rule. But sich treffen mit is definitely on purpose.
Now what’s with the third version:

• Wir treffen uns um 9.

So why is there this weird uns there?
If you use treffen, you ALWAYS have to have an object. You cannot just hit or meet without an object or person. This is different to English.

• We meet at 9.

is totally fine.

• Wir treffen um 9.

is not. We have to say what we treffen… either something, someone or ourselves.

• Wir treffen die Laterne mit dem Schneeball.
• We hit the lantern with the snowball.

• Wir treffen die Oma von Thomas.
• We meet Thomas’ granny.

• Wir treffen uns  vor der Bar.
• We meet in front of the bar.

As you can see, the uns of the last example is NOT translated. It is just their in German because grammar wants it. But it always wants it… also in questions.

• Wann können wir uns treffen?
• When can we meet?

The uns has to be there. Without it the phrase sounds really odd to a German. What??? What can we hit???
So to wrap this up let’s do one of those  constructions, that make German seem so difficult.

•  Haben Thomas schon mit seinem Professor gesprochen?
  Nein, aber er trifft sich mit ihm am Donnerstag

• Did Thomas speak with his professor yet.
  No, but he will meet him on Thursday.

We are almost done for today. But I still want to tell you some other situations where you encounter the word treffen.
The first things is this: for some reason, decisions are hit rather than made in German.

• Ich treffe eine Entscheidung
• I make a decision.

I don’t really know why that is, but it is a very very common phrasing and you should know it.
Vice versa there is one thing that is met in English but not getroffen in German… expectations and all related things, like specifications or demands. The German word for this version of to meet depends on the thing met, but erfüllen (fulfill) is probably a good choice most of the time.

• Die Facebookaktie konnte die Erwartungen nicht erfüllen.
• The Facebook share could not meet the high expectations.

And lastly here are some words that are based of treffen. Das Treffen is the meeting, treffend literally means hitting and the meaning is basically something like good, on point, appropriate or something like that:

• Das war eine treffende Analyse.
• That was an accurate analysis.

Adding -er to a verb usually makes it the person doing the verb, like Fahrer (the driver) or Käufer (the buyer). For treffen it is different. Der Treffer is not the Person but the hit or in sports the goal/basket.

• Team A wins the game by 5:3. 3 goals were scored by Smith.
• Team a gewinnt das Spiel mit 5 zu 3. 3 Treffer wurden von Smith gemacht.

And the last 2 words are a bit old fashioned… so if you use these, your German friends will be really impressed.
Trefflich would literally be something like hittingly …Leo translates it with  felicitous… a word I have never heard before but I think nicely does kind of do the job too.

• Über dieses Thema kann man trefflich streiten.
• One can argue nicely  about this subject. (lit.)
• This is quite a nice subject to discuss about.

The other word is das Hintertreffen. This is something you can see quite a bit in newspapers and books but it is really rarely used in everyday speech. The literal translation would be the rear/behind meeting… well it kind of shows the idea… if you are im Hintertreffen you are not quite on top of things. You are behind. The real deal is in the front, where you are not. Mostly it is used with the verb geraten.

• Ich gerate ins Hintertreffen.
• I am falling behind.

It is nothing to say in a marathon, but if you are competing for a promotion at work and your coworkers keep impressing your boss with their performance while you are stuck with that dragging project… you are clearly in the Hintertreffen. But if you use this word correctly, I am sure you will get astounded looks.

So… this was our word of the Day treffen. It can mean to hit and to meet and it has a slightly annoying grammar when it means to meet, but it is nothing too bad after all.
If you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you  next time.

Aftermath: The German girl did think Steve had a cute accent… … … Steve is going to be here quite often.

Word of the Day – “einstellen”

Hello everyone,

and a very warm welcome to our German Word of the Day. Why very warm you ask? Because, I like you all so much… and because it is SUMMER, it’s warm outside and I had the waitress put ice cubes in my beer…  Yes… I do that. I am that kind of person. I totally water down the oh so tasty German beer just for the sake of freshness… and now to take a first sip….
….ahhhhhhhhh….
….sooooo refreshing. Seriously… you should try it some time.
So… it looks like it’s going to be a great article today, and it’d better be because we are going to look at the meaning of:

einstellen (pron.: ine shtelln)

Now some of you may be asking themselves why they should read stuff of a guy who wastes his introduction for pointless banter and who openly admits that he is drinking… alcohol while writing.
To those of you I say: fair enough. Go ahead and use a dictionary … here is einstellen at Pons.de and here at Leo.org… … …
So… everybody back? Great. Let’s start then.

The core of einstellen

Einstellen is one of those verbs that seem to have a million meanings. But it is not so bad after all… wait till we talk about anstellen. That one is a real monster. 
Einstellen can be boiled down to 2 main concepts and with a little mind bending even down to one. To get to this kernel of einstellen, let’s first look at the parts. The word consists of the prefix ein and the basic verb stellen. Ein when together with a verb usually carries the idea (and only the idea) of in(to)… .so it has nothing to do with the ein as in a.  Other example with ein would be einschlafen (to fall asleep) or einfallen, which was already a Word of the Day here.
The basic verb stellen …  well … in German there are basically 2 main ways to position stuff – stellen and legen. Stuff can be anything from solid physical object to entirely abstract things like … hmmm … uhm … an imaginary chair. Legen is to position something in a horizontal or at least comfortable, “low energy” position… a lot of times it translates to to lay… but not all the time of course. Stellen on the other hand is to position something in an upright or tense position… sort of… this is not the catch all explanation but the best I have. So for example I  stelle  my glass on the table. I could also legen it on the table but then the (still refreshingly cold) beer would damage my laptop. Other things you stellen in German are questions and an alarm.

• Darf ich dir eine Frage stellen?
• May I ask you a question?

• Ich muss mir einen Wecker stellen.
• I have to set an alarm.

In these examples, nothing is literally put in an upright position but you could justify the use of stellen by saying that there is some kind of some tension in both these cases. The question seeks an answer and the alarm will go off with a lot of noise. Legen would be way to cozy here… I hope you can follow me so far . So… Possible translations for stellen are to put, to set and to pose.
Based on these 2 parts, einstellen should mean something with the idea of  to put into something.  And all we have to do now, is to see what we can do with this . Piece of cake.

Meanings of “einstellen”

The first and most important meaning of einstellen is best described (not translated) by the word to adjust… . Let’s look at this in real live.

•  Thomas stellt seine Klimaanlage ein.
• Thomas adjusts/configurates/stets up his airconditioning.

• Maria stellt einen neuen Radiosender ein.
• Maria tunes in a new radio station. (lit.)

• Kannst du mir meinen Computer so einstellen, dass er nicht immer automatisch Updates runterlädt, sobald ich online bin.
• Could you set up my computer such that it won’t automatically download updates whenever I am online.

Whenever you adjust something so that it is “in tune” with something after, what you do in German is einstellen.
Interestingly, this can be also used for people.

• Stell dich daraufein, dass es morgen regnet.
• Attune yourself to that, that it will rain tomorrow. (lit.)
• Prepare yourself that it will rain tomorrow.

• Ach du bist ja schon da??? Ich war jetzt darauf eingestellt dich erst NACH dem Essen zu sehen.
• Oh you are here already??? I was thinking that I meet you AFTER diner.

• Um sich auf das Meeting einzustellen, hat Maria alle Akten gelesen.
• In order to prepare for the meeting, Maria has read all the files.

So if you einstellen yourself, you set your mind in a certain way. What is important to realize is that you need to say what you tune, so in this case you must say yourself. Otherwise it could be very well your alarm, that you set. Saying the myself, himself, etc make it clear… oh as we talk grammar already let’s not forget the preposition you need: auf… just like ich warte auf, you stellst dich ein auf…
This einstellen is used quite a lot, but what’s even more important is the corresponding noun… die Einstellung. If you are talking about a technical device, die Einstellungen are the settings. Check with your cell phone for example. But also people have Einstellungen. Germans are like really complicated machines here… (oh the stereotype)… we have a LOT of Einstellungen… Einstellungen about a certain question, Einstellungen towards other people but also general Einstellungen about life.

• Du bist immer pessimistisch. Das ist die falsche Einstellung.
• You are always pessimistic. That is the wrong  mind set.

• Meine Einstellung gegenüber Vegetariern hat sich geändert.
• My attitude towards vegetarians has changed.

• Thomas hat eine merkwürdige politische Einstellung.
• Thomas has a weird political opinion/view.

• Du musst deine Einstellung ändern, wenn du Erfolg haben willst.
• You have to change your attitude, if you want to get a job.

As you can see, there is not really one translation for Einstellung… attitude is quite close I would say, but still it doesn’t feel quite right in some situations. Think of Einstellung as the setting of something or someone and learn this word… it is used a lot in German.
So to wrap this up some sentence that our chancellor Merkel has been saying for a while…

•  Wir müssen uns auf eine längere Krise einstellen.
• We have to be ready for a long crisis.

God, did you feel that too? … this sudden whiff of bore… must have been this example with politics… well, that won’t happen again anytime soon. Now let’s look at the next meaning of einstellen but first I need to get me a new beer…

The next meaning of einstellen has a very limited range. It is simply to employ…  At first it might feel like it has nothing to do with the first meaning of einstellen but remember: the very core of the word, the main idea was to put into… if you employ someone you sort of put him or her into your company… or on your payroll if you will.

• Meine Unternehmen läuft super. Ich werde 3 neue Leute einstellen.
• My business is going great. I am going to employ 3 new people.

There really isn’t much to say here except maybe this: another possible translation for to employ is anstellen, but I don’t want to talk about the differences here because… you know… that whiff of bore from earlier was kind of intense. Imagine that as a tornado.

The third meaning of einstellen again feels like it has nothing to do with the one before… it is kind of like to show up.

• Die ersten Gäste haben sich gegen um 8 eingestellt.
• The first guest showed up around 8.

Now to show up doesn’t REALLY nail it, as this einstellen has a slow edge to itself… guests “trickle in” one by one. So if you just get to the train station, einstellen wouldn’t really fit.
And does it fit the core of einstellen? Yes it does. Why? Because, showing up someplace means to “put your body” there…
This einstellen however is not that much used… so as long as you understand it, it’s enough.

So.. now we have already reached the meaning of einstellen that is REALLY out there… and this meaning is… to stop. Damn.
Einstellen can mean to stop but it is a very special part of to stop only. First of all, einstellen is NOT the stop of stopping a moving object. You cannot einstellen a car or a thieve.  Think of einstellen as to cease or  to knock of. You can only  einstellen activities. But is there a difference between einstellen and aufhören (read up on aufhören here)?

Difference between einstellen and aufhören

Well there sure is and it sort of lies in the grammar. Aufhören goes very well with verbs so most of the time it is used in a zu-construction. Einstellen on the other hand goes along with things /nouns. It is not so easy to illustrate that in English but we’ll try nevertheless.

• I stop smoking.

Now what is smoking here? A dress of course…. badum tish…
Is it a verb or a noun based off of a verb? As far as I am concerned the answer is not important because it depends on the perspective. It will become obvious what I mean once we look at the German translations.

• Ich höre auf, zu rauchen.
• Ich stelle das Rauchen ein.

Both mean the same pretty much but in the first sentence we have rauchen as a verb while in the second it is a noun or a thing – the action of smoking. It is not possible to exchange aufhören and einstellen without altering the rest.

• Ich stelle ein, zu rauchen.
• Ich höre das Rauchen auf.

Both these sentences are wrong. So einstellen and aufhören have the same idea, but they differ in construction. You can ONLY einstellen things… nothing else. So you have to make your verb a thing first. This makes a sentence with einstellen pretty stiff in comparison to a phrase with aufhören. Why… because the latter has 2 verbs, and verbs make the language feel alive.
Aufhören is BY FAR the more used. Einstellen is actually really limited to certain situations. One of them you might have heard on a plane.

• Bitte stellen Sie das Rauchen ein.
• Please refrain from smoking/stop smoking.

They could very well also say:

• Bitte hören sie auf, zu rauchen.

Why do they use einstellen? Well… during all that welcome speech on the plane they tell you to fasten your seatbelt, put your seat in an upright position, shut of electronic devices and so forth… so basically they tell you to do things with stuff. A phrasing using zu with 2 verbs, like aufhören would be,  would totally stick out there and ruin the flow. And einstellen sounds a bit more official I guess.
2 other prominent examples with einstellen are these:

• Feuer einstellen!
• Cease fire!

• Die Serie wurde nach einer Staffel eingestellt.
• The show was canceled after one season.

Especially the first one is really stupid. If you are not aware of the meaning there is absolutely NO reason why you wouldn’t think that it actually means  start fire or adjust fire or set fire.
Anyway…bottom line: einstellen as to stop is really not very useful in every day life. It is enough to know that it can mean that.

But does this meaning of einstellen actually match the core we had? Remember… to put into… Well if you are REALLY open minded it does.
See… first of you have to think of to keep as from of foresighted from of putting… if you don’t put something out (which is to keep), you don’t have to put it back in. So to keep is equal to to put back and to put back is a special form of to put into, which was our core. So… now when you cease fire,you keep the bullets IN your gun. When you cancel a show, you keep it IN your network or the writers minds. If you stop smoking, you keep the nicotine IN the cigarette, and the cigarette IN the pack… and yet you are tense so stellen is totally adequate there… and tadah… there you go. Einstellen as to stop totally fits the core meaning… and I see we have a call here, Matthiew from New York, hi Matthiew, how are you doing:
“Hey Emanuel… look … I like your show a lot and so far this one was quite
interesting too although there weren’t as many jokes as usual BUT…. this last
thing you said was ABSOLUTELY RETARDED!”
Uhm… uh… what do you mean?
“Oh please… this whole explanation why einstellen as to stop is the same  like
 einstellen as to set… Do you seriously believe this nonsense… I mean come the fuck on!… ‘you’re keeping the smokes in the pack blah blah blah’…  what the
fuck were you thinking… are you drunk?”
Uhm… well a little but that has nothing to…
“Dude, do you even realize what bullshit you just dumped on air… ‘keeping
something is a foresighted form of putting it back’… for fuck’s sake … you really
have to cut back on the beer man. People trust you and believe the stuff you say
here.”
 Uhm … uh.. well uhm…
 ”No man… I am really disappointed in you… I think your Einstellung (attitude/mind set)
is totally wrong and if you go on like that the interNet-work will einstellen(stop/cancel)
your show sooner than you can einstellen (prepare/ adjust/set) yourself for it.”
Look Matthiew, I … uhm…
“No man… don’t say nothing… listen to this again, when you’re sober… for
shame Emanuel, for shame!!… (hangs up)”

Wow… I don’t really know what to say. See that’s what happens when you are live… ok… so… what now?… uhm… yeah… the grammar… einstellen is a separable verb and builds its past with haben.

• Ich habe mich auf Regen eingestellt.

To prevent confusion I need to say this: when you einstellen in the sense of your personal settings you often use it as an adjective…  you say that you ARE prepared for something. This is done with sein….

• Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt.
• I am prepared for love from head to foot.

It does look an awful lot like past but if a lady says that to you, it is present… very present… and to end this article with schmaltz, here is the famous Marlene Dietrich… enjoy

If you have questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment and I promise you, I will only moderately consume beer from now on
Hope you liked it and see you next time.

German Word of the Day – “der Zettel”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will take a quick look at the meaning of:

der Zettel (pron.: tsattle)

 Zettel is one of those words that I perceive to be purely Germanic… not very elegant, a bit harsh in sound and yet it has a certain degree of clumsiness to itself. So does it have an English relative that evolved from the same Germanic root? It does indeed… and this counterpart is…. schedule. Yes, schedule … trust me, I was as surprised as you are now but when you mumble both words it kind of shows. And what about the Germanic root? Well I was kind of blown away that Zettel and  schedule originate from the fancy Latin schedula, which meant small strip of papyrus.
Obviously the word schedule has very little to do with the origins but it still looks quite the same. The German Zettel has come quite a long way as far as the looks are concerned, but what about the meaning?

Well, Zettel is actually pretty close to the origins when it comes to meaning, so this is the point where we say good bye to schedule because it has nothing to do with the word Zettel. Great, a mere 200 words into the post we are already … behind schedule…. … …. tadah!!
No one is laughing? Ok fine… it’s not like I can’t dry this explanations till it totally blows… … …
Still nothing? No appreciation? Come ON!!! BLOW DRY!!! No?
Well that just tears it. There won’t be no pun never no more (whatever that actually means).

So… Zettel has kept the original meaning pretty much. A Zettel has the following characteristics. It is made of paper, it may or may not be a complete page (usually it is smaller), it may or may not be square shaped, it may or may not be used on one side and it won’t probably last long. So basically it is a piece of paper that you need to write down some information.
You are on the phone with someone and they are about to give you some address? You want to leave a little note on the fridge for your flatmate? Or you need to buy some things for your cake and you are to lazy to memorize the 4 items?
Zettel to the rescue. You don’t need a whole new white shiny page… you just need a piece of paper of any kind… a Zettel.

• Hast du mal einen Zettel?
• Do you have something to write on?

Zettel is used in a number of compound nouns.

• Ich habe vergessen, meinen Einkaufszettel mitzunehmen.
• I forgot to bring my shopping list.

• Ich habe mir einen Merkzettel für morgen geschrieben.
• I wrote a notepad for tomorrow.

• Für die Mathearbeit brauche ich einen Spickzettel.
• I need a cheat sheetfor the math quizz.

Spicken does not mean to cheat by the way. It is more like to peek. Anyway…  so a Zettel is a small piece of paper to write on… so just to make sure, a flyer with mostly dark colors won’t make for a proper Zettel.
Zettel isn’t very official. If someone was to falsify the theory of Einstein on some wrinkly Zettel that would be a bigger bang (no pun here… continue reading) than if he did it on a page of a spiral notebook… how lame. A Zettel would be really ‘in your face Einstein’.
Zettel is also often used in sense of note. It is actually a very good translation for note a lot of times.

• Ich habe dir einen Zettel auf deinen Schreibtisch gelegt.
• I left you a note on your desk.

• Kannst du mir einen Zettel schreiben?
• Could you write me a note?

The other translations for note would be Nachricht or Notiz and for the examples both would be weird… especially Nachricht, because Nachricht is really just the information. You can hardly leave a Nachricht on a table… you need to write it down first or record it and leave the cassette… uh… I just gave away that I was born in the 80s

So now that we know the meaning of Zettel... let’s enter the realm of the abstract. Behooooold…

A squared squirrel squinted at the squash court. How industrious. Clouds were there. Despite, counterclockwise would have been the better choice…

What’s that? You would like to know, what the fuck? Well that was just a little warm up to open your minds and hearts.
So the first abstract meaning of Zettel is Denkzettel. The literal translation would be think-note but it actually … a lesson. Not a lesson in school but a lesson someone is taught after doing something wrong. So if someone keeps parking in your spot and you have his car towed… that is a Denkzettel. Or you flatmate keeps drinking your milk, so one day you put some REALLY rotten milk there… that morning coffee will be a Denkzettel.
For some reason German do not simply give a Denkzettel to someone, they make them have it. The following phrasing is kind of fixed as it is and anything else would sound weird.

• Ich verpasse dir einen Denkzettel.
• I  make you have a think-note. (lit.)
• I teach you a lesson.

Go ahead, look up verpassen in the dictionary… you are sure in for an unpleasant surprise … guahhahahhahhahhaaa… that’s just what you deserve for not finding my puns funny.

Another abstract usage of Zettel is one I really like a lot. I don’t use it very much as in… never, but I still find it very figurative. The word I am talking about is the verb verzetteln or to be precise sich verzetteln. It really doesn’t have anything close to a translation…  ”getting confused due to too much input at a time” kind of goes there but when you check the different dictionaries you will get all kinds of translations. So lets just look at verzetteln itself… think of ver as the same ver as in verlaufen which means to lose your way and zetteln… well zetteln as a verb doesn’t exist but it feels like it could mean “work with notes”... so sich verzetteln is kind of getting lost or lose the big picture because of a whole lot of notes all around you. An example?

• Thomas hat sich mit seinen vielen kleinen Projekten verzettelt.
• Thomas got kind of lost with all his small projects.

It is really giving me a hard time to translate this to English but I think you got the idea.
The last word for today is anzetteln. The literal or better the figurative meaning is to put a note somewhere at a wall, but it actually means to start or to cause. But although it would be a good word its use is rather limited as it is only used in combination with a war, conflict, brawl or argument… I don’t know why.

• Thomas hat gestern in der Bar eine Schlägerei angezettelt.
• Thomas provoked a fight in the bar yesterday.

So anzetteln is nothing you would need in everyday life but at least you will understand it when you read it.

To wrap this up real quick, here is the grammar of Zettel. It is masculine and the plural is die Zettel, so no change there.

• Auf meinen Zetteln steht alles was ich wissen muss.
• On my notes there is everything I need to know.

And this example shows that, just like so many other words, Zettel will get an n in case 3 plural… Zettel gets n-ed… just like this post…. badum tish.
That was our German word of the Day, der Zettel – piece of paper to write on.
If you have questions or suggestions or a good translation for verzetteln, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.

Word of the Day – “vielleicht”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we might… have a look at the meaning of:

vielleicht (pron.: fee-luygt)

Vielleicht is a very very important word and whenever I learn a new language (god, that sounds like I do that every other month) it is one of the first ones I look up. The main English translation of vielleicht is … maybe.

• Heute abend gucke ich vielleicht eine DVD.
• Tonight I’ll maybe watch a DVD.

• “Kommst du zu meiner Party?”
  “Vielleicht.”
• “Are you gonna come to my party?”
  “Maybe.”

• Vielleicht gehe ich morgen schwimmen.
• Maybe I will go swimming tomorrow.

As you can see in the last example, vielleicht already counts as one position so the verb has to come after. Usually one position does answer to one question. For instance heute answers to when? For vielleicht things are not that obvious but still it is a valid answer to “how?” or simply “Will you do this?“. Anyway… vielleicht can very well open a sentence. Just note that the verb has to come after that. Now let’s get to the more interesting question and that question is…

What the hell are the Germans thinking?

Not every German might be aware of this, but vielleicht is a actually really  awk word… … … (they MUST find this funny… it’s just so clever… I mean come on… I’ll give them some more time to laugh) … … …
The English word maybe makes perfect sense as it is. Something may or may not be… hence maybe. Vielleicht however seems to consist of the 2 words viel and leicht. Viel means much, many and a lot and leicht means light and easy. So based on that vielleicht would be much-easily. And why does this mean maybe? It would make sense as probably or likely… but maybe? Really?
I have been wondering about this for a while and I was quite convinced that vielleicht actually has some Germanic root that has nothing to do with viel and leicht and that it just happened to look like that. But after reading this source I knew I was wrong. Vielleicht really does consist of those 2 words and back a few centuries ago it used to mean something like probably or easily.
So originally it was used to express that something was very likely to happen, but it has changed and nowadays it really means just maybe.
Why this change occurred, I have no idea, nor have I found anything online. As a matter of fact probably and maybe are both giving information about how certain something is, only the degree of certainty distinguishes the 2… getting from number 80 to number 40 won’t take too long as long as it’s on the same street.

One explanation for this shift of vielleicht could be that the Germans just were overly optimistic back in those days. Everything seemed to be easy and possible, and yet the harsh cruel world taught them lesson after lesson… “Oh this war won’t vielleicht (probably) last for 30 years, I am so sure.” , “Oh vielleicht (probably) this Black Death thing is not going to spread around too much, don’t worry”. Let down after let down hit them until the once hopeful and positive vielleicht had turned into a  mere nihilistic maybe.
 Another possible reason would be that the Germans just plain sucked at keeping promises. Imagine a knight telling his maiden that he will vielleicht return from war and marry her… 10 knights later the maiden still hangs around in her dad’s castle and vielleicht just doesn’t quite feel the same anymore..

“yes yes… sure Sir Knight, sure… you will “probably” marry me… I gotcha.”

Either way… those are just personal stupid theories. Vielleicht is a strange word for maybe but it is the only one we have… besides eventuell of course.

Eventuell is one of the falsetestest friends ever. It has taken me SO freakin’ LONG to realize that it isn’t eventually at all… but I did understand that eventually… see… I just proved it. I really did:).
The German eventuell means maybe and there is no real difference to vielleicht except eventuell isn’t really what a steel worker would say. So if you want to sound educated and business like, it might be a good choice.

• Schatz, ich muss eventuell heute Überstunden in der Ba.. äh… im Büro machen.
• Honey… Mabye I have to work extra hours today at the ba.. uhm office.

So… looks like we have some time left here today so I guess we’ll take some calls… If you want to be live on the show, dial 0800-151-Vocab-4-You, I’ll repeat … 0800-151-Vocab-4-You…  and we already have a first call here from … uhm … Cock Wash in Australia, hi Lachlan what can I do for you?
 ”Hi Emanuel, I just wanted to let you know that that joke o’ yours with the awk-word…  really wasn’t funny at all… nothing personal mate, just … don’t try please.”
Well thanks a lot man, I sure do appreciate critique. Our next call comes from Ontario Canada, hello Steve, how’s the weather over there… is it spring yet?
“Hi Emanuel, sure is…”
Cool, so what’s your question Steve?
“Ok so…  I have spent some time in Hamburg last summer and one day I was sitting with a German friend in a park when a woman with extremely long legs passed by. And my friend said something really strange:
‘Mann, die hat vielleicht Beine!’
I didn’t really catch on at first but later this sentence confused the crap out of me and still does. I mean… what does that mean ‘Maybe she has legs.’?
Is that like an ironical twist… like… she obviously HAS legs, she ‘GOT leg’ if you will,  and he said maybe just to be funny?”
Well Steve, that is actually a really good question, and I almost forgot about this meaning of vielleicht. Germans do use it sometimes to express that something was REALLY something. For example:

• Puh, die U-Bahn war heute vielleicht mal voll.

Literally that would mean:

• Gee, the metro was maybe full for once today.

But the actual meaning is

•  Gee, the metro was REALLY packed today, I tell ya’.

“Wow, that is pretty confusing.”
Yeah, I guess it is if you’re not native… I don’t know the reason why vielleicht is used that way. I don’t really perceive it to be an ironic statement as you suggested though… if someone says it, he or she sounds honestly impressed to me … without any sarcasm… but your theory does make sense nonetheless so if it helps to comprehend this meaning of vielleicht… why not.
“And is it like a very common thing to say?”
Well, that’s hard to say. Me personally, I barely say it… that’s why I forgot to think of it for this Word of the Day. But I think every German understands it without feeling strange about it so yeah… people talk that way.
“Cool, that cleared up a lot for me…”
Yeah well thank YOU for bringing that up man, that was really important to mention… and actually there is even a third meaning vielleicht can have…
“Oh damn…”
It is not really an entirely new idea but different enough I think… people use vielleicht also in sense of approximately or circa.

• Auf der Party waren vielleicht 20 Leute.
• There were about 20 people at the party.

In that case the vielleicht doesn’t mean that some certain 20 people may or may not have been there… it really just expresses that the exact number is unknown.
“Oh, but that is quite the same in English actually… .”
Oh is it? See, I wasn’t quite sure… so

• There were maybe 20 people at the party.

would be understood?
“Oh, definitely… people would say something like that using maybe…”
Ok cool, anyway… for those of you who’s mother tongue is not English… vielleicht can mean approximately too.
Well Steve, we’re at the end of the show now, but thank you so so much for your assistance…
“My pleasure… bye and thanks a lot.”

So… this was our German Word of the Day vielleicht. The main meaning is maybe, but it can also be used in sense of really to underline something or in sense of round about.
If you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time… vielleicht .

Word of the Day – “unheimlich”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day, and this time we will have a look at the meaning of:

unheimlich (pron.: oon huymligg)

Inspector Awesome was badly hungover. And that was well deserved. “One coffee please… and make it strong.” he said to the guy at the counter. “Do you mean just like a coffee or a Latte?” the guy asked. Inspector Awesome wanted to puke. ‘I’ll Latte your face, you hipster serving jerk’, he thought but he had enough composure to not show his contempt. “Just coffee, no milk thank you.”
Back in his office he sat down at his desk and started his daily routine of staring out the window. It was good coffee. He hadn’t had work in a while and slowly his savings were eaten up. ‘I need a job and I need one fast’ he thought, as he spotted the little paper on the floor. Someone must have slipped it under the door. Whoever had written this, he or she sure had a nice handwriting. Hoping for it to be a she, Awesome started to read…

“They say you’re the best. Prove it! Find out what this means.
Heimlich nachts in der Kirche sein ist unheimlich unheimlich.
It may or may not be German
It will be well worth your time if you succeed. But if not… … …!”

That was not exactly the job offer the inspector was waiting for but then again people have always had a tendency to deliver their assignments in weird ways.  After all, this would at least give him something to do so why the hell not.
He wrote ‘Ok.’ on the flip-side and then opened his door to throw it back into the hallway. And for a moment he felt like he was not alone there… maybe it was just his pounding headache.

Inspector Awesome had no idea what the phrase on that note was supposed to mean. He himself spoke 2 languages: English and Fist and so far he had been able to communicate his needs alright. But that shouldn’t be too much of a deal. As far as he knew, all languages originated from English so he just had to find the common roots.
And so he went to a place he hadn’t visited in a while… the library. After a couple of hours of being there and approximately 10 minutes of concentrated reading he had found out 2 things. The language of the note was indeed German and the very core of unheimlich was the word das Heim. Inspector Awesome started to take some joy in this case despite the fact that he had to… read.
Das Heim apparently had been derived of the English word home but the stupid Germans were not able to comprehend the full scope of home. So there were lots of situations where the English home does NOT translate to the German Heim but to something else… for example something  hause. Awesome hoped for someone to explain the difference between house and home to them at some point. As a matter of fact, Heim seemed to be part of a compound noun most of the time.

• Ich gehe heim.
• I am going home.

• Auf der Heimfahrt habe ich geschlafen.
• On the journey home I slept.

• Die Mannschaft hat Heimvorteil.
• The team has home advantage.

•  Meine Oma ist im Altenheim.
• My grandma is in the old peoples home.

Inspector Awesome tried to find a rule when Heim is appropriate but he couldn’t find any. All he came to realize was that it was strongly dependent on the region. In Berlin people go nach Hause and they are zu Hause  but somewhere else in Germany they go Heim and they are Daheim. But that didn’t matter after all. The core idea of Heim was home.

Lich was kind of interesting. It seemed to be a weird, deformed English -ly but  they just didn’t get  this one either. Instead of having some logic behind it they just randomly slap it to words . Adding -lich to a noun seemed to make that noun an adjective with the meaning like that thing. For example menschlich means human(ly) or sächlich means like a thing, a really funny way to say neuter. So with that logic applied the word  heimlich should be homelike… but this much inspector Awesome had learned already about German… it is not logical at all and you’re always in for a let down. This one was especially frustrating. German also had the words heimelig and heimisch. The former means homelike or cozy and it is not used very much and the latter means at home in the context of feelings or origin.

• Das Hotelzimmer war sehr heimelig.
• The hotel room was very cozy.

• Ich fühle mich in Paris sehr heimisch.
• I feel very “at home” in Paris.

Heimlich however, though of course related to those words has shifted in meaning. Based on what Inspector Awesome had read on the Web, this shift occurred around the time when the famous Frederic Curtain, after having spilled a bucket of water, hang up his carpet in front of his windows to dry. This invention soon spread and peoples home has become a private secluded space. Inspector Awesome could relate. He did a lot of things at home he wouldn’t do in public too… like walking around naked, burping openly or dance to 80s music.
So what one does at home behind the so called “Curtain’s” is mostly unknown to other people unless they are with you or you tell them… to your colleagues at work it is a secret. And this was very meaning of heimlich …  (in) secret or secretly  and people don’t associate home with it unless they consciously think about it.

•  Thomas trifft sich heimlich mit Sarah.
• Thomas secretly meets with Sarah.

• Mein heimlicher Lieblingsfilm ist ein bisschen peinlich.
• My secret favorite movie is a little embarrassing.

• Der kleine John liest heimlich unter der Decke ein Comic.
• The little John secretly reads a comic book under the blankets.

The inspector looked at the note.“Heimlich nachts in der Kirche sein ist unheimlich unheimlich.” Based on his investigation so far the first part was “Secretly … night …  church something something something.”  Awesome was content. He had progressed way faster than he had expected… by being in the library.

Now he needed some fresh air to think. It had already gotten dark. The heat of the day was still trapped in the buildings so it was not too cold. Inspector Awesome bought himself another coffee and started to wander around, his body through the slowly street canyons and parks, his mind through the land of language.
Now all that was missing to unheimlich was the prefix un. English has that too, so there is a good chance that German just copied it. With the limited vocabulary he had, inspector Awesome tried out some combinations to verify his theory that un basically means not. Ungesund is unhealthy, unwise is unklug, unrealistic is unrealistisch and unsexy is unsexy. It really seemed to be the same and unheimlich would be not in secret. But was it really? Secretly… night … church… not in secret not in secret… that just didn’t make sense. But the coffee had made him wide awake and creative. The Inspector decided to forget about heimlich for a second and go back to the beginning …home… home plus like plus not. Secretly … night … church … not like home not like home. That still seemed weird but not as contradictory. Being at a church does mean that you are not at home after all. And maybe Germans say it twice because they have no word for very or totally. So just as a wild guess it could be “Secretly being at church at night is totally not being at home.” That had some sense.
But still… something just didn’t add up.  This was just a stupid sentence. Why would anybody bother to even utter such a thing. Maybe he had overlooked something. He stopped and sat down on a bench in the little park he was in. It was unusually quiet, so quiet, that Inspector Awesome could hear the sizzling noise of his burning cigarette. A cloud veiled the moon and if not for the faint yellow light of a street lamp the park would have been pitch black. Inspector Awesome took another drag on his cigarette… sizzzzzzle… an owls howl disrupted the silence. ‘Now this really is not a place like home,’ the Inspector thought and then it struck him… THAT was the meaning. An eerie, uncanny somewhat creepy place like this one was not how you want your home to be, not homelike –  unheimlich. 

Inspector Awesome was happy. He hurried back to his office, ran up the 7 flights of stairs ready to write everything down when he saw the person… someone in a large dark coat  waiting in front of the door. Awesome reached for his gun, but then he realized it was a woman. And a pretty one at that. Awesome tried to hide his out-of-breathness. “Well good evening …” he said. The lady, she was probably about 35 years old, look at him surprised. “I am your … client,” she said.
Her voice was dark, full and yet very tender. It was the kind of voice, Awesome would have liked to say good morning to him.
“What is your name lady?” Awesome asked. She looked right into his eyes and said “Would it satisfy you to know that it is something like Lisa Lascious … detective?”
“That is ALL I need to know.” he said.
“So hon’… did you find out what I want to know?” she asked.
The inspector told her everything he had found out and ended his narration with a cool “… so yeah… piece o’ cake ‘mam. Unheimlich means uncanny or creepy.”
“You did indeed find out a lot… but what about the other meaning?” she said and gave him a look that made him feel like a little boy.
“What … what other meaning? ” he asked.
“Well then I will tell you… used as an adjective unheimlich does mean creepy or uncanny but German also use it as an adverb….”
“Ad-what?” Awesome asked. He really had had enough jargon for that day and wanted her to speak English. She looked slightly amused and continued her explanation.
“Forget adverb then… Germans use unheimlich in a different way too. It works pretty much like our very or so or incredibly. For example..

• The car is going really fast.
• Das Auto fährt unheimlich schnell.

• Der Film war unheimlich schlecht.
• The movie was incredibly bad.

or

• You are incredibly masculine.
• Du bist unheimlich männlich.

So… unheimlich is basically just to underline a statement.” the lady said.
“Ok… well that doesn’t make any sense to me. Why are they using this word for that?” Awesome asked.
“Oh detective, now you are disappointing me. It does make sense in 2 ways. You could argue that Germans really are creped out a bit by a bad movie or a fast car or a masculine man like … you. That theory would give the literal translation

• The movie was uncannily bad.

But you could also see unheimlich as the opposite of heimlich. The movie was bad and that is so overt and obvious, it is all but a secret. The literal translation in that case would be:

• The movie was ‘unsecretly’ /obviously bad.

Either way it is not so far away from a mere emphasizing very, don’t you think inspector?”
Inspector Awesome was confused. A part of him began to be incredibly bored by all that talk about language, but another part found it kind of sexy to have a womanly  woman like that  explain grammar and etymology to him while her eyes were telling a completely different story. He couldn’t think of a clever response so he just said: “Yes… ‘mam… “
She came closer so he could smell her perfume… it was vanilla, just what he liked best.
“So the sentence I gave you, inspector… what does it mean? Tell me.”
She was right in front of him right now. He couldn’t think straight anymore. Desperately he tried to remember the words of that stupid phrase, but she was impatient.
“It’s ok sweety, I guess I’ll just tell you…

•  Heimlich nachts in der Kirche sein ist unheimlich unheimlich.

means

• Secretly being in church at night is really creepy.” she said.

Awesome didn’t really care anymore; the salacious sound of her voice, her scent, her body right under her coat.
“You failed, inspector.” she said with a sudden harsh tone. “You failed!… but, you have failed sexily… DO ME inspector!”  She kissed him passionately and pushed him towards the office door. “Do me…!” They entered, her coat dropped on the floor revealing a perfect body in nothing but underwear. “Do me…!” she said again and pushed him to the table…
It took him a while to realize where he was, but then it all came back to him. He was in the library studying for the important German test the next day when he must have fallen asleep. What a crazy dream.
“Do me a favor young man and wake up… !”. The old library lady looked at him with concern.
“It’s ok… I am awake.” he mumbled.
“Thank god… you were so passed out, it was even a bit unheimlich. I was about to call a doctor.” she was obviously relieved.
“Oh no don’t worry… I just was unheimlich tired ‘mam. Sorry if I scared you. Are you closing?”
“Yes, it is past midnight already.” she said.
So Jim went home and although he hadn’t learned quite enough he knew one word for sure – unheimlich and he was certain, he would never forget it.

So… this was our Word of the Day. Thanks to Jan, who suggested this word in a comment.
Questions? Comment! Suggestions? Comment!  I am out for today .
I really hope you liked it and see you next time.

Word of the Day – ” der Vogel”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will look at the meaning of:

der Vogel (pron.: foe-gal)

After we dealt with the heavy ass her  last time, I promised you something light hearted, something to gracefully defy the ever dragging gravity of grammar, something to  escape the rocky landscape of structure in which only scarcely a full stop will grow, something  to gaily soar above the worrisome valleys where gender and cases thrive, wild and diverse, befogging even the brightest mind, something to blithely hang out on the highest branch of the big German oak tree, from where even the farthest verb can be seen, and … eventually shit on someones car… something like: a bird.

Exactly… der Vogel is the  German word for bird. And the reason to pick this is because it pecked first…
(they are not laughing yet, gotta wait for it to sink in… still nothing… hmm… I guess I’ll just go on as if this joke never happened)
So the reason to pick this is because German is using birds in A LOT of idiomatic expressions for some reason. Generally lots of idioms involve animals in some way but I think Vogelappears most frequently. So… we will look at some of those expressions today and we’ll start right away with the der Vogel itself.

If you call someone, a man that is, a Vogel, that is clearly an insult…

•  Was willst du denn du Vogel?
• Now what do YOU want, you weirdo?

• Thomas ist echt voll der Vogel.
• Thomas is a real idiot.

• Irgendein Vogel hat mich heute morgen um 5 angerufen.
• Some idiot called me this morning at 5.

When you add bunt the meaning changes. Bunt means colorful and a bunter Vogel is someone who is a little out there but not necessarily in a bad way.

• Thomas ist ein bunter Vogel.
• Thomas is an eccentric/an original/ a rare bird.

If you add komisch you get a weird bird… it is not as insulting as plain Vogel but still it is a bit negative.

• Das war echt ein komischer Vogel.
• That really was a strange guy.

Now let’s continue with the compounds.
Ein Vogelhaus is a bird house and ein Vogelnest is a birds nest, those are easy to guess but what about Spaßvogel… literally it means fun bird, but what is that supposed to be? Well, a Spaßvogel simply is … a joker… ok no that might be confusing to some… it is a person who cracks a lot of jokes…

• Thomas muss zu meiner Party kommen. Er ist ein echter Spaßvogel.
• Thomas has to come to my party. He is a real joker.

I was not able to dig up an explanation as to why we say Spaßvogel and not … Spaßkuh or Spaßpferd but it still is a rather widely used term. However I honestly have to say, that it has a bit of a sarcastic undertone to me… it is not all ironic in that all the jokes suck but still, I think it is not really flattering someone to call him or her Spaßvogel.

Similar to Spaßvogel is the word Pechvogel. Pech is misfortune or bad luck so a Pechvogel would be a bad luck bird… and it means unlucky fellow. If you lose your wallet, step in dog shit with both feet, get served stale beer and when you get home your partners mother just unpacks… then you are a Pechvogel. Hey by the way… bad luck bird does actually sound kind of catchy… especially abbreviated:

• Man my day sucked, lost my wallet, my bike got stolen and I flunked the test…
• BLB man, BLB…

Pechvogel is really widespread and it doesn’t sound sarcastic at all… even a bit emphatic.
As for the origin of this term, I have found something. Pech is actaully a black substance, in English tar pitch or pitch and this is the original meaning of Pech.
Now in medieval times they would use it to hunt birds. They would smear the Pech on branches and when a bird sat down there, it was stuck in Pech… hence it is a Pechvogel. Imagine the hunting party…

• “Behold my prince and look thither, that bird is all stuck now.”
• ” Yes, he won’t go anywhere… that imbecile .. thought he was in for some rye… but all he is for now is soup.”
• “Hahaha… indeed he’s got some serious tar pitch on his feet.”
• “Hahaha yes, tar pitch little bird, tar pitch I say.”

They were one funny folk back then… Sounds crazy but this is supposedly the reason why Pech nowadays means bad luck.

Anyway… there are more compounds and some also include specific birds. I don’t want to discuss all in detail but here is a short list of the ones I could think of… this is certainly not complete.

• Lockvogel – lure bird (lit.) – a decoy (if a person)
• Schluckspecht – gulp pecker (lit.) – person drinking lots of alcohol/boozer
• Schnapsdrossel – booze throstle – again: person drinking lots of booze
• Rabenmutter – raven mother – a bad mother, who doesn’t care about her kids too much- this is a heavy insult for a mother so be careful
• Dreckspatz - dirt sparrow – usually used for kids, when they come home dirty from the playground
• Bordsteinschwalbe – road curb swallow – a hooker
• Schwalbe – swallow – a dive in sports especially in soccer, this is the “official” term in German, the origin is probably because the flight looked so pretty

And now let’s get to the expressions with verbs… and prepare for some randomness right there .
The first expression is with the verb haben.

• Maria hat einen Vogel.
• Maria has a bird.

This can of course mean that Maria literally has a bird. But let’s look at in in some context:

• “Maria hat gestern ihrem Boss gesagt, dass er ein Idiot ist. Die hat echt einen Vogel.”

Seems kind of random to mention that she has a bird, doesn’t it… having a bird in German actually means to be a bit crazy… I mean having a sparrow living in your head WOULD be a bit distracting after all .

So if you have a bird, you are a bit crazy but what if you want to show it to someone? Well, you shouldn’t because that would be an insult.

• Der Mann im Auto neben mir zeigt mir einen Vogel.

Literally this means that the man in the car next to me is showing me a bird… conceded… if we are in BAD traffic and we are REALLY bored, this might be an actual bird but usually it means somethings else…. einen Vogel zeigen is the action of tapping your index finger at your forehead repeatedly to let the other person know that you think he or she is crazy. If you think to hard, this really doesn’t make any freaking sense. I mean you point at yourself after all and we’ve learned that Vogel all by it self is an insult… anyway… here is an example from business German.

• ” Heute ist so ein Vogel in mein Büro gekommen und hat nach einer Gehaltserhöhung gefragt.”
• “Und? Was hast du gemacht?”
• “Na ich hab’ ihm einen Vogel gezeigt natürlich… “

• “Today, some idiot came into my office and asked for a raise.”
• “So? What’d you do?”
• “Basically I told him to fuck off by gesture…”

The last idiom is rather brutal in the literal meaning as the bird gets shot.

• Thomas hat heute den Vogel abgeschossen.
• Thomas shot the bird today (lit.)

The origin of this is probably a marksmen competition of German shooting clubs. They would shoot at a wooden bird and whoever hit it was proclaimed the shooting king… this came with honor but often also with the obligation to pay everyones bill … so while being the best at something it is not all positive. And this is what den Vogel abschiessen is used for today. You do something extraordinary that no one has come close to but what you did was nothing to aim for in the first place.

• Marc hat heute den Vogel abgeschossen und 0 Punkte im Diktat… sogar der Name ist falsch.
• Marc has shot the bird today and has 0 points in the math quizz… even the name is wrong.

This example might be a little extreme and in newspapers you may find it also used in a non-sarcastic way… so someone really achieved something good. But to me it has a sarcastic notion by default and I find it odd to hear it in a positive way.

Now all that’s left is the grammar. The plural of der Vogel is die Vögel, and in plural case 3 we will have to add an extra  n… and this time this is BIG TIME FUN! Why you ask? Well… let’s first look at an example.

• Amy fliegt mit den Vögeln.
• Amy is flying with the birds.

So far nothing exciting, but what if I told you that vögeln as a verb means… to fuck… oh the pun-sibilities. Here is a compilation of sentences to say to your date and look at the reaction.

• Also… hast du auch so grosses Interesse an vögeln wie ich?
• So… do you also take such big interest in …birds like I do?

• Soll ich dir was von vögeln erzählen?
• Should I tell you something about …. birds?

• Ich verstehe viel von Vögeln.
• I am well versed with … birds.

And finally the classic

• Ich bin gut zu vögeln.
• I am nice to … birds.

And I thus conclude our Word of the Day: der Vogel. It means bird, but German uses it for sooo much more. If you have questions or suggestions just leave me a comment, and of course I’d like to read your success stories with the material I gave you … cross your fingers that I make it save through puberty, hope you liked it and see you next time.

German Word of the Day – “her”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will have a look at the meaning of:

her (pron.: hair)

Her is a very important word in German and people use it every day. It is not part of the top 100 most frequently used words by itself but it is part of so many compounds that it would certainly deserve a place on that list. Her is also a very confusing word and even advanced students of German often forget it entirely… it is not quite crucial if you just want to be understood, but a missing her is like a picture that hangs at an angle… it hangs and yet it can drive people crazy, especially because the problem could be solved with minimum effort… for the angled picture that is. I am sure that using her appropriately does take some effort if you’re not a native. So today we will look at this word and its mechanics. It won’t be so much about finding an actual translation… her is really more a concept, an idea most of the time, a free spirit, roaming your vast sentences at will, hooking up with all kinds of words for a quick menage, just to kiss them good bye as soon as you grab a dictionary… her… 3 letters short and yet powerful beyond compare, her has inspired people of all times who expressed their fascination by naming their noblest and strongest after her… her-o, Her-cules, Her-ry potter and Sup-her Man… and many many more…. and I see we have a call here, Martin from San Diego, Hi Martin, welcome to the show!
“Yeah hi, look …. can we start with the explanation already, I really have better to do than listen to you trying to be funny and su…”
Ooooh and the connection has died, what a pity… so I guess we’ll start.

As I said, it is better to think of her as an idea than as a translatable word. However there is a word in English that is pretty similar both in looks and in meaning and this word is… here. Now some of you may know here to be translated as hier in German. That is correct. Actually hier and her are brothers with different jobs. Hier means here, when you talk about a fixed location, and her means here when you talk about destination.

• Ich bin hier.
• I am here.

• Komm her!
• Come here!

 That is it’s core of her… it means here in sense of towards here. By the way… the 2 are not interchangeable ever!!!!

• Ich bin her.
• Komm hier!

These 2 sentences are just sooooo wrong, and the second one actually does mean something you really don’t wanne say in public… Let’s look at one other example.

• Gib das her!
• Give that here! (lit.)
• Give me that!

Now her does not always mean the real place you are at… it has kind of broadened and can be a very abstract to here at times. And as such it serves a VERY important purpose in German.

Her … the general gist

When Germans talk about location they make a STRONG distinction between moving at a place or to a place. Every verb of motion… i repeat… EVERY verb of motion can be done at a place or to a place. English only occasionally makes a difference and marks it.

• I run in the subway.
• I run into the subway.

In this example it is marked, but in the following it is not.

• There is a golf course. Thomas drives there.

There is no indication as to whether he drives to the golf course or at the golf course and you have to decide by context. Such situations DO NOT exist in German. You ALWAYS need an indication that the movement is TO a place… if that is missing, people will perceive whatever motion to be done AT the place, even if the context suggests otherwise.
There are many ways this indication can be done, for example prepositions or cases or … the word her. It serves as an indication that the motion (go, come, put, jump, throw, beam, give, …) is done TO a place as opposed to AT a place and the destination is here. And as I said before, this here can be very abstract.
Let’s look at some verbs. The first one is herleiten. Leiten means to guide and to conduct so herleiten would be “guide to here”. The actual meaning of herleiten is to deduce… you literally guide something unknown to here, where we all can see it. Another one like that would be herstellen. Now stellen for itself is to put so herstellen should be to put to here or in correct English to put here… that is one meaning of herstellen but another is … to produce. Herstellen is actually THE German word for to produce… it is kind of … well… a little dumb when you really think of it

• BMW stellt Autos her.
• BMW puts cars here (on the planet).
• BMW produces cars.

Funny…
Her doesn’t only come together with verbs… you can also see it with prepositions a lot without being aware it is there. Do you know the words rein, runter, rauf or raus? Well all these are actually short forms of heraus, herein, herunter and herauf. They serve as “names” for places.

• Das Wetter ist schön. Deshalb gehe ich raus.
• The weather is good. That’s why I go outside.

Remember… just saying outside in German won’t  be enough. You want to express that you go TO a place so you need to indicate that and a simple way is her. Now especially with these words her has lost the notion of here pretty much… it merely does indicate that the motion is TO a place and not AT a place. So in return that means that “Ich bin rein” isn’t really proper. You can’t say “I am to a place.” just like this.
So… to stress it again… the very core of her is here in sense of to here and it can be very very abstract or subtle.
And now I am sure, that a lot of you thought her was from, because in language class you learn this:

• Where do you come from.
• Woher kommst du?/Wo kommst du her?

That is the paradox of her…  beware

The paradox of “her”

To clarify this we need to look at how Germans ask for locations.
Generally you can be at a place, you can move to a place and you can come from a place. Each possibility has its own question in German.

• Wo bist du?
• Where are you?

• Woher kommst du?
• Where do you come from?

• Wohin gehst du?
• Where do you go (to)?

As you can see, the her is part of the question that asks for…  an origin. Now isn’t that the total opposite of what I told you before????? Haven’t I clearly said that her means here in sense of to here… and isn’t that clearly a destination and NO origin???? Doesn’t the example clearly imply that her means from??? Untangling this might require some brain yoga but I am sure you are up to it, but oh I see we have another call here, Meena from India, what can I do for you?

” Hi Emanuel… I think I have an idea what you are going for and I’d like to try to explain it if that is ok…”
Well, sure why not. So go ahead.
“Great. Oh… I am nervous…  So… The question woher (from where) does ask for an origin, that is true. We have been told that her means to here, so if that is true too there seems to be a contradiction… but only on first sight. “Woher kommst du?” is asking for an origin. Her is indicating a destination so the answer to where to? is part of the question where from?…  it is her. That is not necessary but it is fine… because we are asking for an origin. Her just gives additional information on the destination, though very very vague… the from however does not exist in the German woher. It is there in meaning but technically it is missing.”
Ab-so-lutely … wow Meena, that was perfect. I couldn’t say it any better.
“Thank you … (laughs).”
In woher, the German equivalent of the question from where, there is no from but a kind of pointless to here instead. This becomes obvious, when you look at the other ways to ask from where in German. All are exactly the same and all valid and proper. One way is von wo?, which is actually the literal translation of from where.

• Von wo kommst du?
• From where do you come?

But there is also the combination of the 2:

• Von woher kommst du?

or similarly:

• Von wo kommst du her?

The literal translation of this is:

• From where do you come here?

And this shows it… the question word woher does actually not contain any from at all…from is missing but the idea is there anyway. Just like English leaves out to in “Where do you go to?” at times, German leaves out from in “Where do you come from?” and says an undefined to here instead. But at least this needs to be there as makes clear that we ask for about a movement TO a place and not AT a place. Wo can only ask for a fixed location.

• Wo gehst du?

This does NOT mean “Where do you go (to)?”. This means “At which location are you going?” as in you are walking around AT a place. Another example:

• Woher hast du deine Hose?

It means:

• From where do you have your pants?

But it is actually:

•  (Von) woher hast du deine Hose?

From is just missing in the German sentence. You could also ask:

• Von wo hast du deine Hose?

All these questions are asking for the same information… But one thing you cannot do… leave out her AND von.

• Wo hast du deine Hose

This is asking:

• Where are your pants NOW?

You are asking for a fixed location because that is all wo? can do. If you have movement TO a place from some other place, you need to indicate that.

In daily life her in woher does feel like from to a lot of people . It did to me too till I tried to deal with the paradox. You can of course think of her as from if that is easier for you but then you will have her as from at times and her as hereat others… avoiding this was the purpose of the this part. But now let’s go back to speaking reality a bit

“Her” in practice

So… her means here as in to here but here can be anywhere. It has broadened to be a general here. If you talk about the dress of a friend who is NOT there right now you can still ask woher she has it? It is not the here where you are… it is just indicating a direction. Her is used in a LOT of compounds. Depending on the perspective it can either be the her of woher, that is the one just indicating a movement to it’s present location or the actual here as in here. The best example is herkommen… this can either mean to originate (come from some place to here) or to come here.

• Wo kommt deine schlechte Laune her?
• From where does you bad mood originate? (kind of stupid example but I hope it helps)

• Meine Mutter kommt später noch her.
• My mom will come here later.

Other verbs with her are herstellen (put here/produce), herwerfen (throw here) or  herbringen (bring here). Her is also the very opposite of hin. A pendulum is swinging hin und her – side to side. Hin und her has become a fixed idiom for “movement” without any real progress… imagine you are planning a BBQ and you keep changing the person responsible for the grill. That would be an appropriate use of hin und her.

• Ich habe keine Lust auf so ein Hin und Her.
• I don’t like such see-saw.

Beside location her is also used in the time domain -  mainly in 2 occasions. The first one is this:

• Es ist 3 Jahre her, dass ich in Paris war.
• It’s been 3 years, that I was in Paris.

Based on what I have been preaching throughout the post this literally-literally means

• It is 3 years to here, that…

So generally “It has been x time, that…” translates to “Es ist x her, …”.

• Es ist lange her, dass ich richtig betrunken war.
• It is a long time, that I haven’t been really drunk.

The other occasion of her in the time domain is the word vorher.

• Ich gehe schlafen. Vorher putze ich mir die Zähne.
• I go to bed. First/before I brush my teeth.

• Ich muss meinen zur Arbeit aber vorher muss ich meine Brille finden.
• I have to go to work but first I have to find my glasses.

Literally-literally vorher would be before here. And that makes sense as soon as you look at here as a more general somewhere. … I mean to me it makes sense. Just as a side note… whenever you say first in sense of before that as in the examples, vorheris THE word to go for… Now… I think we are almost done but there is one thing I want to talk about.

“Her” … the free spirit

I said in the introduction that her is a free spirit, and that has a reason, because just like its antagonists hin, her can do its job at different positions in the sentence as soon as it is a question.

• Woher kommst du?
• Wo kommst du her?

Both questions mean the same and which is used depends solely on personal preference or flow. This has some important consequence though. The verb in the first question is kommen, the one in the second is herkommen. Why? Let’s look at the past.

• Woher bist du gekommen?
• Wo bist du hergekommen?

So… her is part of the ge-form,or the past participle for the nerds of you . If you were to look up the verb of the second sentence you have to look under h, because the verb is herkommen. However, both questions mean the same, because her has the exact same function in EITHER sentence. So as soon as you have one her in your sentence, you have someone to do the job of indicating to here (or origin if you can live with the confusion). So you don’t need a double her. You need exactly one. Where it is (verb or question word) is not important. As far as her goes this freedom is not such a big issue, but it is the same basic idea for hin and there is way more room for mistakes related to verbs. So just keep it in the back of your head.

Now all that is missing is a summary… her originally means here in sense of to here. From there is has broadened its meaning in that it is not the very here where you are. In combination with wo, woher, it does nothing but indicate that we are talking movement rather than fixed location. It seems that it means from but technically the from is missing in the question “Woher?”… just like you don’t need to in English to ask for a direction, you don’t need from in German, to indicate origin. Bottom line… her is more a function word as a translatable one.

So… tough one this time… this was our Word of the Day her. I will post this as it is but I am not so sure as to whether it is understandable so please give me some feedback if it is not and tell me the parts that sucked so I can improve them or accidentally make them suck even more.

I hope you liked it and see you next time with something less grammarlicious.