The image is from www.svwp.svusd.org.
No surprises this week - kindergarten is a real classic and I'm sure you already knew it. No explanations required, except to say that I chose the term to celebrate the birth of my little daughter this Sunday.
The image is from www.svwp.svusd.org.
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Yes, don't wait for summer to get your wanderlust on - are you among those who are dreaming of escaping to warmer climes for a while in this dreary season? In German, Wanderlust is not an especially evocative word. It simply means "the joy of hiking." The English wanderlust, however, is a far more powerful sentiment - a strong urge or desire to travel. Judging by how often it is used as a movie or song title or as the motto of an event, it seems to have a very suggestive ring.
The image is from www.yoganonymous.com Let's stay in the kitchen for a while. Last week we had the knackwurst, this week we're looking at an important kitchen utensil - the colander. Both Russians and Poles use the German term Durchschlag. In both cases, the "kh" sound of "Durch" has disappeared and the word is pronounced "durshlag" instead of "durkhshlag." In Polish, the spelling is durszlag.
Apologies to my colleague Steffen Heieck - I forgot to mention last week that it was he who told me about nakki. The image is from www.900igr.net. The Knackwurst is an interesting case. It's not necessarily a highlight of German cuisine, but the fact that versions of its German name can be found in various countries shows that this sausage is apparently unique enough to find admirers everywhere. The above example is from Finland, where the Knackwurst is known as nakki (or knackkorv in Finno-Swedish). In Sweden they call it knackvurst, in Dutch knakworst and in English it's knackwurst or knockwurst. The name comes from the cracking sound these sausages make when you bite into them.
http://www.maalaistuotevataja.fi It took us Germans a long time to realize that our country has become a country of immigration. So foreign workers were referred to as Gastarbeiter ("guest worker(s)") instead of migrants for a long time. And it looks like the Germans are not the only ones who believe that most migrants will eventually "go home" again - in Russian, the German term has caught on in the form of гастарбайтер ("gastarbaiter"), with the stress on the last "a" instead of the first one.
The image is from www.uzkinoman.ru. My colleague Maren Heiber alerted me to a curios case of word migration: the Norwegians use vorspiel for "pre-party". In German, Vorspiel has several meanings (among which "sexual foreplay" features prominently), but it never means "pre-party". The Norwegians also use nachspiel, but more about this in a future post!
The image is from www.badlandso.page.tl. This German term, defined by Merriam-Webster as "politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives," seems to have been around in English since 1914. I suspect that English isn't the only foreign language that uses it. What amuses me is that English also uses the word realpolitikers for those engaging in this kind of politics - the German plural is Realpolitiker, and the plural "-s" sounds very funny to German ears.
The image is from genesismorocco.blogspot.com. With influenza season approaching fast, some of you might be thinking of getting a flu shot. Time to look at the Russian word for syringe, шприц (pronounced "shprits"). It comes from the German Spritze, with the only major difference in pronunciation being that the "e" that you can hear clearly at the end of the German word has disappeared in the Russian version. Now when you go for your flu shot, make sure that they use a new syringe, since "a drug addict's syringe is a possible source of infection," as this poster tells us.
The image is from www.vimeo.com. It's always great to have an Aha-Erlebnis (epiphany, light bulb moment) - and even better to provide other languages with just the right word for it! In the Netherlands and Flemish-speaking Belgium, the German term has taken root.
The image is from www.beautyloves.be. It's time for Danish again: the German expression Hab und Gut (all one's belongings or worldly goods) is used in Danish in the form of habengut, as is nicely illustrated by the logo of a coffee/beer/wine bar in Copenhagen's newest neighborhood, Ørestad.
The image is from www.habengut.dk. |
AboutThis is a blog about the traces German (my mother tongue) has left in other languages. Contributions from your language(s) are more than welcome! Mail me at b.priebe@aiic.net. Archives
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