Have I mentioned how very, very excited I am to be moving to a place where they speak REAL GERMAN? Yeah yeah yeah, I know there’s an incomprehensible Bavarian dialect that lurks around, but when you’re not talking to drunk farmers, High German is the default language in Munich. High German, the German I know, love, and most importantly, UNDERSTAND. Yippee!
In honor of my impending return to German-land, I’d like to share a couple of my favorite German words and expressions. Perhaps you’ll even glimpse a bit of why I love this language so (although at the moment, I’m thinking my love for it is purely based on the fact that it’s not Swiss German). Apologies for any misspellings – it’s been years since I’ve actually written in German…
Arschgeweih – those ‘tribal’ lower-back tattoos (literally ‘ass antlers’)
Ohrwurm – a catchy song that gets stuck in your head (literally ‘ear worm’)
Vokuhila – mullet (short for ‘vorne kurz hinten lang’, or ‘short in the front long in the back’)
Kabelsalat – the snarl of cables under your computer desk, behind your entertainment center, or if you happen to be married to a computer engineer, all over your house (literally ‘cable salad’)
Schadenfreude – “Happiness at the misfortune of others? That IS German!” (I really wanted to link to the Avenue Q song here, but I couldn’t find a good video of it. It’s a catchy one.)
Here in the US South Arschgeweih are known as Tramp Stamps. Not as descriptive as ass antlers, but still pretty good.
How do the Germans come up with a neat sounding word like Schadenfreude and have it mean something so nasty?
Kabelsalat has got to be the best, all we nees is a Kabeldressing and we would have a nice Julie like lunch.
Congratulations to your move to Munich… a lovely region! Kabelsalat one of my favourites, too, but I also like “Handschuh” and “Zahnfleisch”. LOL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_German_origin
nice list
Congrats on going back to Germany. I have only been there once for a few days, but it was nice. I am going back to Norway on Wednesday!
Hungarians also have a phrase meaning the same as Schadenfreude. Took a gander at wikipedia and it turns out a lot of languages have a word for this! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude
I love Kabelsalat as well. Around my house I call it “pick that sh*t up before I yank it out of the wall and hack it to pieces.” 😉 When we moved, I literally found one garbage bags and two boxes full of cables and other odds and ends stashed away in the office. Why geeks hang onto this stuff, I will never know!
Yes, congrats on your move! But hey! That video was in English! Well, thank goodness so I could understand it 🙂
hey, I was just surfing by and wanted to say HELLO! funny blog…CHEERS, from Dublin..its wonderful over here…
Sorry I’m so late in commenting, I’ve been working on my blog (and taking care of a baby!). But, congratulations on the move, maybe we can meet up sometime now that you’ll only be 1.5 hours away!
Also, our landlord moved the satellite so we could get more English channels (very nice of him), but now the German channels are coming off a Swiss satellite so we get the Swiss commercials. I cannot understand anything these people are saying! Plus the Swiss have a really strange sense of humor. I totally understand why you’re glad to be moving to Germany!