Spurred by this week's theme, I tried googling up pairs of our German words to see if that would lead me to a longer list of possible German "untranslatables". Here is a list I found in a scholarly paper.

befremdet, Betroffenheit, Dreiländereck, Erlebnis, Feierabend, Geborgenheit, Gemüt, gemütlich, Genuβmittel, Gesinnung, gründlich, Heirmat, Heimweh, Lied, Schadenfreude, schumunzeln, Sehnsucht, Strimmung, tüchtig, unheimlich, wandern, weltfremd, Wesen and perhaps Streicheleinheit

I know no German. Can any of our German scholars point out to us anything of interest in this list?

P.S. If you google up schadenfreude gemütlich you'll find that Wordcraft is the top hit.

Heirmat

I think this is a typo for Heimat 'home; homeland'. It's an interesting list, and I'm sure others will chime in. Heimweh 'homesickness' seems pretty straightforwardly translatable. I think when people speak of untranslatability, they're thinking more of connotations than meaning. This is the case with the infamous Brazilian Portuguese word saudade. Feierabend, which is literally the evening before a holiday, has pretty much the same impact as TGIF does to folks in the States. I remember one dictionary translating it as 'knocking off time'.

Froeschlein are there any unusual characters in what you are trying to type - something the software may be interpretting as an HTML instruction maybe? I notice that the one character that showed up in the last post was a "[" which would introduce an html instruction.

quote:

O r i g i n a l l y p o s t e d b y w o r d n e r d :
S p u r r e d b y t h i s w e e k ' s t h e m e , I t r i e d g o o g l i n g u p p a i r s o f o u r G e r m a n w o r d s t o s e e i f t h a t w o u l d l e a d m e t o a l o n g e r l i s t o f p o s s i b l e G e r m a n " u n t r a n s l a t a b l e s " . H e r e i s a l i s t I f o u n d i n a s c h o l a r l y p a p e r :

b e f r e m d e t , B e t r o f f e n h e i t , D r e i l ‰ n d e r e c k , E r l e b n i s , F e i e r a b e n d , G e b o r g e n h e i t , G e m ¸ t , g e m ¸ t l i c h , G e n u ≤ m i t t e l , G e s i n n u n g , g r ¸ n d l i c h , H e i r m a t , H e i m w e h , L i e d , S c h a d e n f r e u d e , s c h u m u n z e l n , S e h n s u c h t , S t r i m m u n g , t ¸ c h t i g , u n h e i m l i c h , w a n d e r n , w e l t f r e m d , W e s e n a n d p e r h a p s S t r e i c h e l e i n h e i t

I k n o w n o G e r m a n . C a n a n y o f o u r G e r m a n s c h o l a r s p o i n t o u t t o u s a n y t h i n g o f i n t e r e s t i n t h i s l i s t ?

I t h o u g h t y o u ' d n e v e r a s k . T a l k a b o u t a n o p e n i n v i t a t i o n . Y o u h a v e n o i d e a w h a t y o u h a v e l e t l o o s e h e r e , s o o n y o u r h e a d b e i t . H e r e g o e s ( o n e a t a t i m e ) :

b e f r e m d e t - - N o t r e a l l y t h a t u n t r a n s l a t a b l e : a l i e n a t e d , a s t o n i s h e d . T h e c o r e c o n c e p t h e r e i s " f r e m d " a l i e n , o t h e r , f o r e i g n

B e t r o f f e n h e i t - - e m b a r a s s m e n t w o r k s O K he r e ; there’s a shade of difference, but it’s fairly subtle.

D r e i l än d e r e c k - - t h r e e - c o u n t r y c o r n e r ; t h i s u s u a l l y m e a n s ( t h e r e a r e o t h e r 3 - c o u n t r y i n t e r s e c t i o n s ) t h e l o v e l y t r i a n g l e w h e r e G e r m a n y , A u s t r i a a n d t h e C z e c h R e p u b l i c c o n v e r g e a t t h e c o n f l u e n c e o f t h e D a n u b e ( D o n a u ) a n d I n n . I’ve actually stood there, and it’s amazing that the blue Danube and the (allegedly) green (really brown) Inn do not mix for as far as the eye can see: at the tip of Passau you look out at this straight green-brown line in the water virtually to the horizon.

E r l e b n i s - - l i t e r a l l y " e x p e r i e n c e " , s o m e t h i n g t h a t h a p p e n s t o y o u t h a t i s e m o t i o n a l l y n o n t r i v i a l

F e i e r e a b e n d - - b e e n t h e r e ( q . v . )

Geborgenheit — Officially “security”, but meaning everything’s all right, secure, OK, safe, secure, with even a side-flavor of cozy.

Gemüt — This is hard. The dictionaries cheerfully parse this as “mind, nature, disposition” and the problem is that it means all of these things at once — which English can’t express so succinctly and compactly.

gemütlich — see Gemütlichkeit

Genußmittel — As a translator, this drives me nuts. It’s such an easy concept, but English doesn’t have it. Here it is: things that taste good or make you feel good but that (usually) aren’t good for you. We’re talking here about tobacco, alcohol etc. usw. usf. The Genuß- prefix comes from geniessen, to like, enjoy, and -mittel is a common suffix for, well, ”thing” is a good translation, tho “agent” is the official one.

Skipping a few — topic is too big

Hei(r)mat — the ‘r’ must be a Tippfehlerteufel (typing error devil) — No problem here: homeland, but REALLLY strong.

Heimweh — That’s what we expats feel when we miss our native land; for me here in Costa Rica, it’s mostly Powell’s Bookstore in Portland.

Lied - How is this a problem?: song, with a poetic tinge

schumunzeln > schmunchzeln — Again not a problem: a wry grin, to grin wrily (wryly?)

Sehnsucht — “nostalgia”, no problem here. If you want to know the components, “sehnen” is “to long for” and -sucht” comes from to seek, look for, want desire and as a suffix usually means addiction, literally or metaphorically.

Strimmung > Stimmung — Again, the application is broader in German, but not enough to make it “untranslatable”: mood, state of mind

tüchtig — industrious, capable, competent

wandern — looks like “wander” and it is, but in German it means more like “to hike”. Germans are passionate walkers, and taking a stroll through the woods has a strong emotional “Heimat” (q.v.) component that we Amis can’t very well relate to.

weltfremd — impractical, literally “world-foreign”, i.e. not very related to reality, as in Dubya’s foreign policy (well, and everything else, too, come to think of it).

Wesen — This is one of those German concepts that means so much that it winds up meaning nothing — my opinion. It means, essence, being, nature — near as I can tell sugar doughnut as well. Like -mittel, it seems to be appended to some concepts just to round them out and give them more body, like Finanzwesen, finance.

Streicheleinheiten — (almost always in the plural, for reasons that will become obvious) — Saving the best for last. Come to think of it, the topic here is (at least potentially) so big that I’m gonna relegate it to a separate posting. Stay tuned ...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie,

Well that worked, after a fashion.

It looks like this groupware is allergic to "pastes" from Tex-Edit Plus, God knows why. The preceding post was cut/pasted from the same file, but opened in MS Word.

Sorry for all the junk posts.

Sehnsucht - also a damn fine album by Rammstein!

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Originally posted by BobHale:
Sehnsucht - also a damn fine album by Rammstein!

Incidentally I've always seen it translated and translated it as "longing" rather than nostalgia. Does it have the connotation of "longing for the past" that nostalgia does or can it be longing for anything that is essentially unattainable?

I think German may be my favorite language. While I know that English has more words (Thank you, Richard!), the Germans seem to capture some of the nuances more than we do, such as today's word of the day.

Froesschlein, how lucky are we to have you here?! BTW, our Asa lives in Portland and has the distinct privilege of being able to go to Powell's everyday! I agree about that bookstore. It is wonderful.

Froeschlein,

I've deleted your failed posts and tidied up somewhat the post that did make it through. I don't have the patience to go through it letter-by-letter to remove the extraneous spaces... I've also deleted the test thread you started. Glad you found out the reason for your problem!

Kalleh,

German is my favorite language too, and I agree 100% about its nuance-richness.

Another nifty thing is that German gives ordinary people permission to coin new words ad libitum. Where English has a phrase, German often has a single word.

One of my favorite examples of this is from a play I read in grad school, which had the word Kleinviehzuchtverband, Small Livestock Breeder's Association. (An interesting sidelight: in the English, you can't be sure whether it's the livestock, the breeder or the association that's small. Kind of like "pressure-sensitive label salesman" )

Thanks Arnie! Sorry for the mess.

BTW, I see that my previous post's sig is propinquitously appropriate to the body of the post.

I promised to write about Streicheleinheiten

This word is a great example of how German can poke fun at (& deflate) its own tendency to pomposity, by making up & using deliberately elaborate words. Think of Pentagonese, as in "entrenching tool" for "shovel", or bureaucratese, as in IBM's term, some years back, for "mouse": "pointing device".

It means, literally, stroke (or caress) units; 'streicheln' means to stroke gently or caress.

I first (and last) heard this word in a song, "Mir fehlen noch einige Streicheleinheiten" (I'm still missing out on some strokes) sung by Mary & Gordy in their movie "Mary & Gordy auf dem Lande" (Mary & Gordy out in the countryside). Back in the 70s, M&G were a very popular transvestite duo, putting on concerts and making a few movies. Professional transvestites have been popular in Germany, with no negative association such as you might find in the US.

Their particular shtick was to lip-synch parody popular songs of the time, dressing up like the singer being spoofed (Heino, Nana Mouskouri, Satchmo Armstrong, Carol Channing, etc.), but they also sang songs of their own in their own voices, usually funny, as in the song above, in which the singer is dressed in a skin-tight sheath with a piano keyboard running down one side of the body, which keyboard is "played" by his partner, who's wearing white gloves in a black outfit against a black backdrop, so that the hands seem to be floating disembodied independent entities. All the time, the singer is singing his/her complaint that s/he's not getting her fair share of stroking. Very funny, very effective, very sexy. This is one of our all-time fave films, but it's impossible to find anymore, which is a shame.

David

About Papierkrieg

For my money, "red tape" is a pretty good translation, and essentially equivalent, BTW, to the Spanish "papeleo".

The Catch-22 described in the original post is the core of the plot of "Der Hauptmann von Köpenick" (The Captain from Köpenick) by Carl Zuckmayer, one of Germany's best dramatists of the first half of the 20th century. He also wrote "The Song of Bernadette" and a fascinating autobiography "Als Wär's ein Stück von mir", which translates as "As if it were a part of me" -- but that misses the pun in the German, since "Stück" can also mean "play", and so "ein Stück von mir" can also mean "a play that I wrote".

Undigressing, this mustered-out captain arrives in the Berlin suburb of Köpenick and wants to find work, but he can't apply for a work permit unless he's a resident, and he can't get residency papers without showing that he's gainfully employed -- which requires a work permit, and so we're off and running. He finally decides, after several revolutions of this bureaucratic merry-go-round, to invade & take over city hall, so that he can issue himself his own papers.

The play is based on a true incident, and is a funny and effective sendup of the Prussian Beamtentum (bureaucracy).

quote:

Streicheleinheiten

Interesting word. One site I found on the Web defined it as "tender love and care" or TLC. Is that accurate?

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:

quote:

Streicheleinheiten

Interesting word. One site I found on the Web defined it as "tender love and care" or TLC. Is that accurate?

It's in the neighborhood, but to me, both it and "strokes" emphasize the psychological or caring aspect, whereas Streicheleinheiten can definitely be more literal and physical -- more like "I need a lover with a slooow hand".

David

Here's another untranslatable*: Sippenhaft -- Making all the members of a family liable for the crime(s) of a single member.

This is of course a favorite tactic of tyrannies -- and it disturbs me to see that in the US, parents have been having their homes and family cars confiscated by drug cops because their kid was selling weed in the basement or out of the car, without their knowledge. I'm waiting to hear about parents being incarcerated for not ratting on their kids -- with ignorance being no defence. There's a fine line between complicity and Sippenhaft. <flame off>

David

*Using a provisional rule-of-thumb (Faustregel) definition of "untranslatable" as "taking more than three words".

Interestingly, schadenfreude does translate exactly into Bulgarian although not, I think, into Russian (but then again, my Bulgarian is quite good and my Russian not so much. The Bulgarian term is pronounced "zloradstvu" but spelled "zloradstvo" and its etymology is from "zuhl," which means evil ("uh" is how I am transliterating the vowel which is pronounced like the one in "bull" and spelled in Bulgarian with the character Russians use as the tvyordiy zsnak), and "radost," which means joy. The use of zloradstvu in identical to that of schadenfreude.

And, of course, Schadenfreude translates exactly into English, too.