
German expressions that don’t exist in English - LeonW
https://leowid.com/the-power-of-naming-what-we-feel-10-german-expressions-that-dont-exist-in-english-and-their-wisdom/
======
Hermel
No, these expressions exist in English, they just have a slightly different
meaning. And in the case of “Entwicklung”, the English pendant “Development”
even has the exact same origin: to unwrap or unfold (the opposite of
envelope). There certainly are German expressions that do not exist in
English, but this list does not do a good job at collecting them.

My personal impression is that German makes it easier to express abstract
impersonal goals and needs. For example, consider the word “Sachzwang” which
translates to “intrinsic necessity” - i.e. something that must be a certain
way to satisfy the naturally given constraints. This can for example be used
in the wonderful expression: sachzwangreduzierte Ehrlichkeit. (Reduced honesty
due to inherent constraints.)

Often, English has very elegant and short ways to express something similar,
in that case it could simply be “spin”, as in giving an article a political
spin. However, while “spin” is something done intentionally by someone (the
spin doctor, another nice expression), the German variant is passive and
implies that “die Sache” (roughly “the mission”) dictate the doctoring with
the truth. This again illustrates what I mean by German tending to more
abstract, impersonal goals.

~~~
georgeplusplus
I dislike when people say “this cannot be translated correctly into your
language” as it logically doesn’t make sense. perhaps they mean word for word?

I’m sure any language can conjure up a similar feeling and combination of
words. Maybe not a literal translation, but by virtue of being a human
construct, any language can be crafted and molded into anything.

~~~
missosoup
Some languages are inherently less expressive than others. English is not very
expressive and therefore a large number of words phrases and idioms don't have
an analogue that makes sense in english. Trying to reduce them to something
that makes sense is like trying to explain a joke. It defeats the purpose.

Anyone who speaks >1 languages is aware of this.

~~~
goto11
> Some languages are inherently less expressive than others. English is not
> very expressive...

I call bullshit. Do you have any justification for this claim?

~~~
missosoup
Yeah I speak 3 languages and all 3 have mutually exclusive constructs that
can't be translated while carrying over the 'true meaning'. English is by far
the least expressive of the 3.

A common example is slavic мат. A repertoire of profanities that simply have
no English translation, no equivalent, not even a meaningful loose
translation/explanation. The best you can do is find the nearest approximate
meaningful English construct, but it's a bit like projecting 3d space onto a
2d plane. You fundamentally lose information.

I'm not sure what you're calling bullshit on. The fact that not all languages
1:1 map to each other especially when some classes of languages have
fundamentally different constructs like gendered variants of every word, or
the fact that some languages are more or less expressive, or the fact that
English falls to the side of the less expressive scale. All 3 of these
statements are trivial to verify with a couple google searches without even
being a multilingual speaker.

~~~
jgwil2
This is an entirely subjective judgment on your part that you are advancing as
though it were a matter of fact. Have you considered the possibility that you
know English least well of your three languages, and that you are therefore
better able to express yourself in the other two? Also, please provide a
source for your "fact" that some languages are inherently more "expressive"
than others (whatever that means).

~~~
missosoup
I provided a trivial and concrete example: мат. English is inherently
incapable of expressing мат.

And English being my strongest language, I'd say no, I don't think it's
because I know it least well of the three.

Perhaps this is just something that doesn't make sense to people who only know
one language, but it self-evident to multilinguals.

If you want a source, click TFA - a list of German expressions that don't
exist in English. The discussion here on whether or not it's a great list, but
no one disagrees there are phrases that don't exist in English.

~~~
goto11
But that goes both ways. If we accept that "urspung" does not translate
directly to "origin", then obviously "origin" does not translate directly to
"ursprung" either. So I don't see how this proves one language is more
expressive than another?

Unless you can somehow prove that _any_ English word or phrase have a direct
German translation but not vice-versa.

------
camillomiller
As an Italian living in Germany, and as a lover of the German language, I
think this is not a good list. It reads like it was put together to fit the
author's approach to coaching. Entwicklung, indeed, is the best example of
this. It is exactly the same in English.

What's really fun about German: as a non native you can get to a point where
you create involuntary neologisms by putting together words you already know.
Surprisingly, Germans find it mostly funny and tend to understand well what
you mean, suggesting that there's an underlying plasticity to this language,
if you're __mutig __enough to play with it and its admittedly strict Grenzen.
I just cant 's wrap my head around the rule of writing every substantive with
a capital letter though, which I interpret as an annoying need to always
circumstantiate a purported objectivity of the perceived reality.

With some friends we started coming up with these neologisms on purpose. My
favorite one is "Sonnenschuld" or "Wetterschuld", which is that feeling you
get in Berlin when you have to work during the summer while the sun is shining
outside. You know you're doing the right thing, but at the same time you know
you're wasting a precious opportunity to enjoy a rather seldom occurrence.

~~~
distances
Interesting that you find beautiful days to be a rare occurrence in Berlin.
Perhaps because you're coming from Italy? I have the opposite attitude --
summer days are easier to spend inside in Berlin, as the weather is generally
very good and there's always another beautiful day coming!

~~~
camillomiller
What you describe is making Sonnenschuld worse, because you know you have to
take in as much sunny days as possible in the summer, preparing for the
depressing gray days of winter!

------
jasonjei
Doesn’t every language have such a thing? What makes German more exceptional
than English? Or Chinese more exceptional than English? I’m certain there are
expressions that don’t exist in every language, and even if you translated
them, they might not translate well due to cultural or linguistic issues (try
translating Monty Python to Chinese while keeping British wit and hoping your
average Chinese viewer understands the context of the humor).

This might sound overgeneralized but I think every language has its own
qualities. Most languages have evolved out of cultural needs (consider words
like “Internet,” “email,” and “texting”).

For example, Chinese has a word distinguishing language (e.g 英文, literally
English culture) and the language itself (英語, literally English language).
Most people in normal parlance would say 英文 over 英語 for English, because the
culture is inseparable from the language. That’s why Chinese speakers use -文
for languages over -語, such as 中文、英文、日文、西班牙文.

For the example of Entschuldigen or “apologize,” Chinese uses several
expressions such as 對不起、抱歉. In the case of 對不起 it literally means the speaker
cannot face the recipient, as in loss of face. Or another expression is
「不好意思」; this literally means “poor meaning or intentions.” Its English
equivalent is approximately “excuse me.”

I’m not trying to put down the value of the article. It’s highly intriguing. I
just find the exceptionalism a little off-putting when languages like Japanese
have similar constructs.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I guess what makes German more exceptional than English is the common wisdom
about the languages (common wisdom used here as something not necessarily wise
or even insightful but just a commonly understood thing that is maybe not even
enunciated very often).

The common wisdom has that English is a language that imports new concepts
from other languages as needed (which implies that these concepts somehow are
not English for having been imported), and the common wisdom of German is that
they have a word for that slightly messed up concept you just came up with in
it, also the habit of German of creating compounds gives the impression of a
language in which every concept can be found because there is a word
compounded of other words to describe it.

Both of these are illustrated by the importation of the word schadenfreude.

~~~
umanwizard
Have you ever studied German? It has an absolutely dizzying number of French
and/or Latin loanwords.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
yes (although I can't remember any of it now whenever I am there for about a
week I start being able to communicate when shopping I suppose if I spent a
month I might be doing better but I'm never there for more than a week at a
time), but anyway I'm talking about the popular conception of German from the
American/English perception and the self-perception of the English language
from the perception of English speakers. Which I thought was obvious?

~~~
umanwizard
Sorry, you are right. I misinterpreted your comment.

------
deng
These are good examples of what linguists call a "Volksetymologie", meaning a
usually wrong derivation of words which are no longer correctly understood or
have changed meaning. A popular example is when a German newspaper did one of
those stupid surveys for the "most beautiful German word", and the winner was
"Habseligkeiten". The cited reason was because it combines "Haben" (to have)
with "Selig" ("blessed"), the profane with the heavenly, but the real
etymology is actually different.

As is already mentioned here, the "-mut" in Wehmut does not mean "courage" but
is actually identical to the English "mood". I would also highly doubt his
interpretation of "Einsam". The suffix "-sam" usually means simply to having
something. "Liebenswürdig" is difficult, because "Liebe" means many things
(from simply "friendly" to modern romantic "love"), and "-würdig" is more in
terms of being adequate or appropriate. When you say "Er ist sehr
liebenswürdig", this does not mean that HE is worthy of love, but simply that
he is a friendly person, meaning he knows how to treat people properly. As was
also already mentioned here, "Entwicklung" and "development" are literally the
same, and the same goes for "Ursprung" and "origin".

There is also the simple fact that German allows for building compositions, so
what would be considered an expression in English can be one word in German
(like "Sinneswandel" for "change of mind"). But this does not mean that it
"does not exist".

As a German, the word I'm _really_ missing when speaking English is the simple
word "doch", which more or less means "No, but yeah". If you've ever watched
German kids in a "Nein! Doch!" match, you know how powerful that simple word
is. I think there was actually an article here some time ago that English used
to have this with "Yay" and "Nay" in addition to "Yes" and "No", but that this
got lost. Of course German is not unique in having "doch", most other roman
languages have it as well (the French have "Si", which in Italy is the normal
"Yes").

EDIT: Found the article:

[https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-part-of-
no-...](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-part-of-no-totally-
dont-you-understand?verso=true)

~~~
danans
> Of course German is not unique in having "doch", most other roman languages
> ...

Slightly off topic but from a historical linguistics perspective, German is
not a Romance language.

~~~
chrisdhoover
True but I read it as an error in writing not in understanding. It should read
something like “it is true in other languages including romance languages.” Or
something similar but a bit more elegant

------
skytreader
Me: Moved to Hamburg this year, has 320 days on Duolingo and finished an
actual beginner's German course so far.

I can only partially agree to the statements made in this thread about the
quality of this list but I've been fascinated with German words that have no
English counterparts, at least not completely. My favorite one so far is
"Waldeinsamkeit"\--literally "forest soltitude" but the translation does not
capture the "calm, contemplative atmosphere amidst a beautiful setting"[1].
Before moving to Hamburg I used to camp a handful of times a year for
stargazing and I _feel_ that I understand this concept somehow.

On a more "Auslander" observation: when I moved in to Hamburg I was struck by
how early the city sleeps, how dark the streets are at night. Sure there are
streetlights[2] but for the second largest city in a European hub such as
Germany, they might as well be lighting a residential village! For my
connotation of a metropolitan area, Hamburg at night just ain't cutting it.

Until, I learned about "Waldeinsamkeit". Again this is probably just the
Auslander talking but I have since thought that Waldeinsamkeit is the
philosophy behind Hamburg's urban design. They may have urbanized for 20th
century living but, if I may be poetic, they still want that beautiful
serenity of darkness.

[1] [https://blogs.transparent.com/german/untranslatable-
german-w...](https://blogs.transparent.com/german/untranslatable-german-words-
waldeinsamkeit/) [2] though there are nooks and crannies in Hamburg that are
notably really dark, sometimes only lighted by the apartments along the
street.

~~~
jablan
Fellow Hamburg immigrant here. I admire your optimism and the will to perceive
an intention behind the darkness (which was also one of my first impressions
of Hamburg). Unfortunately, I don't see it that way, but more as general
unfriendliness of the city towards a random individual. Other things in the
same vain that I noticed (coming from the Balkans, if important) are: very few
overhangs that the buildings offer as means of shade from the rain - often
there is no place for a pedestrian to shelter from the rain, which is absurd
with amount of wet days Hamburg has. Another thing that irks me is the lack of
public water taps. Such a basic and affordable civilization achievement - and
yet not a single one in a 2M city.

Of course, I adore and enjoy the city, these are just few things that I can't
really understand.

~~~
lispm
There is the concept of light pollution, Lichtverschmutzung. If a city is too
bright, you won't see the stars, animals would have difficulty to sleep,
etc... The city has areas which are lighted, but in other areas it's darker.
See the link to the Lichtkonzept I've put in another comment.

> public water taps

That's an interesting question. A few decades ago this was more common, but it
has been removed over the years. I think there is a fear of pollution and also
costs involved. There are only a few in the city:

[https://www.hamburgwasser.de/privatkunden/themen/trinkwasser...](https://www.hamburgwasser.de/privatkunden/themen/trinkwassersaeulen/)

The Aussenalster is a popular jogging training track and it has public water
there.

Currently there are plans of the local government to install hundred public
water taps in the city in the coming years and two hundred in schools. That's
already a movement in various other cities, too: Blue Communities.

------
a_bonobo
I've been struggling to find an equivalent for 'overengineered' in German -
there's verschlimmbessern, a portmanteu verb of 'verbessern' (improve) and
'schlimm' (bad), it's what you use when you want to improve something but the
end-product is worse.

However, German tech (to me!) has a overengineering problem, not a
verschlimmbessern problem, there's nothing being improved. Just look at modern
German cars, impossible to fix yourself, very expensive to have serviced, for
no real gain, pure overengineering. Is there a word?

(edit: there's an opposite for OP's 'Lebensmut' \- 'Lebensmüdigkeit',
literally 'tired of being alive', i.e. suicidal)

~~~
ema
We don't have a word for it because we don't see it as overengineering, we see
it simply as engineering ;)

On a more serious note, there is this idea that at their core systems are
about accepting inefficiency in order to gain consistency and simplicity. From
this perspective us Germans accept inefficiency for consistencies sake but not
for simplicity.

~~~
zmix
> We don't have a word for it because we don't see it as overengineering, we
> see it simply as engineering ;)

Haha! Yes, totally! No German engineer "overengineers". Ever! It's called
"refinement", "evolution" and "sophistication". There is no language to
criticise engineers in a nation dominated by engineers (and businesspeople).
;)

~~~
kaybe
There is no 'underengineer' either though, is there?

~~~
zmix
If one would really want to name the two terms in question, one might say:

* überentwickelt for overengineered (not really used)

* unterentwickelt for underdeveloped (matches the word, even)

 _" Unterentwickelt"_ is a term we do not use lightly, since it is a word we
often used in elementary school to bully some kids, so that has that smell to
it. (Usually you also add a howling sound to that word and give yourself a
smack on your forehead ;))

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
When it's not 'hochwertig' und 'langlebig', dann ist es 'Schrott'.

------
hapless
Most of these have close English equivalents, but as a second language
learner, the author does not have a large enough vocabulary to summon them
easily.

Learning a second language is not the same experience as being a native
speaker.

Having grown up without German in my life, I will never have the eloquence or
depth of vocabulary in German that I do in English. That's OK. It is the
nature of the human animal.

Knowing my limitations, I would be reluctant to write an article about
"English expressions that do not exist in German"

------
EastLondonCoder
Interestingly enough the words exists in Swedish as well, spelling is a bit
different but the meaning is more or less the same:

German -> Swedish

Wehmot -> vemod

Entwicklung -> utveckling

Einsam -> ensam

Stimmung -> stämmning

Entschuldigen -> ursäkta

Aufrichtigkeit -> uppriktighet

Lebensmut -> livsmod

Ursprung -> ursprung

Liebenswürdig -> älskvärd

Note that Sinneswandel is missing not sure if there is a direct translation in
Swedish

~~~
deaddodo
I mean, technically you can do this in English as well. English is a Germanic
language and compound words are fully legitimate in the language. The
following don't exist in the colloquialisms or formal records of the language,
but are grammatically correct:

    
    
      Wehmot -> sorecourage
      Einsam -> onepeace
      Stimmung -> innervoice
      Lebensmut -> lifegrit
      Liebenswürdig -> loveworthy
    

And, despite the author's claims, many do have direct equivalent words in
English:

    
    
      Ursprung -> outspring
      Aufrichtigkeit -> uprightness
      Entwicklung -> unwrapping
      Entschuldigen -> unguilt
    

All of which could be used in the manner described in the article. As well as
having accurate one-word synonyms:

    
    
      outspring: origin / original
      uprightness: compunction
      unwrapping: developing, delving, growth
      unguilt: unburden
    

The main difference in the languages is that modern English (especially 20th
century on) has relied more on loanwords (another compound word) and
hyphenations to augment. Love-worthy, for instance:

[https://www.wordnik.com/words/love-
worthy](https://www.wordnik.com/words/love-worthy)

It's hard to count compound words as "words that don't exist in other
languages", honestly. Meanwhile, there are perfectly acceptable (compound or
not) words that actually give voice to something hard to describe in other
languages. Which is a far more interesting (IMHO) concept; such as
"schadenfreude" or, going the other way for many languages, "irony".

~~~
wirrbel
I am not convinced that Wehmut translates to sorecourage. The -mut ending
appears in other emotions as well, Sanftmut, Schwermut for example. I think it
relates to words like "Gemüt" and corresponds to "mood".

So

Soremood Softmood Heavymood

~~~
deaddodo
I took some liberties on a couple to try and capture the meaning of the German
word; "einsam" for instance would better translate into "onesome".

I'm also not a native speaker, so I could be completely off.

------
kenmendin
Although German language is full of great words, the expressions from the post
exist in other languages, even in my native tongue Turkish, which belongs to a
completely different language family.

However in Germany these expressions are regularly used on TV,press and
literature. They have become and are powerful building blocks of a German
speakers thoughts, giving them an advantage to think better.

~~~
limmeau
So while we're in the market for "words your language doesn't have" \-- any
recommendations for Turkish words you haven't seen in other languages?

~~~
kenmendin
I don't have a list of such expression handy. But there is one specific
feature of Turkish language which I find interesting and really smart.

Check these words:

At, aş, it, us, su, ev, er, te, ot, et, ar, ön, an, in, un, en,

Literally translated: horse, food, dog, intelligence, water, house,
man/soldier, far, grass, meat, honor, front, moment (time), shelter/cave,
flour, most/width,

Many important aspects of daily was are words as short as possible and have
survived thousand years of change and part of modern Turkish language. There
are also a large number of 3 letter words for further important things such as
ana (mother), soy (ancestry), boy (length/race), toy (young/unexperienced),
and (promise).

------
limmeau
While we're proposing useful words, may I humbly suggest two useful adverbs:

"fei" (Bavarian): in contrast to what I think you're assuming. "Des is fei da
letzte" \-- "This is the last one, and I think you thought there would be
more".

"als" (Allemannic/Suabian): something like "in the default case, which is also
frequent".

~~~
drfuchs
As an American, I observe that the Brits use “isn’t it” to express something
similar to “fei”. Example: “That’s the entrance, isn’t it?” seems to mean “You
thought that that is the exit, did you? You’re an idiot.” The closest we Yanks
have is the sarcastic “That’s an exit? Yeah, right.”

------
habet
"Entschuldigen" is a pretty fascinating verb, but not for the author's
reasons. It literally means to remove guilt from someone (not specifically
from oneself as the author states) and is kind of equivalent to "forgive".
Commonly it is misused in German: people say "ich entschuldige mich",
literally meaning they're removing their own guilt from theirselves and thus
forgiving theirselves, which is kind of impossible and not what's actually
meant. The right phrase would be "um Entschuldigung bitten" (to ask to be
excused) which actually is rarely used.

~~~
tom_mellior
> The right phrase would be

The right phrase, depending on your religion, is what people use in practice
(descriptivism), or what's listed in dictionary (prescriptivism). In this
case, the two happen to agree:
[https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/entschuldigen](https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/entschuldigen)
"jemanden wegen eines falschen Verhaltens o. Ä. um Verständnis, Nachsicht,
Verzeihung bitten", example: "sich förmlich, in aller Form entschuldigen"

I understand where you're coming from, but the ship has sailed. The word means
what it means _now_ , even if a literal historical reading indicates that it
might have meant something else at some point.

------
deanjones
Alternative title: "One language that has different close compounding rules
than another language has different compound nouns than that other language".

Auf Deutsch: Verscheidenzusammengesetztesgebotesprachen haben verscheide
zusammengesetztes Substantive.

~~~
allendoerfer
To the non-native speakers: "Verscheidenzusammengesetztesgebotesprachen" looks
long and German, but is not a German word. Maybe its parts were auto-
corrected.

~~~
deanjones
As that great Germanic comedian Mr Arnold Schwarzenegger might have said: "And
here are the jokes ..." :-)

~~~
allendoerfer
And I am sitting here, thinking you actually wanted to say, "verschiedene
Substantivzusammensetzungsrechtschreibverordnungen" lead to "verschieden
zusammengesetzte Substantive", while you were just making jokes. Silly me :-)

~~~
deanjones
Yes.

------
dschuetz
It is interesting indeed to unwrap the literal meaning of the composite words
in German.

I don't entirely agree on his proposition of the meaning of 'Stimmung' though.
It's not just 'the voice of the situation' but rather "state of
adjustment/tuning of emotions towards a situation". For instance when we
[Germans] say that the "Stimmung ist getrübt" it means that most people
involved have adjusted to a rather dampened mood for a particular situation.
They are then not just experiencing it in a bad way, but they are also
expressing their mood non-verbally.

------
WalterBright
They overlooked "hausfrauenpanzer":

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21894468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21894468)

~~~
jfk13
"Chelsea tractor" is a reasonable equivalent, I think.

~~~
chrisdhoover
Karen is the US version isn’t it?

~~~
jfk13
"Chelsea" in this case refers to a wealthy area of London, not a person's
name.

------
smitty1e
Here's a massively useful term, particularly in the case of watching the news:

Fremdschämen

See: [https://www.leo.org](https://www.leo.org) for good discussion.

~~~
watt
I think basically it means "cringe".

~~~
smitty1e
Oh no no no.

It's more the embarrassment one feels on behalf of some shameless piece of
work who really ought to silence themselves, yet somehow natters on.

~~~
umanwizard
Cringe can mean exactly that in English (although it also has slightly
different meanings).

------
jonnym1ll3r
"Wehmut" literally: 'The courage in feeling pain'.

This is powerful. I feel like this courageous curiosity has been the primary
virtue or trait that I've been exploring and aiming to cultivate more than any
other during the past couple of years.

As a non-German speaker I'd be interested how this relates to melancholy
(these to me feel like quite different emotional states).

~~~
steve1977
As a native German speaker, I wouldn't translate "mut" in Wehmut as courage.
Here it rather is the same as "mood" (and the English word has the same
roots). Like in "Anmut", "Dehmut", "Unmut" etc.

So Wehmut literally would be something like "woeful mood" and you could use it
more or less synonymous with melancholia (or nostalgia for example).

~~~
yokaze
To my (vague) knowledge, it is an word coined in romanticism to replace the
French-rooted word Nostalgie, Schwermut was coined for Melancholie. The
movement was fairly nationalistic and was unhappy with the dominance of French
in high culture at that time. So they went ahead and coined "German" words
were ones with French (or Latin) roots were used.

But please check/correct me on that, my memory might be betraying me here. Not
even sure about the source...

------
gherkinnn
Glück. All this talk about long compound words, when German gives the word
_Glück_. It can mean luck, joy, bliss, though it is so much more than the sum
of its possible translations. Hermann Hesse wrote a beautiful essay on this.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7rLsb3w8ZaM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7rLsb3w8ZaM)

------
kieckerjan
On a lighter note, one of my favorite German words is "Warmduscher", literally
"someone who takes hot showers", aka a wimp or a candy-ass.

Be aware that by using it you imply that you yourself only take cold showers
and you may get called out on that. (Of course I take cold showers so I feel
no compunction about using this word.)

~~~
ulfw
I hate that word. Signs of a machismo culture to imply only "real men" take
"cold showers"

------
goto11
It is funny to the see exoticization of the German language, even though
German is so close to English.

I think the author confuses etymology with meaning, and then uses wrong
etymologies (e.g. translating "mut" to "courage" rather then the literal
"mood") to arrive at some amazing "wisdom" in German.

Some of the words are exactly the same meaning as the English counterpart,
e.g. develop also means to unwrap. It just have a French origin rather than a
Germanic.

I think English is really the odd language here. Because so many English words
are loanwords from French or Latin, their origin or etymology is not as
apparent to English speakers.

(And of course the article sprinkles a bit of irrelevant neurobabble.)

------
branko_d
I'm not even German, but I know this...

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

 _Awesome YouTube channel, BTW. ;)_

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
> Kurzgesagt

That's not actually a German word. It's two words: "kurz gesagt" which is
literally "briefly said".

~~~
usr1106
Correct. It's an expression that a considerable amount of Germans would write
as a single word. Zusammen oder getrennt, composed or separate is one of the
most tricky questions in German orthography.

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cryptica
One key aspect of the English language is that the meaning of any word can
vary slightly in interpretation from person to person. Could breaking down
complex feelings into concrete components mislead the individual into thinking
that they're processing emotions in the exact same way as their neighbors? Or
is it self-fulfilling, that the language shapes the emotion?

In any case, I think all these compound words definitely make learning German
easier. It encourages one to adopt the mindset.

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LeonW
Another word someone brought up is "Geborgenheit", which translates to comfort
or security. Briefly researching the origin it, it seems to come from the
terminology around "Burg" (castle), and the feeling of safety and comfort we
feel when we're inside one. In my understanding it also has a considerable
amount of warmth next to the sense of safety and comfort. Overall, definitely
one of my favorite words that I think belongs on this list too!

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kenmendin
Geborgenheit: I always think this is a how a kid feels while sleeping on a
couch under a blanket along with loving parents at a warm home while it is
snowing outside.

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LeonW
I love this, realizing that we each have our own description and meaning of
the word stored in the memories we lived. Thanks for sharing!

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koonsolo
In Dutch we use more or less the same words, but for me the top word is
"wetenschap" (which is probably similar in German). Literally translated it's
"knowledgeship", which would be a better word for science.

You can believe things, and you can know things. Science is knowing things,
and what better word to describe that than "knowledgeship"?

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namibj
It's Wissenschaft.

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donjoe
My favourite German expression which doesn't exist in English is still
"Ohrwurm". It refers to a catchy song/tune stuck in someone's mind [1].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm)

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sagichmal
You linked to the literal English translation of it, which definitely exists?

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chmod775
The article also mentions it's a calque which emerged only recently.

So... 'yeah' to both of you.

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pseudalopex
The article suggests it isn't much older in German.

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sajithdilshan
I guess there are really better examples than this. One I've learened recently
is Torschlusspanik
([https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torschlusspanik](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torschlusspanik))

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cafard
Florence King once wrote that the word "Kinderfeindlichkeit" (dislike of
children) could not have an English equivalent, and was one reason she'd like
to live in Germany.

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umanwizard
How can it not have an English equivalent, when you literally wrote the
English equivalent right after it?

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anticensor
Schweigen, because English people did not reckon when to stop talking.

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superhuzza
Aufrichtigkeit – Sincerity/Honesty. Literally: To be in an upright posture

This sounds pretty similar to 'having a spine'. Its normally used for courage
or sticking up for your beliefs.

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jfk13
We can simply use "uprightness" for exactly that meaning in English, too. Or
"rectitude".

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schappim
Let’s not forget schadenfreude!

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tacomonstrous
Ah, but it _does_ have an equivalent in English: it's schadenfreude.

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schappim
Only because we fairly recently stole it!

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jjgreen
Not that recently, it's been used italiced and capitalised for a century, only
recently it's been properly absorbed by losing those decorations. In contrast,
the French absorb foreign words almost instantly, see the verb "liker" (to
like on Facebook) for example.

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schappim
Interesting, when I was a boy, my mother (who was a German Teacher), always
used it as an example of one of these great German words without a direct
translation. Back then it didn’t seem to be used in popular culture, now I
seem to hear it on a weekly basis!

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jjgreen
I definitely saw it in the English music paper, the New Musical Express, in
the late `70s (very Punk at the time), I remember having to look it up ...

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LargoLasskhyfv
Stadtneurotiker

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LargoLasskhyfv
Fahrvergnügen

