German Language Trivia

1. The term Schadenfreude has crossed over into English and is now used to express a particular personal feeling. When would I experience Schadenfreude?

From Quiz Untranslatable German Words

Answer: Joy at the suffering of others

The compound word Schadenfreude is built from the German words Schaden (damage or harm) and Freude (joy) and expresses the malicious feeling of happiness when someone or something one doesn't like, suffers a failure or defeat. An example would be the joy one feels when a rival team loses a sporting contest. The term Gluckschmerz, from the German words for fortune and pain, has been invented to express the feeling of pain when a rival does well, although it apparently was not a true German word or a very recent one. Fremdschämen is feeling for the embarrassment of others, such as the feeling one has when a friend tells a joke that falls flat.

From Quiz German Surnames

Answer: grinding wheat into flour

Müller translates into English as "miller". Furthermore, in my experience, Americans of German descent whose name is Mueller sometimes have their last name pronounced "Miller".

From Quiz Animals in German

Answer: Die Giraffe

This could only be the giraffe out of my options. My other options were pig, rat and rabbit. The German translation of the description would be: 'Sie ist sehr groß und braun mit Punkten, hat schöne Augen, einen sehr langen Hals und lebt wild in Afrika.' In the German language, the feminine article 'die' is placed before giraffe, thus I described her as female.

From Quiz False Friends: German-English

Answer: consistent

Example: 'Diese Argumentation ist nicht ganz konsequent' - 'This line of argument is not altogether consistent (logical)'. Note, however, that 'die Konsequenz (pl. -en)' used as a countable noun does mean 'consequence'. The German for 'consequent' (adj.) is '(daraus) resultierend'.

From Quiz More Or Less Essential Bavarian

Answer: "Preiß" or "Breiß"

For historical reasons, Prussians and Bavarians never really got along. The small fact that the Kingdom of Prussia no longer exists does not stop Bavarians to keep thinking of it as the "enemy". Of course, this should not be taken too literally. Bavarians just have a peculiar sense of humor and do not take themselves too seriously. Otherwise it would be hard to explain how an oxymoron such as "Saupreiß, italienischer!" (roughly: "Darned Italian Prussian") could be genuinely meant as an offense. The Bavarian art of swearing is, however, a bottomless topic and could probably fill a subcategory of its own.

From Quiz Funny German Words For Another Person

Answer: Three loafs of cheese stacked atop each other

Literally, "Three-cheese-high", this saying has been in use since the 18th century. The etymology is not quite clear. It might be that loafs of cheese were indeed used to indicate the height of a child, but others presume it might come from the French "caisse", meaning "crate" or "box", so the child would have been "three crates high". I've only ever heard it used for boys, although you could probably use it for a girl as well. However, my primary association with the term is always a cheeky little five-year-old boy with red hair and freckles and a charming laugh.

From Quiz German Place Names

Answer: Deutschland

Österreich is the German name for Austria. I believe Aleman is Spanish for Germany, and Germania is to be found in the film "Gladiator," being the Latin name for Germany. The German word for German is Deutsch, of course.

From Quiz Fun with English-German Machine Translation

Answer: Although he is a hunter, he does not shoot does.

"Does", as in plural of "doe", confused the system, so despite the word being the last one in the sentence (indicating the object rather than the predicate), it was mistaken for a verb. The correct translation should be "Obwohl er Jäger ist, schießt er keine Hirschkühe". A note on the questions: I had to add an explanation of what the questions meant to each one, just in case they get picked up out of context for one of the challenges. Sorry for the repetitions.

From Quiz Windy Poems in German by James Kruess

Answer: Storm

That was easy, I guess. This is the first verse and an introduction. He -the poet- creates the picture of someone and a girl (Marie) sitting inside the house while the wind is wildly blowing. He now starts the story of the storm. A hurricane would be "Hurrikan", rain is "Regen" and fog is "Nebel" in German. Thankfully hurricanes are -until now- an absolute rarity in Germany. About James Krüss: James Krüss was born May 31, 1926 on the German island of Heligoland.

From Quiz More Peculiar German Expressions

Answer: Leviticus

"Jemandem die Leviten lesen" means to chew somebody out, usually in the form of a lecture. In case anybody doesn't know, "Leviticus" consists almost entirely of laws, rules and regulations.

From Quiz Peculiar German Expressions

Answer: A monkey's tooth

"Sich einen Affenzahn zulegen" means literally "to obtain a monkey's tooth", the meaning is "to drive very fast". It probably has to do with gear teeth and the fact that monkeys can move quickly. There are similar expressions with slightly different wording around as German is a language with strong regional dialects and idioms.

From Quiz Ivy's Basic German Language

Answer: sechzehn

A translation would be: "twenty two minus six is sixteen". Note the spelling of "sechzehn". There's no "s" on the end of the first part. (This reflects the pronunciation).

From Quiz False Friends

Answer: to get, to receive, to have

"Bekommen" (bekommt - bekam - hat bekommen) = to get, to receive, to have; to become = "werden" (wird - wurde - ist geworden). That's why a German native speaker might say in a restaurant "Can I become a steak?" instead of "I'd like to have a steak". You might even get the reply: "Never, I hope!" Pretty funny thing :)

From Quiz Translation: English into German

Answer: Ich wohne schon seit drei Jahren in Rostock.

1. With 'seit' use the present or preterite tense to render 'have been _____ ing' and 'had been ______ing' respectively. 2. In German adverbs and adverbial phrases occur in the order: time - manner - place (TMP), so here 'schon seit drei Jahren' precedes 'in Rostock'. (I hope you didn't opt for 'bin ... wohnend' as it's an excellent example of what is called 'Kauderwelsch' in German).

From Quiz German Modal Verbs

Answer: You don't have to go there.

müssen + negative - need not, not to have to. In speech 'mußt' would normally be stressed, often quite heavily, in this context.

From Quiz German Idiomatic Expressions

Answer: Any of these

You say "it's raining cats and dogs". However, in German, there are even stranger things that may fall from the sky ... such as threads, shoe-makers, and little badger-dogs ...

From Quiz Wie ist das Wetter?

Answer: Windig

Regnerisch is rainy, gewitter is a storm, and hegel is hail.

From Quiz German - Plurals of Some Common Nouns

Answer: Tage

Note also the essential greeting 'Guten Tag!'

From Quiz German Idioms and Sayings

Answer: 'like God in France'

'wie Gott in Frankreich'.

From Quiz The German Language

Answer: You have

From Quiz German 101

Answer: dream

From Quiz Untranslatable German Words

Answer: Improvements to something that make it worse

The German verb verschlimmbessern is derived from the words for bad/worse and better. Verschlimmbesserung, the corresponding noun, is an attempt to fix or improve something that leads to other more serious problems. It's a great word that expresses simply a fairly common occurrence in life that doesn't have an English equivalent. Verschlimmbesserung describes many of my DIY projects.

From Quiz Fun Q and A in German

Answer: Deutschland

The question is, "Where does Hans live?" Deutschland is Germany. Freitag is Friday, Tante is aunt, and elf is 11.

From Quiz German Surnames

Answer: blacksmith

Three other forms of the name Schmidt are also ranked high in the About.com list. Schmitt is ranked 24th, Schmid is ranked 26th, and Schmitz is ranked 28th, making this name perhaps the overall most common.

From Quiz Animals in German

Answer: Der Afrikanische Elefant

It is the African elephant. My other options were giraffe, horse and Asian elephant. The German translation of the description would be: 'Er ist riesig und grau, hat einen Rüssel und die größten Ohren aller Lebewesen.' In the German language, the masculine article 'der' is placed before elephant, thus I described him as male.

From Quiz False Friends: German-English

Answer: Hans is a student of Romance languages

The word can also refer to anyone specializing in Romance languages, not only students. In English the word 'Romanist' is rare, but when it is used it refers to extreme members of the High Church wing of the Anglican Church or to Roman Catholics. Note that 'der Romanist' is a weak noun, so except in the nom. sing. it ends in -en. The German for 'Roman' is 'der Römer' (pl. -) and for 'novelist' it is 'der Romanschriftsteller' (pl. -).

From Quiz Fun with English-German Machine Translation

Answer: Lead me to the lead mine.

This sentence is a little older (taken from another term paper I wrote two years ago), and by now "lead" (as in the metal) has been added to the dictionary of the MT tool. But back then, I couldn't for the life of me get "Bleigrube" or "Bleimine" as a translation for "lead mine". Correct translation: "Bringen [or führen] Sie mich zur Bleigrube."

From Quiz Windy Poems in German by James Kruess

Answer: In the desert

The storm is born in the "Morgenland" - you can translate this with orient- in the yellow desert sand. "In the field" would be "im Feld", "In Cologne" would be "in Köln" and "in the mountains" "im Gebirge" or "in den Bergen" More about James Krüss: In World War II he was evacuated from the island of Heligoland to places in Thuringia, and later to Saxony.

From Quiz More Peculiar German Expressions

Answer: To make an elephant out of a gnat

"Die Muecke zum Elefanten machen" would be quite some feat!

From Quiz Peculiar German Expressions

Answer: Otto Normalverbraucher

"Otto Ordinaryconsumer" comes from a 1948 movie.

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Last Updated Nov 23 2024 5:44 AM

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