german words i wish existed in english
a messy and incomplete list
nachvollziehen (v.) -- to understand, but less empathetic. i.e. i see the steps that brought you to that conclusion, but i don't understand you.
doch (interj.) -- you're wrong and really it's the opposite of what you said. often said with a healthy dose of sass. i.e. "this isn't a good movie." "doch. (it is)"
frech (adj.) -- somewhere between naughty and sassy and silly. when you're being a bit of a brat, you're being frech.
dreist (adj.) -- audacious, but far more colloquial. when you have the goddamn audacity, you are dreist. i.e. to park that far over the line is dreist as hell
heimat (n.) -- home, but stronger. a home is wherever you have built a life, but heimat is where your roots are. heimat is where you feel pangs of nostalgia when you go to visit your family for christmas and see the shop at the corner.
weltschmerz (n.) -- literally 'world-pain'. the world sucks and sometimes you just sit and feel the pain of it all. that's weltschmerz.
existenzberechtigung (n.) -- the right to exist, often in a comedic context. i.e. pineapple on pizza has absolutely no existenzberechtigung.
fernweh (n.) -- literally 'far-ache'. the opposite of homesickness, the desire to go far away. i guess wanderlust is similar, but that is also a german word, and this is more painful and visceral
schweigen (v./n.) -- the act of not speaking. silence, but more deliberate. the palpable feeling that people are withholding their voice.
verschlimmbesserung (n.) -- when an update with the intention of making something better actually just made it worse. looking at you @staff
I would like to add
kaputtreparieren (to brake repair)
It's similar to verschlimmnessern, but usually used when something is a little broken, and by trying to repair it, it was actually made worse.
An example would be to have your phone die for good when you try to replace the screen that was cracked in one corner but otherwise working fine
I would also like to add schadenfreude —
Taking pleasure in the suffering of others
Ex: you’re breezing down the highway and the other lane is jammed and you’re like hahaha mfs you should’ve checked Waze before you left the house
This made me remember that I was greatly surprised when I noticed that the Spanish word "callar" (schweigen, in German) has no direct translation to English...
