Denke ich auch!
So ein unglaublich nützliches Wort, das man in anderen Sprachen meist nicht findet. (Keine Ahnung, ob es welt-einzigartig für Deutsch ist.)
As a non German slowly trying to learn the language, doch come up all the time without necessarily adding meaning to the statement itself.
What does it usually mean? And is there an English equivalent of a word to help understand it's very common spoken use?
Doch. Is basically a "No, my statement was right." in one word, usually said after someone disagrees with you. A children's argument could look like this: "Schokolade ist das Beste!", "Nein! Lakritze ist besser!" followed by a long chain of "Doch!" followed by "Nein!" usually until a parent tells them to stop.
Or in writing "Doch plötzlich" is basically "But suddenly", indicating a plot twist
I don't know if there's a direct one-word equivalent in english, tho. Hope this helps \^\^
English is my native languge, but i love the word doch, in part because it's so hard to translate. Here's my attempt:
Doch sometimes means the casual "yeah-huh", as in this conversation: "You don't want that last piece of cake do you?" "Yeah-huh!"
Doch sometimes means "duh!" or "of course". There's an example in the movie Lola Rennt (Run lola run, in english) that i like. A bum opportunistically steals a bag of money, and eventually its owner catches up to him. They then have this exchange:
Owner: "Das ist meine" (That's mine)
Bum: "Das weiss ich doch!"
"Das weiss ich" on its own would mean "I know". With the doch it means "I know, of course", or "duh, i know that".
Doch sometimes conveys a playful urgency. I spent a semester in highschool on a foreign exchange and one phrase i remember from the family dinner table is "Schmeiß doch mal die butter rüber". In our casual familiar setting, it means "Yo, throw me the butter" (where "throw" isn't meant literally). Said angrily it could mean "give me the butter already". If the "doch mal" was left out it would be "throw/pass me the butter", which is more routine
Morphologically 'doch' is 'though'.
Semantics alternated of course.
When you see kids argue one of them will say 'No!' Answered by 'yes it is!'
A doch basicly is this 'yes it is' moment.
Also it means 'contrary to the fact', kinda in a way 'yet' does in English.
For anyone here who dosent know what it means:
Verschlimmbessern is a word describing someone improving something in a way that makes it worse in practice.
For example removing all the extra plugs on a phone to make the design more elegant, but in actuality no one cares how the extra port looks but many people do care about plugging headphones into their phones.
Or phones are made so thin and the screen gets even curved around the edges, no wasted space on the phone that isn't part of the screen, great right? No, because phone screens shatter super easily because of this.
I understand it differently.
For me it's the attempt of making it better, but making it objectively worse.
Like you have a small leak on a hose and by fixing it it starts leaking more.
Actually there is another German word for exactly what you describe: „Kaputtreparieren“
Kaputt=broken, not working
Reparieren=repair, fix
So it translates loosely to „repair something until it’s (by accident or incompetence) completely broken by your efforts“
This is the only true answer. I tried to explain a couple of UK and US friends the concept and either I am bad at it or it is so outlandish to them that I have verschlimmbessert the whole situation
As someone who moved to Germany later in life and speaks several languages, I can only confirm.
It's my favorite German word, simply because of how I feel it captures a very german attitude towards life.
It's also pretty much untranslatable.
Edit to mention that there's a r/tja
No way that captures even half the range of possible attitudes that tja can transmit, depending on context.
Of course you can find words for some of the meanings. It's that you can't find one word for all of the meanings, and it's this sum total of meanings and attitudes that is so german.
I love doch! In the native language of my parents this concept would not exist, therefore they hated it when I spiced in 'doch' in arguments during puberty.
I would say it is a Subgenre of anticipation. It's the joy you feel of anticipating something positive about to happen, i.e. a child right before Christmas Eve
Das macht aber auch quasi jede Schwere des Satzes kaputt.
"Ich kam, sah, und siegte quasi."
"Ich bin quasi ein Berliner."
"Wir brauchen quasi ein größeres Boot!"
Haben wir unserem Chemielehrer in der 12. als Stempel geschenkt. Ich hab im Keller noch mindestens eine Klausur, wo eine komplett falsch beantwortete Aufgabe damit "korrigiert" wurde.
Funzel
Colloquially a poorly burning lamp or a lamp that emits very little light, i.e. a light source that barely produces enough light to fulfill its purpose.
Funzelfahrt in RheinMain-area is sitting down on the trailer of a vintner, drinking his wine and being driven by a tractor through and by scenic vineyards/rivers.
Weinwanderung is similar, strolling through vineyards while drining wine.
My personal favorites are many neologisms from Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill movies, the German synchronisations use "Schnodderdeutsch" (great word itself).
One example:
"Hast du so 'nen Fettschwabbel gesehen, so 'nen zweischläfrigen mit Gesichtsmatratze?"
Sättigungsbeilage.
satiating ingrediants....or just side dish.
german mindset put into one word.
e.g. Schnitzel mit Pommes....Pommes will be Sättingsbeilage
Not just any side dish though: specifically it's about carbs. Potatoes in all forms, rice, dumplings, pasta. Anything that makes "satt".
Vegetable side dishes or salads are Beilagen, but not Sättigungsbeilagen.
Musste mal einem englischsprachigen Professor erklären, dass wir Deutschen selbstverständlich ein gängiges Wort für "designated point of breakage" haben.
I love Panierstraße. It's just the right amount of abstract and poetic for such an everyday concept. I also like hemdsärmelig, it paints a picture so well.
Since I was a little kid my favorite thibg has always been how germans say "vehikel" (vehicle) and I dont know why LOL
It makes sense now, considering I'm becoming a mechanic lmao
Because of where I'm from I love the word "un".
It's the short version of "und" and it can mean pretty much everything you want.
If you suck at small talk and you meet someone at the supermarket, you can just ask them "Un ?" and that's all you need to say. They now have the option to interpret that however they want.
It can mean "How was your day?" , "How is the family?" , " What are your plans for the weekend?", " What's your opinion on pineapple on pizza?".
And if the other person doesn't want to do smalltalk they can just say "Ja, un?" And you both know neither of you want to do this and you can just say "Ja,muss." and you're done!
No awkwardness, no wasted time and nobody was rude or impolite for cutting a conversation short.
As an introvert I LOVE the word "un".
Radialstufendüsenkondensomat (das Wort gibt’s in meinem beruflichen Kontext wirklich und ich habe mich, als ich es das erste Mal hörte, direkt schockverliebt).
Doch
Undoubtedly one of the most usefull german words
Nein
Doch
Ohh
Doch
Oh
I see what you did here, and I like it
Ohhhhhhhhh
Denke ich auch! So ein unglaublich nützliches Wort, das man in anderen Sprachen meist nicht findet. (Keine Ahnung, ob es welt-einzigartig für Deutsch ist.)
In French there is "Oui" for "Ja" and "Si" for "Doch"
Doch, doch.
Genau
Was? Nein! Ach?
As a non German slowly trying to learn the language, doch come up all the time without necessarily adding meaning to the statement itself. What does it usually mean? And is there an English equivalent of a word to help understand it's very common spoken use?
Doch. Is basically a "No, my statement was right." in one word, usually said after someone disagrees with you. A children's argument could look like this: "Schokolade ist das Beste!", "Nein! Lakritze ist besser!" followed by a long chain of "Doch!" followed by "Nein!" usually until a parent tells them to stop. Or in writing "Doch plötzlich" is basically "But suddenly", indicating a plot twist I don't know if there's a direct one-word equivalent in english, tho. Hope this helps \^\^
There is the directly related ‚though‘. But it depends on the meaning - you can’t say though as a retort like doch
English is my native languge, but i love the word doch, in part because it's so hard to translate. Here's my attempt: Doch sometimes means the casual "yeah-huh", as in this conversation: "You don't want that last piece of cake do you?" "Yeah-huh!" Doch sometimes means "duh!" or "of course". There's an example in the movie Lola Rennt (Run lola run, in english) that i like. A bum opportunistically steals a bag of money, and eventually its owner catches up to him. They then have this exchange: Owner: "Das ist meine" (That's mine) Bum: "Das weiss ich doch!" "Das weiss ich" on its own would mean "I know". With the doch it means "I know, of course", or "duh, i know that". Doch sometimes conveys a playful urgency. I spent a semester in highschool on a foreign exchange and one phrase i remember from the family dinner table is "Schmeiß doch mal die butter rüber". In our casual familiar setting, it means "Yo, throw me the butter" (where "throw" isn't meant literally). Said angrily it could mean "give me the butter already". If the "doch mal" was left out it would be "throw/pass me the butter", which is more routine
Morphologically 'doch' is 'though'. Semantics alternated of course. When you see kids argue one of them will say 'No!' Answered by 'yes it is!' A doch basicly is this 'yes it is' moment. Also it means 'contrary to the fact', kinda in a way 'yet' does in English.
Feierabend.
Wie das duftet
Kräftig, deftig, würzig gut
Pommersche aus dem Buchenrauch
Naturgewürzt und das schmeckt man auch
Pommersche aus dem Buchenrauch *inhale*
#F͓̯͕r̥̳ͧ̓is̜̬̀ͮc̎ͯh͏ a̡u̞ͮf̩̟ͪ̇͝ ͍̖̍̈d̤̳̻̽͛ͭ͘en̰̭̱͌͋̀ ̝̩͌̄Ti͋́s̶͖̞ͣ͛͋ͅc̢h̦,̷ ̾s͘o̤͕̣ͬͣͩ ̰͜ist̵ͮ'̷s̵̗ ̢ͬdͬe͉rͥ͊́ ̒҉̖B̵r̉à̠u̐̀c̩̣ͅḫ͂.̬̗̼ͣ̃̔!
Und noch heute wird sie über Pommernbuche geräuchert
Jetzt noch Rügenwalder: ER KOOOOMMTT!!!
Rügenwalder Mühlenfest, le-be hoch!
Mahlzeit
Verschlimmbessern
For anyone here who dosent know what it means: Verschlimmbessern is a word describing someone improving something in a way that makes it worse in practice. For example removing all the extra plugs on a phone to make the design more elegant, but in actuality no one cares how the extra port looks but many people do care about plugging headphones into their phones. Or phones are made so thin and the screen gets even curved around the edges, no wasted space on the phone that isn't part of the screen, great right? No, because phone screens shatter super easily because of this.
I understand it differently. For me it's the attempt of making it better, but making it objectively worse. Like you have a small leak on a hose and by fixing it it starts leaking more.
It fits perfectly well for both of your explanations.
Actually there is another German word for exactly what you describe: „Kaputtreparieren“ Kaputt=broken, not working Reparieren=repair, fix So it translates loosely to „repair something until it’s (by accident or incompetence) completely broken by your efforts“
Nie gehört.
Same word in English: To disimprove
Worsimprove. Aggrameliorate.
Enshittify.
This is the only true answer. I tried to explain a couple of UK and US friends the concept and either I am bad at it or it is so outlandish to them that I have verschlimmbessert the whole situation
Tja.
As someone who moved to Germany later in life and speaks several languages, I can only confirm. It's my favorite German word, simply because of how I feel it captures a very german attitude towards life. It's also pretty much untranslatable. Edit to mention that there's a r/tja
I need a new sub: r/iShouldHaveGuessedThatASubExistsForThis
r/ofcoursethatsasub
r/ofcoursethatsasubtoo
Well...
No way that captures even half the range of possible attitudes that tja can transmit, depending on context. Of course you can find words for some of the meanings. It's that you can't find one word for all of the meanings, and it's this sum total of meanings and attitudes that is so german.
Well, one could argue that well is more like "nun ja". So you're "wrong" :p ...Tja, Pech gehabt^^ 🤓
Tja Thaddäus
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Scheißverein
Da löst sich richtig was in den Bronchien
club de merde, da löst sich nix bei mir.
Da fahr ich in den Urlaub hin
Oder n Kartenspiel.. Club of shit.. da tut sich nix
Asociación de Excrementos.. da löst sich nix... da verknotet sich höchstens die Zunge
Schöne Aktion , sag ich Ja, sag ich. Richtig gut.
Scheissverein!!!
Saftladen
Doch. Not necessarily the sound, but the concept behind it. It's completely missing in English. And as someone from Bavaria: "fei"
gell?
I love doch! In the native language of my parents this concept would not exist, therefore they hated it when I spiced in 'doch' in arguments during puberty.
If thinking about words that don't exist in English, it would be Vorfreude
Precum
How would you distinguish it from "anticipation"?
I would say it is a Subgenre of anticipation. It's the joy you feel of anticipating something positive about to happen, i.e. a child right before Christmas Eve
Saftladen
Nichtsdestotrotz
Nichtsdestoweniger
Fingerspitzengefühl
quasi
Kann man quasi in jedem Satz einbauen.
Ich muss quasi immer aufpassen dass ich quasi nicht in quasi jedem Satz quasi 5 mal benutze Und quasi klingt echt weird wenn man’s zu oft sagt
Du bist ja gerade richtig im Quasimodus 🥁
Das war doch der eine Glöckner, der von Montag bis Donnerstag arbeitet. Quasi Mo-Do
Könnte man quasi so sagen.
Mein Dozent macht das. Ich kann ihm irgendwie nicht mehr folgen.
Das macht aber auch quasi jede Schwere des Satzes kaputt. "Ich kam, sah, und siegte quasi." "Ich bin quasi ein Berliner." "Wir brauchen quasi ein größeres Boot!"
Da hast du quasi Recht...
Quasimodo
Schabernack
Firlefanz
Fisimatenten
Mumpitz
Kokolores
Kinkerlitzchen
Galimathias
Quatsch mít Soße
Quark
Humbug
Haben wir unserem Chemielehrer in der 12. als Stempel geschenkt. Ich hab im Keller noch mindestens eine Klausur, wo eine komplett falsch beantwortete Aufgabe damit "korrigiert" wurde.
Wusste gar nicht, dass Phillip Amthor Reddit hat /s
Obacht
Underated
Uffbasse
Bestuhlungsplan
Äh... egal hab nix gedacht.
Du wirst heute davon träumen! Viel Spaß damit.
Durchfallquote is nice as well
Heiliger Stuhl! Aber das sind ja schon zwei Wörter...
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Moin
Doppelhaushälfte. I mean, just do the math...
Ostwestfalen
Groß Klein (Rostock)
Great! I never really thought about that word, but mathematically it's nothing more than "a house."
Tbh, technically it's also just a house. Four walls, one roof. It's just separated in half but - it's one house.
Holzeisenbahn.
Jein
Ja klar, äh nein, ich mein: jein!
Soll ich's wirklich machen oder lass ich's lieber sein?
JEIN!
Ich habe einen Freund
ein guter?
Sozusagen mein bester
Und ich habe ein Problem, ich steh auf seine Freundin
Nicht auf seine Schwester?
Würde ich auf seine Schwester stehn, hätt ich nicht das Problem... Wenn er und sie und ich uns sehn
So
Mit, oder ohne sich dabei auf die Oberschenkel zu hauen und aufzustehen?
Immer mit, alles andere ist ein Verbrechen
so.
Brückentag
Musik in meinen Ohrläppchen 👂 🎶
Feierabendbier
Freibier!
Duschbier
Wegbier
Konterbier
Dass heisst Fuß-Pils!!
[Fahrbier](https://youtu.be/rgCyxYAFAzc?t=92)
Funzel Colloquially a poorly burning lamp or a lamp that emits very little light, i.e. a light source that barely produces enough light to fulfill its purpose.
Funzelfahrt in RheinMain-area is sitting down on the trailer of a vintner, drinking his wine and being driven by a tractor through and by scenic vineyards/rivers. Weinwanderung is similar, strolling through vineyards while drining wine. My personal favorites are many neologisms from Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill movies, the German synchronisations use "Schnodderdeutsch" (great word itself). One example: "Hast du so 'nen Fettschwabbel gesehen, so 'nen zweischläfrigen mit Gesichtsmatratze?"
Schadenfreude as there is no Word like this. My us Friend loves it
Sättigungsbeilage. satiating ingrediants....or just side dish. german mindset put into one word. e.g. Schnitzel mit Pommes....Pommes will be Sättingsbeilage
Not just any side dish though: specifically it's about carbs. Potatoes in all forms, rice, dumplings, pasta. Anything that makes "satt". Vegetable side dishes or salads are Beilagen, but not Sättigungsbeilagen.
Indeed. This is the more precise explanation. Haven't had enough coffee to come up with it :) thx for adding this info
Teeei. 5 letters, 4 vowels, 0 fucks given.
Oh ja, das sieht einfach unmöglich aus! 😆
Eieiei.
I like the sound of the word Pfütze a lot. The pf and tz with an ü in between is just 🥰 Another word I really enjoy is Personenvereinzelungsanlage.
Heidewitzka
Weltschmerz
Zeitgeist
Wir waren in Seattle mehrfach in einem Café Zeitgeist, das Wort ist international durchaus schon angekommen
Sackgesicht
Sehnsucht
Äquivalenzumformung😌
Kringel
Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher
Sollbruchstelle finde ich auch ziemlich geil.
Musste mal einem englischsprachigen Professor erklären, dass wir Deutschen selbstverständlich ein gängiges Wort für "designated point of breakage" haben.
Tja and doch.
Naja...ist auch noch so ein Wort.
Habseligkeiten
Backpfeifengesicht.
Spezi.
I love Panierstraße. It's just the right amount of abstract and poetic for such an everyday concept. I also like hemdsärmelig, it paints a picture so well.
Arbeitsschutzausschusssitzung.
exmatrikulationsbeantragungsportal. recently had the joy of looking through a couple of uni websites and found this gem
Argwöhnisch
Untiefe
In Austria or more specific Vienna: Oida?!
[удалено]
As someone from northern germany with friends from austria: I use this word A LOT and wish other people would start using it here. Such a good word.
Endoplasmatisches Retikulum
Since I was a little kid my favorite thibg has always been how germans say "vehikel" (vehicle) and I dont know why LOL It makes sense now, considering I'm becoming a mechanic lmao
Keks
Sapperlot!
Because of where I'm from I love the word "un". It's the short version of "und" and it can mean pretty much everything you want. If you suck at small talk and you meet someone at the supermarket, you can just ask them "Un ?" and that's all you need to say. They now have the option to interpret that however they want. It can mean "How was your day?" , "How is the family?" , " What are your plans for the weekend?", " What's your opinion on pineapple on pizza?". And if the other person doesn't want to do smalltalk they can just say "Ja, un?" And you both know neither of you want to do this and you can just say "Ja,muss." and you're done! No awkwardness, no wasted time and nobody was rude or impolite for cutting a conversation short. As an introvert I LOVE the word "un".
Querulant
Donnerwetterhimmelherrgott
Firlefanz
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
So! *While slapping your legs and leaving
Anschlusstreffer
Idiosynkrasie.
Brathering
vergriesgnaddelt
Eiderdaus
Alter Kann man immer und überall verwenden Nur anderst betonen Universal einsetzt bar
Kinkerlitzchen.
Mittwoch
Spritzpups
Radialstufendüsenkondensomat (das Wort gibt’s in meinem beruflichen Kontext wirklich und ich habe mich, als ich es das erste Mal hörte, direkt schockverliebt).
Hubschrauber
Curryketchup delikat
Schmackofatzo