A fun look at the origin and meaning of "ruhig" and why the sentence "Sei ruhig laut." actually makes sense. Also: die Ruhe and German for "Leave me alone!"
Words we'll learn:
ruhig, die Ruhe, still, leise,...
By: Emanuel|30 Comments| Updated:
February 17, 2026
Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of:
ruhig
Ruhigis the corresponding adjective to the German noun die Ruhe, which itself has its origins in the Germanic word rowo. And rowo has relatives in pretty much all other Germanic languages except one…
English.
Boooooooooh. For some reason all English words for Ruhe come from Latin: silence, quietness, peace, tranquility, calmness… heck. even rest and reposecan be explained via Latin. Now you are probably saying “Wow , how fascinating… “ and secretly you’re thinking “Wow, how not very interesting.” And trust me… I get it. I feel you. There are more interesting questions to talk about with ruhig. Like for example “What is the difference between ruhig, still and leise?” or “What the hell does the following nonsense mean?”
Du kannst ruhig laut sein.
Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
So let’s jump right in and take a look.
2 lessons per month are for free.
If you want more – why not become a member!
As a member, you can study as much as you want and find lots of information you won’t find anywhere else. Not in class, not in a textbook and not Duolingo or Youtube.
And you’ll have unimited access to all grammar practice tools, pronunciation practice and my writing correction tool.
World's best teacher of German words and grammar. Full Bio →
German Grammar • Vocabulary • Etymology
Word of the Day – “ruhig” - Key Questions
The core meaning is 'quiet' but it's very broad and cover ideas like 'peaceful', 'calm', 'still' or 'relaxed'. It generally means low activity or agitation. It's what you want to become when you meditate.
'Leise' is about low volume in the context of sound. 'Still' is no sound but can also cover no motion, like for instance 'still sitzen'. 'Ruhig' is the broadest one. If you want to tell someone to be quiet, you can use all three.
'Die Ruhe' is the noun (silence/peace/rest). 'Beruhigen' means to calm someone and needs an object — you can’t say 'Beruhige!' alone. The reflexive is common: - Beruhige dich! - Calm (yourself) down!
'Ruhig' can give permission or a friendly go-ahead. Like... 'feel free to do this.' but it sounds more inviting. Example: - Du kannst ruhig laut Musik hören. Die Nachbarn sind nicht da. - Don’t worry, you can listen to loud music. The neighbors aren’t here.
'Beunruhigen' = to worry (cause concern). 'Unruhig' = restless or nervous (the opposite of 'ruhig'). Example: - Das beunruhigt mich ein bisschen. - That worries me a bit.
Yeah, you’re right. That used to be one of my favorite German mistakes to make.
Stormi
I completely understood this: ” Until the age of 11 or 12, I had not realized that this is pronounced be- un – ruhigt…. I always read it beun (boyn) – ruhigt and I perceived it as a nice old fashioned German verb…”
My English parallel experience was with “dunno.” This word is used exclusively for writing dialog. Until about the age of 11, I read is as DUNN-oh (accent on first syllable) and that never made sense. As dialog, it ought to be spoken dohNOH. It is a verbalized contraction for “don’t know.”
Lovely article! Actually English does have a cognate with ‘Ruhe’ – ‘unruly’. Turns out the ‘ruly’ bit has nothing to do with ‘rule’ but is actually from the now outdated/dialectal ‘roo/ro/row’, which does indeed mean ‘peace’.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t really think of ‘feel free to’ as formal. We say it pretty constantly. I’d possibly even interpret it as every so slightly rude or at least dismissive – but that could be me being very British…
I actually had the opposite problem when I was in school. As a German you know to pronounce “ruhig” as kind of a mixture of “ruh” and “ich” but to fuse them together and understanding where the “h” must be placed and that there is an “g” in the end and no “ch” was difficult. The sound is “rui” followed by a soft “ch”. But the “i” is really short. So it almost sounds like “ruhch” with just a long “u” in the middle. Maybe just pitch your voice a bit before the “ch” and stay with a “u” that should be understandable.
Nice observation about the short “i”. It really is very short an not well articulated. The thing with the “ch” is that it needs to be the “high” ch… after “u” we usually use the “low” ch; the one from “doch”. When you follow up a “u” with the “high” ch you kind of automatically insert a sort of “i” or “ü” sound because your mouth has to get into position. So transitioning from “u” to a proper “high” ch should be enough.
Joel
As an ‘allowifier’ i think translating ruhig to something like, ‘yea cool’ also works.
Mach ruhig – yea that’s cool (with me), do it.
Anyways, dieses Internetseite gefahlt mir sehr. Es hilft mir jedemal, dass ich es lese. Nur seit 6 Monaten habe ich ‘seriously’ lernen sein.
Freut mich, dass dir der Blog hilft :). Und super, dass du auf Deutsch schreibst. Üben ist immer gut! Hier eine kleine Korrektur:
– Nur seit 6 Monaten habe ich “seriously” lernen sein.
Das ist ziemlich genau
– Only for 6 months have I been seriously studying.
But that doesn’t work at all in German. For 2 reasons… German doesn’t have/use the concept of “be doing”. In German you just “do”. And then, for actions that go on in the present you’d use the present tense. So
– I have been studying for 6 months…
translates to
– Ich lerne seit 6 Monaten…
I know it’s hard but try not to use these “have been doing” phrasings in German… “habe lernen sein” might be kind of hard to understand for someone who doesn’t know English very well. Just try to dumb down English
– “I am going” becomes “I go” – “I was sleeping” becomes “I have slept”
Yeah, but “habe gelernt” implies that you’re not doing it anymore. If you’re still learning then it’s
– Ich lerne
Attila the Hungarian
There’s a word in Hungarian that works like ruhig: “nyugodt” It has many variations, like “megnyugodni” (a verb with the same meaning as “sich beruhigen”), “nyugtalanít” (meaning the same as “beunruhigt”, formed from the adjective “nyugtalan” meaning “unruhig”), and there’s even “nyugodtan”, which corresponds to the particle-ruhig. If someonenasks permission from you, you can just answer “Nyugodtan!” to say that they can ‘ruhig’ do it.
While reading this article I have realized that there is a word “спокойный” in Russian, which matches meanings of “ruhig” pretty well. However, forms for adjective and adverb are slightly different. Here are several examples:
Веди себя спокойно! (adv.) – Be quiet! Спокойное (adj.) время. – Peaceful time. Ты можешь спокойно (adv.) пользоваться моим компьютером. – You can easily use my computer. (in sense of permission)
The last example is rather colloquial, but I think that it captures the flavoring sense of “ruhig”.
Damn, your comment made me realize that all my knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet has gone away … I thought I had it down :)
Alan
In English we have “rural” which also has connotations of quietness and peacefulness.
Glenn AWB (@glennwolf)
Ruhig is my favourite German word, I don’t know why! (Could be because I gravitate to more Germanic words, and like you said, all the words in English for this concept come from Latin)
You are right. I also like it a lot. Maybe it is because it really has this vibe of serenity, calm and peace to it. If I had to associate things with it I would think of a hill with a huge old tree and grass and little wind and a nightingale, maybe. The other German words for this have a more mundane feel…. to me at least. I think of “still” and I think “no sound”, I think of “leise” and I think of “little to no sound” but “ruhig” has this notion of not just quiet outside but also inner peace. As for English, I like “calm” the best of the 3 main ones. Might be because it has a similar meaning to ruhig. But maybe it is just the sound :)
Get full access
This feature is available with the YourDailyGerman membership.
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
yes thought it was very interesting
Shouldn’t “Das stört mich garnicht” be “Das stört mich gar nicht”?
Yeah, you’re right. That used to be one of my favorite German mistakes to make.
I completely understood this:
” Until the age of 11 or 12, I had not realized that this is pronounced be- un – ruhigt…. I always read it beun (boyn) – ruhigt and I perceived it as a nice old fashioned German verb…”
My English parallel experience was with “dunno.” This word is used exclusively for writing dialog. Until about the age of 11, I read is as DUNN-oh (accent on first syllable) and that never made sense. As dialog, it ought to be spoken dohNOH. It is a verbalized contraction for “don’t know.”
Nice one :)
Me in further
Lovely article! Actually English does have a cognate with ‘Ruhe’ – ‘unruly’. Turns out the ‘ruly’ bit has nothing to do with ‘rule’ but is actually from the now outdated/dialectal ‘roo/ro/row’, which does indeed mean ‘peace’.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t really think of ‘feel free to’ as formal. We say it pretty constantly. I’d possibly even interpret it as every so slightly rude or at least dismissive – but that could be me being very British…
Oh wow, “unruly”. That’s cool. I love these connections
…and yet a “row” is a noisy argument – maybe an inversion of the original ‘peace’ meaning?
I would say that a candle in still air has a “steady” flame (not a “still” flame)
Cool, thanks!
This is amazing! Thank you!!!
Freut mich :)
It’s very difficult to pronounce ruhig
Not the first time I hear that. What’s your native language?
I actually had the opposite problem when I was in school. As a German you know to pronounce “ruhig” as kind of a mixture of “ruh” and “ich” but to fuse them together and understanding where the “h” must be placed and that there is an “g” in the end and no “ch” was difficult. The sound is “rui” followed by a soft “ch”. But the “i” is really short. So it almost sounds like “ruhch” with just a long “u” in the middle. Maybe just pitch your voice a bit before the “ch” and stay with a “u” that should be understandable.
Nice observation about the short “i”. It really is very short an not well articulated. The thing with the “ch” is that it needs to be the “high” ch… after “u” we usually use the “low” ch; the one from “doch”. When you follow up a “u” with the “high” ch you kind of automatically insert a sort of “i” or “ü” sound because your mouth has to get into position. So transitioning from “u” to a proper “high” ch should be enough.
As an ‘allowifier’ i think translating ruhig to something like, ‘yea cool’ also works.
Mach ruhig – yea that’s cool (with me), do it.
Anyways, dieses Internetseite gefahlt mir sehr. Es hilft mir jedemal, dass ich es lese. Nur seit 6 Monaten habe ich ‘seriously’ lernen sein.
Danke.
Freut mich, dass dir der Blog hilft :). Und super, dass du auf Deutsch schreibst. Üben ist immer gut!
Hier eine kleine Korrektur:
– Nur seit 6 Monaten habe ich “seriously” lernen sein.
Das ist ziemlich genau
– Only for 6 months have I been seriously studying.
But that doesn’t work at all in German. For 2 reasons… German doesn’t have/use the concept of “be doing”. In German you just “do”. And then, for actions that go on in the present you’d use the present tense. So
– I have been studying for 6 months…
translates to
– Ich lerne seit 6 Monaten…
I know it’s hard but try not to use these “have been doing” phrasings in German… “habe lernen sein” might be kind of hard to understand for someone who doesn’t know English very well. Just try to dumb down English
– “I am going” becomes “I go”
– “I was sleeping” becomes “I have slept”
Hope that helps a bit
Danke für deine Korrektur.
So, ‘habe gelernt’ ist ok aber nicht ‘habe lernen sien’ usw. Cool, Ich verstehe.
Yeah, but “habe gelernt” implies that you’re not doing it anymore. If you’re still learning then it’s
– Ich lerne
There’s a word in Hungarian that works like ruhig: “nyugodt”
It has many variations, like “megnyugodni” (a verb with the same meaning as “sich beruhigen”), “nyugtalanít” (meaning the same as “beunruhigt”, formed from the adjective “nyugtalan” meaning “unruhig”), and there’s even “nyugodtan”, which corresponds to the particle-ruhig. If someonenasks permission from you, you can just answer “Nyugodtan!” to say that they can ‘ruhig’ do it.
Cool. These parallels for words that are obviously not related are really fascinating :)
This blog is gold… I need one like this for French. Empfiehl mir ruhig :)
Ich kenn’ leider keinen :)
While reading this article I have realized that there is a word “спокойный” in Russian, which matches meanings of “ruhig” pretty well. However, forms for adjective and adverb are slightly different. Here are several examples:
Веди себя спокойно! (adv.) – Be quiet!
Спокойное (adj.) время. – Peaceful time.
Ты можешь спокойно (adv.) пользоваться моим компьютером. – You can easily use my computer. (in sense of permission)
The last example is rather colloquial, but I think that it captures the flavoring sense of “ruhig”.
Damn, your comment made me realize that all my knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet has gone away … I thought I had it down :)
In English we have “rural” which also has connotations of quietness and peacefulness.
Ruhig is my favourite German word, I don’t know why! (Could be because I gravitate to more Germanic words, and like you said, all the words in English for this concept come from Latin)
You are right. I also like it a lot. Maybe it is because it really has this vibe of serenity, calm and peace to it. If I had to associate things with it I would think of a hill with a huge old tree and grass and little wind and a nightingale, maybe. The other German words for this have a more mundane feel…. to me at least. I think of “still” and I think “no sound”, I think of “leise” and I think of “little to no sound” but “ruhig” has this notion of not just quiet outside but also inner peace.
As for English, I like “calm” the best of the 3 main ones. Might be because it has a similar meaning to ruhig. But maybe it is just the sound :)