“Auf Slang”
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Hello everyone,
and welcome to day 9 of the Advent Calendar.
And behind today’s door, there’s a little nugget of
Colloquial German
And not just some random piece.
The phrasing I’ll tell you about is actually cutting edge stuff.
Authenticity level 100.
And it’s based on… using auf.
Here it comes:
- Dieser Satz ist auf Deutsch.
- This sentence is in German.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Woooooow!!!
Okay… this is NOT the colloquial nugget yet, of course. But it’s the perfect gateway because many of you are familiar with it.
So in German, if you want to talk about what language something is in, that typically goes with auf. Auf Deutsch, auf Englisch, auf Chinesisch and so on.
Why auf? Well, it has some kind of logic once you think of a language as a “setting”. And settings tend to go with auf in German, and with on in English. Like… think of an arrow of a dial pointing “on” the setting.
- Ich mache mein Handy auf lautlos.
- I phone my phone on silent.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And the colloquial gem is that this exact type of phrasing is also used to describe what “mode” you want to do something in.
Here’s an example:
- Lass uns ein bisschen Frisbee spielen, aber auf entspannt.
- Let’s play a bit of frisbee, but “in chill mode”.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Here, the person basically doesn’t want to run too much and doesn’t want it to get competitive or artistic.
Let’s do a couple more:
- Ich bin voll der Taylor Swift Fan, aber auf ironisch.
- I’m a really big fan of Taylor Swift, but ironically.
(I am a fan, but I mean it ironically)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Wie war dein Date?”
“Super. Wir haben den ganzen Abend über Politik geredet, aber auf sexy.” - “How was your date?”
“Great. We talked about politics the entire evening, but in sexy. - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Gestern waren wir auf chillig ein bisschen wandern.
- Yesterday, we did a really relaxed hike.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Normalerweise schaffe ich 120 kg Benchpress, auf nebenbei, auf entspannt, auf souverän. Aber drei Wochen kein Training und zack – alles weg.
- Usually, I do 250 pounds benchpress – easy, casually, no big deal. But three weeks no training and boom – it’s gone.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich hätte gerne so einen Service, aber auf schnell.
- I’d love such a service but in fast.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And you can even make it work with a some nouns.
- “Du warst mit Maria was trinken?!”
“Ja, aber auf Freunde, weißt du.” - “You were having drinks with Maria?!”
“Yeah, but in friends-mode, you know.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Oh and if you’re wondering if “auf schnell” could be just schnell in the example with service – the answer is yes!
People do use this auf-phrasing sometimes where they could just use the adverb without auf. That’s because it’s a fad at the moment, and people just like it.
But I’d say that auf entspannt and auf chillig are the most common uses at the moment and the ones you could try out.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with everything that you could consider a mode, so you need some sprachgefühl if you want to play around.
But if you can manage to sneak in auf entspannt at some point with your friends, they’ll be really impressed.
Now, examples like the ones above are really colloquial and relatively new, but there are actually similar phrasings that have been around for a long time and that are pretty much standard German.
I’m talking specifically about einen auf X machen and auf X tun, which are both about acting a certain way without really being it.
- Thomas macht auf Youtube einen auf Experten, hat aber eigentlich keine Ahnung.
- Thomas is acting like an expert on Youtube, but has no clue in actuality.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Wer hat in den Flur gekackt, hmm?! Ich gucke dich an, Catosaurus! Brauchst du gar nicht einen auf unschuldig machen.”
- “Who pooped into the hallway, huh?! I’m looking at you, Catosaur! You don’t need to act all innocent.”
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Der neue Manager tut auf nett, aber er ist eigentlich voll das Arschloch.
- The new manager acts all friendly, but actually, he’s a giant asshole.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
einen auf X machen is really common actually and a great colloquial addition to your vocabulary.
That one and auf entspannt. Those are the two main takeaways.
If you want to play around, you can try of course, but it might fail.
And do not forget the golden rule of slang and colloquialisms: do not overdo it.
The line between authentic and tryhard is small and learners tend to cross it :).
That’s it for today, I hope you enjoyed it.
Let me know in the comments if you’ve heard the phrasings before and if you’re planning on using them.
Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow.
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
Hi Emanuel
Gestern waren wir……wandern?
The structure sounds weird to me…why not gestern sind wir wandern ( gegangen ) ?
Great lesson
Thank you
It’s the past form of
– Heute sind wir wandern.
Same logic as “Ich bin einkaufen.”
This article should clear it up:
https://yourdailygerman.com/einkaufen-gehen-why-no-zu/
I think your sentences are hysterical! They make me laugh out loud and a find start to my day. Thank you
I have heard the phrase „auf Lock“ many times, it’s nice to have a context for it! I always found it very confusing, now it makes sense
Loved it! Your examples, particularly einen auf, were spot on!
Very interesting! Those expressions with “auf” are totally new to me. I need to hear them and see them a bit more before trying to use them.
Schöner Artikel! Ich habe viel dabei gelernt :)
How about this: Ich will jetzt der Küche putzen, aber auf entspannt.
“die Küche” or “in der Küche”… anonsten perfekt. Spot on. No cap!
Beim Deutschlehren ist Emmanuel souverän, aber auf Low Key.
Ein “m” bitte :)
These are great, especially einen auf x machen and auf x tun. I tend to learn these phrases better when there are several (maybe ten?) examples given, ones that I can write down and quiz myself on later.
Very useful info. Thanks Emmanuel.
Emmanuel , re your errors in English, I can confirm, as an English English speaker, with two degrees, that your use of the English language is better than most people whose English is their mother tongue!
Your excellent articles on the roots of words, are proof of your linguistic proficiency and subtlety.
Any errors are no doubt either typos or the fault of predictive text.
I once texted my husband that I would see him soon for dinner, only to notice, while waiting for his reply, that I’d wished him a happy
pregnancy!
Oh, I don’t have a word prediction active, nor a spell checker.
Most of the mistakes are actually editing artifcats. So I write a sentence, I don’t like it, I rephrase it and then I am too sloppy to change it fully and it ends up missing an article or having one too many.
And the rest is actual legit typos or just my brain being faster than the fingers and making me write “is” in stead of “as”.
What I have noticed is that I make fewer mistakes if I have a good flow and write fast, and I make more mistakes if I don’t really feel like writing (like in the newsletter sometimes).
Nice!
Typos: “doesn’t work with all things that .. “ doesn’t work. You can say.
Doesn’t work with everything that .
Or
Doesn’t work with all the things that…
“Has no clue in” is wrong. To “clue in“ is a verb. Thomas has no clue.
And I have no clue how you say auf Deutsch:
“Then Maria clued in (caught on) that he was joking“?
Great page, despite the lack of unicorns! thanks.
So I meant “in actuality” as a chunk. Like:
– In actuality, Thomas has no clue.
Does that work?
Unicorns are busy having a snow day :)
I think there is another typo in “I’m a really bit fan of Taylor Swift…” assuming you want “…really big fan…”
Also a (maybe very beginner?) question: In “Du warst mit Maria was trinken?” is “was” short for “etwas”?
Is your cat speaking German? I think there must be a universal cat language, because I understood it perfectly!
“In friends-mode” conveys your meaning of “setting” very well, but in English we would just say, “as friends” in that situation.
This was fun, thank you!
Also, we would say, “in chill mode,” not “on.” We use “in” with mode, but “on a setting.” For example, we would say, perhaps, “I left the bread machine on the keep-warm setting” or shortened to just “on keep-warm.” But “My cat is in hyper mode with evening crazies.”
One more question, please. Can you explain the use/meaning of souverän? Like totally ruling over something?
Yes, this is really a false friend and I’ve heard a few German speakers use it in a confusing way in English. In German it means “commanding” or “expertly” and is consider a good thing, like “the team played well and had a commanding victory” (das Team hat souverän gespielt). It can be used in lots of situations, not just sports. And, it doesn’t have the same connotations of tyranny that sovereign has in English. I’d be interested in what Emanuel has to say on it as well.
I’m not Emanuel nor a linguist, but I’m guessing that “souverän” just comes from the root meaning of “souverain” which is “super-” or “above” (above all the people = sovereign – super-reign). This may be a generational shift in the US. When I studied history (50+ years ago), a sovereign just meant a ruler – If you wanted to say someone was tyrannical or despotic, those were the words to use. So “souverän” as a description of super, expert, or commanding, or compelling accomplishment sounds fine to my (old) ears. (On the other hand, I am astounded at the increased infiltration of English into German in just 50 years!)
Maybe it is just my pathological dislike of authority figures …
I’m not a linguist either :). I just look on DWDS.de and Etymonline.com and sometimes Wiktionary.
I feel I still here “souvereign” in the more classic way in English:
Like… I don’t think I’ve actually heard it in a context of tyranny.
Oh almost forgot:
“souvereign” comes from French “souverain”, so the connection to “reign” is tempting but wasn’t actually part of the word. “souverain” comes from Latin “superanus” (Italian: sopranos) and just means “chief, principle”.
You were spot on with the base being “super”.
Yeah, it’s kind of a double meaning.
I think we’d tend to say “unabhängig” in a context like this:
“souverän” sounds a bit too much like the other meaning, to me, but I think I have heard it in a speech or something.
But we have “der Souverän” for “the ruler”. “Das Volk ist der Souverän” may be in the Grundgesetz actually.
And die Souveränität can be both… the excelling or indipendence and self determination.
Hallo!
Only one typo to correct auf entspannt:
“there’s little nugget of” (there’s a little nugget of)
I don’t think I’ve come across these expressions, then again, maybe I have and thought I didn’t quite undertand the audio. But it’s always great to know colloquial expressions, thanks for the article :)
One question about “auf Deutsch” (which I’ve always said like that): I’ve come across the phrasing “im Deutschen”, which sounds really bad to me, but maybe because I’m a learner. Is it really used and does it sound ok to you?
Bis morgen!
I almost missed it myself, but it was actually part of the cringe video of a few days ago.
The guy says something along the lines of
– Hier machen wir die Politik, und das nich auf Low Key.
This is pretty much exactly the “auf” I am describing here. But yeah, the rest of the video’s slang was so “loud” that I missed this finer point :)
“im Deutschen” sounds more high register and also, it means “in the German language”, so if you’re talking for instance about there being loads of animal sayings in German, you should go for “im Deutschen” because “auf Deutsch” sounds a bit like a random animal saying that got translated also in German.