Using “genießen” – Enjoying in German

Hello everyone,

And welcome to a new episode of the epic series

How to Sounds more Authentic in German

In this series, I talk about words and phrasings that many learners don’t use often enough and that can make you sound way more authentic.
Sometimes though, it’s the opposite. So I’ll tell you about words and phrasings that many learners use that make you sound LESS authentic. So basically… things to avoid.
Like using scheinen as to seem, for example. Just…. just don’t do it.

And today, I have another “Stop doing this” piece of advice for you and it’s about

How to say “enjoy” in German

So let’s take a look.

How to say “enjoy” in German?

The sad and simple answer is: You don’t.
“enjoying something” is not part of German culture so if you really want to blend in, just avoid this concept alltogether and instead stick with talking about work and how much things cost.

Okay… I’m kidding of course.
What I really want to talk about today is genießen and how you’re probably overusing it, so let’s jump right in.

Stop using only “genießen” as “to enjoy”

genießen is what learners find when they’re looking for how to translate to enjoy.
And technically, it is a translation.
The problem is that you should NOT use genießen the same way you use enjoy in English.
enjoy is really common and used in a very broad range of contexts that are about having a good time. That can be enjoying the silence in the forest, enjoying a movie or enjoying the first round of a 9 step job interview process.

genießen is a lot more specific. It’s a bit hard to describe and if you’re a native speaker reading this, please chime in in the comments if you disagree, but I feel like genießen overall is a bit more active, not in a sense of you being active, but in a sense of you actively enjoying something. You actively take it in,  bathe in it. It does sound a bit indulging. Think of a cat getting its belly rub.

And it will sound out of place, if the context is not about that vibe.

• I really enjoyed our meeting and I hope to be working with you soon.

Using genießen here is super duper weird, because what you mean is simply that you had a good time at the meeting.
Same here:

• “How’d you like the movie?”
  “Pretty good. I enjoyed it.”

The vibe of the statement is pretty clear… you had a good time watching it. You liked it. But it’s not strong and indulging enough for genießen, and using genießen here just sounds a bit odd, especially when it comes from non-native speakers who say it with an attitude that fits more the general having a good time.

Let’s maybe look at some examples for genießen to get a better sense of how it’s used.

• Maria genießt die Ruhe, wenn abends das Büro leer ist.
• Maria enjoys the silence when the office is empty at night.
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• Ich habe die Massage sehr genossen.
• I really enjoyed the massage.
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• “Können wir kurz wegen dem Projekt telefonieren?”
  “Nein!! Ich will heute einfach meinen freien Tag genießen.”
• “Can we have a quick call about the project?”
  “No!! I just want to enjoy my day off.”
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

Can you the vibe of this? Maybe think of this image of a cat getting a belly rub while reading the examples. There’s a sense of indulging and chilling in it.

And now, with this “vibe” in mind, let’s look at some examples where it doesn’t really fit.

• “Du warst also Bungee-Springen?”
  “OMG, ja, es war mega cool.”
• “So you went bungee jumping?”
  “OMG, yeah, I really enjoyed it!!”
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• “Ich treff mich mit Thomas auf ein paar Bier.”
  “Cool, viel Spaß.”
• “I’m going to meet Thomas for a few beers.”
  “Cool, enjoy.“
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• “Wer kriegt den Whisky Sour?”
  “Der ist für mich.”
  “Na dann, lass dir schmecken.”
  “Danke.”
• “Who gets the Whisky Sour?”
  “That’s for me.”
  “All right, enjoy!”
  “Thanks.”
  (lit.: “let it taste to you.”)
  
• ▶
  
• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

As you can see, the translations I used vary.
It does depend on the context but overall.

But I think the following two core re-phrasings already take you quite far.

If you talk about that you enjoyed something in the sense that you liked it:

If you want to say “Enjoy!” to someone and you basically want to wish them a good time:

You might have noticed the latter in my newsletter actually.
I ALWAYS use Viel Spaß in German and Enjoy! in English to really drive that point home – genießen just sounds so out of place in a context like this.

Again… it’s not like genießen is useless.
There are contexts where it fits. But you should not think of it as a default word, but instead of a word that you deliberately choose, if you really want to express the vibe of that mental image of a cat getting a belly rub.

Cool.
Now, there’s probably a bit more that I could say about genießen. If you want, I can make that word of the day at some point and also explore the family a bit.
But for today, we’ve done enough, I think.

I’ll skip the quiz this time because I couldn’t really come up with enough questions and also, the Advent Calendar  is coming like next week and that’ll have quizzes aplenty. I think… I actually haven’t prepared anything this time yet, omg.

Anyways, if you have any questions or suggestions about enjoying in German and the use of genießen, just leave me a comment, and I’ll do my best to clear things up.
I hope you… ahem… enjoyed this one. Ich hoffe, es hat euch gefallen.
Have a great week and bis zum nächsten Mal.

Further reading: 

• Word of the Day – “der Spaß”
  (Older lesson, but lots of stuff about using “Spaß”)
• Word of the Day – “nutzen vs benutzen”
  (Some information about the origins of “genießen”)
• Stop using  “scheinen” as “to seem”