Hello everyone,
Welcome to day 3 of the Advent Calendar, and behind today’s door is… drumroll… a word.
der Muffel
Looks a bit like muff, which is this sort of fur tube that you can put both hands into in winter. It’s also called der Muffe in German, by the way.
The word comes from the French word moufle which just means glove.
Anyway, der Muffel has nothing to do with keeping your hands warm, but it still is a very useful word especially if you spend your winter in Berlin. We have Muffel aplenty here, muffeling around, spreading their Muffeligkeit. You may even become one.
Heck, you probably ARE one, for one thing or another. Like sports, or reading, or taking a shower
So what is it?
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.
Already a member?
Log in here:
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
Ich bin Passwortmuffel weil ich mich an keine Passwörter erinnern kann.
Passwortmuffel wäre eher jemand, der immer das Gleiche Passwort nimmt und keine Lust hat, sich die zu merken. Wenn du sie dir einfach nicht merken kannst, dann ist das noch nicht genau Muffel :)
Fabulous post and very useful.
Comment on:
la moufle (fem., french) = der Fäustling (masc., german) = the mitten (eng.)
le gant (masc., french) = der Handschuh (masc., german) = the glove (eng.)
Comment on:
was versus were
The sentence should be “if Hmpf were a person” where “were” is in the subjunctive mood, whereas in the indicative mood “were” is the second person and plural past of the verb “to be”. As the discussion shows, the use of the subjunctive in English is gradually disappearing but in “proper” English it persists in the verb “to be”, and this would also be colloquial for many people. It has also been observed that the decline in the use of the subjunctive seems to have halted and may actually be increasing due to the many people now speaking English who come from subjunctive-rich languages, such as Spanish.
Ich bin manchmal ein Geschirrspülmuffel, weil ich ein nasses Gefühl mag nicht.
Sehr gutes Beispiel!
Ich bin ein Nachtmuffel. Ich gehe immer früh ins Bett.
Top verwendet!
Ich bin oefters muffelig beim aufraeumen.
Ich auch!
Ich bin so ein Morgenmuffel. Ich hasse kaum was mehr, als früh aufzuwachen und aufstehen zu müssen!
Fühl ich.
Ich bin schreibmuffel
Ja, perfekt!
You are using swedes as a swear in Germany?! what have they ever done to you.
You mean “Alter Schwede?”
Well, I’m sure we had wars against them at some point but this saying originated in Prussia out of respect for the tall old Swedish soldier trainers we had at some point.
Ok that’s kinda wholesome.
Yeah, it’s definitely not a swear-word. It’s basically “Wow!!”.
Thanks for another great word!
Ich bin ein Fehlermuffel.
Ah, that doesn’t really work :). Because it sounds like making a mistakes is something you should do but don’t like to.
Oh, okay!
There’s this Austrian artist/vintner (I think he is?) that I follow (@gustaverderlieber) that posted about a Muffelmaus and Morgenmuffel and it was a cute little introduction to this word
OH my god, I just checked his IG and it’s such a fever dream :D
Ich bin ein totaler Feuchtigkeitmuffel.
Oh ja! Ich auch! Die Hitze ist so viel schwieriger zu ertragen mit Feuchtigkeit!
Hi Emanuel. Ich hab eine Frage für dich. Hat Muffel auch die weibliche Form? Also, Muffelin?
Nee, es ist Gender-Neutral, also Frauen sagen auch “Ich bin ein Morgenmuffel” zum Beispiel, und es klingt nicht komisch.
Ich bin ein totaler Kaltmuffel
Kältemuffel… it needs to be a noun.
Das ist ich auch: Kältemuffel
Kleine Korrektur:
– Das bin ich auch.
We don’t have “That is me”, we always say “That am I”
Das hätte ich wissen müssen. Ugh. Danke!
Ich bin ein total Morgenmuffel…
* ein totalER Morgenmuffel :)
“Der Kaffee ist alle!” You have this translated as “We are out of Coffee”. I haven’t seen alle used like this -and in this situation there is no context for missing or absent coffee.
Is alle used like this? or is it supposed to be understood that for this person ‘coffee’ is everything and that there is none remaining?
“Is alle used like this? ”
Yes, all the time. Something is “alle” means that something is empty.
More on that here:
https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning-alle/
Is this regional? I haven’t noticed people saying it in Austria apart from one friend who is extremely German and uses it all the time.
My old grandmother, who grew up speaking Deutsch in the house, used to say “The cookies (or whatever) are all” – and I always thought she was too lazy to add “gone”. Now I know better !!
That’s kind of cute that she just moved that over to English :)
Ich bin ein Sozial-Mediamuffel. Es nervt mich sehr.
Jup, fühl ich.
If “Maria ist ein Morgenmuffel.” then Maria is NOT a morning person.
I’m enjoying this advent calendar. Hope it’s not being too stressful for you!
Oh right, I forgot the “not” there.
Not too stressful. Actually, it’s kind of nice to write and NOT have enough time second guess every sentence. Work kind of expands into the space you give it, to an extent.
Except that that new “not” now needs a quick transposing with its new neighbour “a”.
‘t’was late. Transpose it I shall now. (would not translate with “sollen”, fwiw)
Beschwerdeführermuffel
Hmmm, are you a lawyer?
Ich bin eine Wettbewerbe-meiner-Kindermuffell. It doesn’t really roll off the tongue, but it’s so true.
Also, is there an opposite for this? A person who is all about something or really loves something?
Wettbewerbe-meiner-Kindermuffell
Das verstehe ich nicht genau. Meinst du Wettberwerbe, wo deine Kinder hinwollen?
As for the opposite… there is not really the one opposite, unfortunately. Liebhaber works, but that sounds very low energy and distinguished.
How will I say ‘ I don’t like meeting Gen Z people’?
Ich bin Gen-Z-Muffel can work if the context is right.