Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of
der Fluss
Sounds like a boring topic. Fluss means river; most of you know that, I think. And who wants to read about Fluss? I mean, except a Flussologist (riverologist in English, in my fantasy version of it anyway).
But Fluss is not just a river, it’s a stream. A stream of useful words and in that stream many surprising connections dwell. So let’s go fishing. Or better yet, let’s dive right in.
Splashhhh.
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I thought „Flüssigkeit“ meant fluency
No, not really. We don’t actually have a good match for “fluency”.
“The many thaipos disrubt the reading flow.” A thing of beauty, this. A classic teaching moment. You are the best, sir!
Vage (oder genaue) Demarkation von Begriffen nach Größe des bezeichneten Objekts:
Fluss = river, Bach = brook, Berg = mountain, Hügel = hill ?
Das Wörterbuch macht es sich zu leicht!
Ein river ist ein Fluss oder ein größerer Bach, ein brook ein bestenfalls mittlerer Bach.
Ein Berg hingegen wird meist nur ein hill sein, denn mindestens in England und Wales muss ein mountain eine Höhe von mindestens 2000 Fuß (609,6 Meter) haben.
Also bitte nicht dem Buch oder dem Lehrer glauben und uns Briten für komisch halten, nur weil wir etwas angeblich für einen Fluss halten. Das tun wir nämlich gar nicht; wir halten es nur korrekt für a river.
And the other way round: Don’t believe the book or the teacher. Don’t think that Germans are weird, just because they supposedly regard an obvious hill as a mountain — they don’t; they only regard it as a Berg, which it is.
Hey, something is confusing me… Because of the high german consonant shift, I thought flow and Fluss were related to “pluvia” in Latin, but that words like “fluent” and the Latin “fluere” were rather related to “blow” and “blast”. Just like “flower” and “bloom”… Am I missing something?
No, you’re completely right. I actually didn’t look up fluent because I just assumed it would be related … classic mistake. That said, even though two different Indo-European roots are given for “fluent” on the one hand and “flow” on the other, they do seem to overlap in Ancient Greek … at least to my eyes (I use Etymonline). I’m not an etymologist though.
Thanks for the head up. I guess I have to change that bit if the article
Re: “das Fließband which is much more descriptive than its English translation assembly line. A flowing strap.”
“A flowing strap” makes me think that perhaps “conveyor belt” is a closer translation. Conveyance -> confluence -> flow. ;)
Also, in the context of chemistry, ‘liquid’ is a physical state of a pure substance (eg water or mercury), and you wouldn’t really use it to describe a mixture or solution. You wouldn’t say ‘liquid’ to describe, say, a mixed fuel or orange juice, but you might use ‘fluid’.
I don’t think people would make that distinction in everyday English though.
Some of you guys are saying there isn’t really a distinction between liquid and fluid but they definitely feel different to me and aren’t always interchangeable. And I don’t mean how a fluid is broader cos it includes liquids, gasses, non-newtonian fluids, etc. For example, if someone said bodily liquid instead of bodily fluid, it sounds weird to me. A cup could be filled with liquid, but if it was described as filled with fluid, i would think “fluid from what?”. Idk what it is but i know i would use them in different ways
Also i tried to find the german word for fluid that would fit for gas and liquid so i went to the wikipedia page for “fluid” and “liquid” and changed the language to deutsch. Liquid became flüssigkeit and fluid became fluid.
Interesting, I just checked the Wikipedia entry for fluid and as I understand it, German “Fluid” is basically anything that is not in a solid state. I’ve never heard it used though, I don’t even know if they pronounce it the German way (like: floo-eet)
To follow on from George, fluid also carries the sense of actual movement whereas liquid carries the sense of being static. So if you were to talk say of rock being a fluid it would create a mental image of lava flowIng down the side of a volcano whereas if you said the rock was a liquid the image would be more of it sitting in the magma chamber.
Man, German is always so precise… wait, hold on.. that’s not German :D
Take all these distinctions with a grain of salt (is there a German idiom that means about the same as that?).
As Tim says below, these aren’t necessarily distinctions most people would be able to make without thinking about it a bit (or at all, in the case of the whole mixed vs. pure distinction in chemistry – I didn’t have a clue about that one).
I don’t know that I would really perceive the distinction MacFeagle makes, either, at least when using the terms literally, though I guess it makes sense. To my ear, describing rock as “fluid” would be really striking and unusual regardless of what it’s doing.
But it’s worth keeping the basic rule – that “fluid” is broader in meaning – in mind.
The dictionary suggested “mit Vorsicht genießen” and that is quite common. But for a context like this it sounds too serious. Like, as if I need to be cautious making the distinction :)
Can we say “Sein Deutsch ist fließend”? Can we think that “Er ist fließend im Deutsch” is wrong because what is flowing is his German, not him?
So I looked up both phrasings and the first one it totally idiomatic and used “Mein [x]ist fließend”.
As for the second one… some people use it but “ist fließend in Englisch” only has 500 hits on Google so I’d say it’s not all that common.
Hello, awesome article as always! I have a question: “Ich spreche fließend Deutsch” – can i also say “Ich spreche Deutsch flüssig” ? or this is not correct?
I guess it’s fine but “fließend” is better/more idiomatic; at least to me.
Actually, now that I think of it… “flüssig sprechen” would be used for a native speaker who is giving a speech or something. “Fließend” is specific for the context of language learning.
“Fluid” and “liquid” aren’t quite synonyms. “Fluid” is a bit more technical, and especially in the technical literature, fluids can be either liquids or gasses. That is, air is a fluid, but it isn’t a liquid. Water is both a fluid and a liquid.
Wow, seems like a well known distinction in English seeing how many people comment about it :). I bet it exists in German too, but I’m not aware of a word that would fit for gas and liquids
Das Fluid, what else ;)
Hi! Liquid and fluid are not synonym. A liquid is a fluid but not the other way round. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid.
That cartoon cracked me up!
Some damn wise ducks right there :)
Ich liebe dieses Blog. Ich will mehr über die Konfusativ lernen!
Der Konfusativ ist schwer zu erklären. Er ist ein bisschen so wie dieses Bild:
Note on liquid and fluid: water is both. Air is fluid but not liquid. The difference is compressibility.
Interesting tidbit. Thanks!!
Sorry English is so *influenced* by latin. During the early 18th century, English scientist such as Newton wanted more precision in the language, so they used more latin.
I think, in German there was actually a period (I think 17th century, but I’m not sure at all) when they force-translated many Latin terms because they wanted to use Germanic words. So they came up with lots of word for word translations. Not all of them survived but many did.
“Frauke Petry von der AfD sieht von der Frisur her fast noch lustiger aus als Merkel, nur als Junge”.
Frauke Petry from AfD looks even funnier than Merkel hairstyle-wise – if you picture Merkel as a boy.
Grammatisch jetzt alles einwandfrei. Danke. Mal so aus Neugier… macht das für dich Sinn? Ich meine, verstehst du, was der, der den Satz gesagt hat, genau gemeint hat?
I know this is unrelated but what does “von ..her” do in this sentence, and what does the sentence mean?
“Frau Kepetry von AfD sieht von Frisur her fast noch lustiger aus als Merkel nur als Junge”
https://yourdailygerman.com/2014/03/17/von-da-her-meaning/
I would say something like “in terms of her hairstyle”, “from the point of view of her hairstyle” or more snappily, “hairstyle-wise”
I must say I’m struggling to make sense of the whole sentence though. To me it reads “Mrs Kepetry from AfD is, hairstyle-wise, almost funnier than Merkel, only as a boy”. Whether this refers to Mrs Kepetry’s or Mrs Merkel’s imagined boyhood (or both) is unclear to me. Mrs Kepetry does have am undeniably boyish demeanour though, whereas I would regard Mrs Merkel as all woman.
Mrs Petry even… Frauke Petry, not Frau Kepetry.
Yeah, Frauke is one of the oddest first names we have in German. Funny, it never even occurred to me that the whole audio could be parsed as “Frau Kepetry”. The power of a native speaker brain, both a boon and a bane. What you know, you recognize super fast but you’re not open at all to other interpretations
Same here. I don’t really get the joke of the sentence, nor does it make much sense to me. I don’t find Frauke Petrys hair funny at all, and the part with the boy… I don’t know what to make of it. Boys with Fraukes hair aren’t funny.
As for Merkel being a woman… there can be no doubt about it:
And because it’s so funny I have to share this:
What the guy is showing is called “Maurerdecolté” which would translate to mason’s clevage, I guess.
I know it as “plumber’s crack” – not sure if there are any classier English idioms :)
Where did you get the sentence from, btw?
It was a meme U found on FB, it didnt make much sense to me either. But stil its funny to know about Frauke :-D
There’s actually also “Söhnke” as a name for boys. I guess that the “-ke” comes from a dialect version of “-chen” so Frauke once was “Frauchen”
Don’t forget that the ‘Abfluss’ carries away the ‘effluent’.
And that’s not just me writing ‘affluent’ in a Kiwi accent!
Pluvial flooding. Flooding from surface water (rain).
Fluvial flooding. Flooding from river overflowing its banks.
I love the blog, I hope some of it is sinking in.
Language is like water… it can be shallow, it can be deep, it wants to move, it’s flexible, it’s everywhere, you need it every day… and it sinks in :)
Despite having studied oceanography (not very assiduously) at uni I had never considered what the term might be for the study of rivers until I heard the crashing clang of your suggested “riverologist”. Anyway I looked it up. Potamology / Potamologist of course.
But more importantly, thanks for another wonderful tour of another wonderful little avenue of German, coming soon to a synapse near me.
So, I knew that “hippopotamus” apparently literally means “river horse” your comment just made me know it on a whole new level :D. Potamus… river.
I salute your new level of knowing