The Meaning of – “der Ärger”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time, we’ll have a look at the meaning of

der Ärger

And many of you know Ärger very well, because Ärger is what many learners experience when sit down and study German words and genders – I’m talking of course about:
an orgasm.
Nah, of course it’s not an orgasm.
And if you’re now secretly thinking “God, these dumb jokes are really getting on my nerves.” and you then, despite knowing deep inside that you shouldn’t, click on this link here, well, then you’re on your way to experience actual Ärger.

But be careful, because it leads to …. the dark side!!
You probaly guessed it by now – der Ärger is anger.

Let’s start with some examples right away…

• Ich rufe beim Kundenservice an und mache meinem Ärger Luft.
• I call customer support and vent my anger.
  
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• Es ist nicht okay, wenn man seinen Ärger an anderen auslässt.
• It’s not okay to release your anger onto others.
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• Der Ärger in der Bevölkerung ist groß.
• The anger in the society is strong.
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Ärger and anger don’t line up completely though.
Specifically, I feel like Ärger is overall a bit “weaker” than anger. It’s more like something between real anger and a stinky, pissy mood. For strong anger, I’d use the word die Wut.
And that’s not the only difference.
Whilst anger is pretty much limited to the sentiment, Ärger is used more broadly and can also mean trouble, hassle or “issues”.

• Macht keinen Ärger, okay kids?
• Be nice kids, okay?/Don’t make any trouble, okay kids?
  (parents to their kids before leaving them with the sitter)
  
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• Seit dem Update habe ich nur Ärger mit meinem Computer.
• Since the update, I keep having trouble/hassle with my computer.
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So here, the Ärger basicllay is used as a word for the cause of a stinky mood.
And furthermore, Ärger is also used in a few phrasings in the context of “receiving” someone else’s anger. And again, trouble is a good translation.

• Weil er sonst von Maria Ärger kriegt, räumt Thomas die Wohnung auf.
• Because he’ll get in trouble with Maria otherwise, Thomas cleans the flat.
  Literally: Because he’ll receive anger/trouble from Maria…
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• Ich will keinen Ärger kriegen.
• I don’t want to get into trouble.
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But so is Ärger ALWAYS a translation for trouble?
No, and a good rule of thumb is if trouble is completely focused on the notion of problem, then Ärger is not the right word. There needs to be a notion of being pissed or angry involved. That’s the core of Ärger and as we’ve seen, it pretty much covers full life cycle – the cause of being angry, the sentiment itself and the release of anger onto someone.

Cool, now let’s take a look at the related words and first at the adjective ärgerlich. Looks like it should meant angry, right?
Well, you know what that means – it doesn’t really mean angry.

German™ – Making Learners Angry since 1750

Ärgerlich is just too weak to be translated as angry. Angry would be wütend.The better match for ärgerlich is annoyed, pissed.
Like… if your flatmate were to tell you that they’re angry about you never doing the dishes, well, then you should probably change habits till the smoke has cleared. If they say they’re ärgerlich about it… well.. no real need to change anything.

• Ärgerlich liest der Student dieses Beispiel.
• Annoyed/slightly pissed, the student reads the example.
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The more common use for ärgerlich however is as a description of a situation or circumstance. You can’t say that a situation is angry, but you can say that it’s ärgerlich. That means that it “causes a stinky mood” and in fact “Das ist ärgerlich” is a good translation for “That sucks.”

• “Wie war das Konzert?”
  “Keine Ahnung. Der Typ vor mir in der Schlange hat die letzte Karte gekriegt.”
  “Das ist ja ärgerlich.”
• “How was the concert?”
  “No idea, the guy in front of me in the queue got the last ticket.”
  “Wow, that sucks.”
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• Das war eine ärgerliche Niederlage.
• That was an annoying defeat/ a defeat to be pissed about.
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All right.
Now, of course there’s also a related verb: ärgern. And this is a pretty useful one.

“ärgern” and “sich ärgern” – Meaning and Use

Its base idea is always about being or getting pissed of, but the exact meaning depends on the context. If a thing or situation is “ärgering” you, that simply means it pisses you off.
If a person does the “ärgering” then that leans more toward teasing, especially if animals are involved.

• Es ärgert mich, wenn ich beim Sprechen einen Fehler mache, obwohl ich weiß, wie es richtig wäre.
• It pisses me off/makes me angry, when I make mistakes while speaking even though I actually know what would be correct.
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• Die schlechte Audioqualität ärgert mich.
• The bad audio quality irritates me.
  
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• Hör auf, die Katze zu ärgern!
• Stop teasing the cat!
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• Mama, mein Bruder ärgert mich.
• Mom, my brother is teasing me.
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And then, you can also use ärgern with a self reference… sich ärgern. Literally, this would be teasing yourself or pissing yourself off, but the actual meaning is just a very active sounding way to say that you’re pissed about something.

• Der Regisseur hat sich sehr über die Kritiken zu seinem neuen Theaterstück geärgert.
• The stage director was pissed about the reviews for his new play.
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• Ich ärgere mich über mich selbst.
• I‘m angry at myself.
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• Ärger dich nicht, nächstes Mal klappt es.
• Don’t beat up yourself/ don’t fret – next time it’ll work.
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And you all know the old wise proverb “In for the verb, in for the versions” which simply means that no look at a verb is complete without a look at the prefix versions. Ärgern takes it easy, though. There are only two. Verärgern, with ver- adding the notion of state change, is a result focused version of ärgern and rumärgern is a pretty colloquial term that expresses the idea of ongoing hassle with something…. like a Windows Update or something.

• Der Kellner gibt den verärgerten Gästen was auf’s Haus.
• The waiter gives the irritated/pissed off customers something on the house.
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• Man kann Maria ihre Verärgerung im Gesicht ablesen.
• You can read Maria’s irritation/being pissed in her face.
  (lit. her having been made angry)
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• Der Politiker hat keine Lust, sich mit Fakten rumzuärgern.
• The president has no desire to always deal with the hassle that are facts.
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Cool.
So now we know everything about Ärger... except one thing.

The surprise origin of “Ärger” (it’s not “fear”)

Other people in traffic, your job, that forum post that spoiled your favorite series for you, adolescent unicorns… Ärger can come from plenty of sources.
But of course, I’m not talking about that the origin of the thing itself here, but about the origin of the word.
And that is actually pretty surprising.
Ärger is actually not related to anger, but instead based on an inconspicuous little German word:

• arg
  
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Yup, this is actually a word. Kind of a funny coincidence seeing how “Argh!” is a common onomatopoetic word to express anger.
The original meaning of arg was bad, vicious, the more-form was ärger and the verb ärgern essentially meant to make worse. And slowly the verb and the noun took on a meaning for themselves and the connection to arg was soon forgotten.
Not the word arg itself, though. Chances are that you haven’t noticed it, but it’s actually still totally around; and not only in written German. It still has its original sense of bad, both in compounds as well as a stand alone.

• Thomas hat ganz arges Sodbrennen.
• Maria has a really bad heart burn/pyrosis/reflux.
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• Solche Kopfschmerzen wünscht man seinem ärgsten Feind nicht.
• You wouldn’t want your worst enemy to have such a headache.
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• Mit Argwohn schnuppert der Fuchs an dem Köder.
• Skeptically/ with suspiciousness, the fox sniffs at the bait.
  (Lit: with bad-expecting)
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That’s not too common though and mostly used in semi-fixed combinations.
But at some point people started also using as an intensifier, and that’s what it still is today – essentially a synonym for sehr.
Oh and by the way… guess what English word sehr is related to. It’s related to sore as in sore muscles. The root of those was about pain, and sehr originally meant painfully.So sehr ALSO was a negative word before it started its career as an intensifier, just like arg.

• Um 5 morgens ist schon arg früh.
• Five o’clock in the morning is very/REALLY early, no doubt.
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• Das ist arg teuer.
• That is very/really expensive.
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• Dass ich den Flug verpasst habe, ist arg ärgerlich.
• The fact that I missed the flight REALLY sucks.
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Now, I feel like arg sounds a bit weird when used to intensify positive things but maybe that’s just me. Either way… arg is nowhere near as common as sehr, but people do use it in daily life and it’s one of those nice little gems that’ll make you sound super idiomatic if you use it every now and then.

And I think that’s it for today. This was our look at the meaning of Ärger and the related words. They’re all pretty common in daily life, especially the verb ärgern and they’re a really useful addition to your active vocabulary, unless you’re a master of zen meditation who doesn’t get angry anymore. Although… on second thought, it’s probably still useful because you’re even temper will drive other people mad.
As always, if you want to check how much you remember, you can take the little quiz I have prepared.
And of course, if you have any questions or suggestions about today’s article or if you want to try out some examples and get them corrected, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.

** vocab **

der Ärger – the (slight) anger, the trouble (if it has some notion of being angry)
die Wut – the anger, rage
ärgerlich – irritated, annoyed, pissed (not very strong)
wütend – angry
das Ärgernis – a nuisance (rare)

ärgern +acc – irritate, make angry, tease (process oriented)
sich ärgern über – be angry about something (sounds very active)

verärgern – make angry (result oriented)
verärgert – pissed off

arg – bad, vicious, also: very, really
der Argwohn – the suspiciousness
argwöhnisch – very skeptical as in “expecting a trap”
arglos – unsuspecting (without “bad” in mind)