Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day and it is time for another verb special. What is a verb special you ask? Well… in a verb special we get to know a whole bunch of new verbs that all have something in common.
“They’re German?”
Yes, that. But they’re also kind of from the same “domain” or can be sorted under the same headline. And the headline today is
Body Talk
Yeah… body talk… uhhhh…. sounds kind of hot…
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Just discovered this site today… very entertaining and educational.
One small error (one letter) though, kept bugging me, your misuse of “diner” for “dinner”. To dine is to eat, and a diner is an eater. The meal one eats is dinner. You sit at the dinner table. The pronunciation is also different, with dine/diner having a long i sound (like fine), and dinner a short i (like thinner).
Oh yes, that’s one of my “standard” mistakes. I think I have it down now, but this article is already a bit older so it’s still in there. Fixed it now. Thanks for the heads-up and happy you enjoy the material.
Can’t we use schnüffeln or schniefen as equivalents for snuffle in English?
Well, depends on what exactly we mean.
“schniefen” is something humans do with their nose, but the word focusses on the sound. Also “die Nase hochziehen” can sound somewhat “deep” and powerfull, if there’s a lot of “material”. It’s the equivalent of “clearing one’s throat” – just for the nose.
So yeah, they’re not synonyms.
Schnüffeln is about smelling something and it’s mainly used for animals. It’s this smelling something where you inhale and exhale really quickly several times.
Hope that helps :)
My German grandma used to say something that sounded like “boompsy” or “boompsia” for fart.
Anyone heard anything similar. It would be pretty old school. She was born in 1905.
Maybe a variation of “pupsen”? I’ve never heard anything with an “m” for farting.
Probably that then.
Cheers.
Hey! I just started following your site. I really love it. I just wanted to point out that there are some pretty natural translations (which are probably all cognates) of the passing gas phrases.
pupsen = to toot (also polite but also childish-sounding)
furzen = to fart (also a bit vulgar)
einen fahren lassen = to let one rip (also refers to a single, usually not subtle, event)
I finish with a children’s rhyme, which given what I know about Germans and fart jokes probably does not have an equivalent in German:
Beans, beans, the musical fruit
The more you eat, the more you toot
The more you toot, the better you feel
So let’s have beans at every meal
Hahaha…that’s a great rhyme :). German does have an idiom about the topic but it’s nowhere near as funny. Nor is it as pro-beans.
– Jedes Böhnchen gibt ein Tönchen.
– “Every small bean gives a small sound.” literal… the whole chen-thing makes it sound pretty cute.
I saw on an episode of JoNaLu (a show on KiKa) that they called the hiccups “der Hicks”. Is that something that is said or is that simply child speak? Can I say “ich habe der Hicks”?
“Hicks” is the onomatopoeia for the sound you make when you have a hiccup. I guess you could say “Ich habe einen Hicks” but it doesn’t strike me as very idiomatic. It’s certainly understandable though
well done
Danke
Hi there, I would like to comment that both ways of sniffling is understood as extremely impolite in Germany. There has to be a lot of anger and frustration inside a German before he/she hands a tissue to a complete stranger. I have come across this topic while I was researching if British think of it being rude – my British colleague does it for hours and I am nearly freaked out.
Hmmm… do you really think it’s considered impolite? It can definitely be annoying but I have never thought of it as impolite the way that burping in public would be. I have been handed a tissue in the subway a couple of times in my life and I think it was out of compassion rather than anger because I was genuinely sick :)
cool! have you covered Interjections on this site? what would be german for the interjections for bodily noises like ‘hic hic’, ‘burrrp’ and ‘achooo’…..?
Not yet. You’re not the first one to ask for interjections but for some reason it feels like a really tough topic to write about :)
Anyway… of course the onomatopoetic versions of the noises should have been part of that post so here they are:
– rülps
– hatchie
– hicks
For the other ones I really have no idea how to put it in writing :)
The best cure for hiccups is to breathe very slowly and concentrate on relaxing your throat. If the hiccups persist, breathe even slower and don’t let yourself get upset about the hiccups! That will only make them worse. Try smiling along with the slow breathing, even if you don’t feel like it, a smile makes you feel more relaxed and that is how you can make even the worst hiccups go away.
Sounds like a very feasible approach… especially compared with all the other stuff that’s out there… like holding one’s breath and swallow exactly 7 times or making a handstand and swallow :)
Small correction. And I don’t know why anyone hasn’t pointed this out yet…
https://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/den++einen+Schluckauf+haben.html
den / einen Schluckauf haben
to have the hiccups
Ich habe einen Schluckauf.
I have a hiccup. (Nobody says it like this.)
>instead;
I have the hiccups. (correct)
Not to be a smart@ss or anything, I’m just trying to help.
Cool, das wusste ich nicht. Danke :)
I love this site! But you missed the best cure for hiccups, swallow as dry as possible a teaspoon of sugar. Any scratchy substance works but who wants to swallow sand. Swallow it right down, do not let it get wet and poof they’re gone.
Oh wow… I have heard of many cures but this one is news to me. I’ll definitely give it a go… danke :)
Hiya
I’ve heard there’s a German word for when you swallow something down the wrong pipe :) What was that again? I think it starts with “R” but I can’t remember what the word is. Ideas?
I think you mean “sich verschlucken”. Literally it means “to swallow oneself” but it is used in sense of coughing on a crumb of bred for example…
Ich habe mich an einem Stück Brot verschluckt.
That is the standard word for it but there might be some regional term I don’t know, too.
This is really a nice one, have learned a lot, thanks! But , did I miss ‘cough’ (husten) in this episode?
Oh yes… I don’t know why I forgot that… but I will add it as soon as I have a cough… which will be soon I reckon… fall is coming :)
[…] Word of the Day – “Body talk special” | German is easy ! […]
Bruno… Was bedeutet das Wort ‘Haffen’? Ich kann es ins Wörterbuch nicht finden.
Ich glaube, er meint “Affen.” (monkeys) :)
Ja genau, sorry :)
Believe me…German is really easy to learn!! ;o)
Als ich deine Bericht über Gähnen gelesen habe, musste ich beinahe selbst gähnen.. nein dein Eintrag war unterhaltsam wie immer, aber ich habe mir all diese gähnenden Haffen vorgestellt… Gähnen ist wirklich einsteckend!!
Bruno
Emanuel – – Thanks for clarifying all the finer points of these sometimes ‘delicate’ bodily emissions! ;-)… My impression from my German friends is that ‘farts’ and reference to them in any kind of jokey way are really not very acceptable to most Germans. I’d like to say not to most Australians, Brits and Americans too, but that’s not the case. Fart jokes sneak in all the time in those cultures, though not necessarily in more polite company!
A couple of Christmases ago I shared a YouTube rendition of Jingle Bells with some German friends. It was played by a couple of Frenchmen in a small ‘Klo’… one sitting on the throne and farting his way through the song and the other accompanying on a small electronic keyboard. It went over like the proverbial ‘fart in church’ with my friends… “We are not amused” was the unstated reply!
Anyway, it’s all the reality of life… amusing or not… and an important part of any language! Thanks for educating us all a bit more!
Cheers… Erik
That is actually pretty interesting and I think I have to say that it is true also for me… I just don’t find fart jokes funny. Not the sound, not the faces of the people around, not the embarrassment of the person… and this video you described… well I would have fit right in with the others ;). I don’t think it’s because farts are really banned in German society… you happen to fart, people will feel compassion in a way. I think it might even be that Germans don’t find slapstick very funny as a whole (if farting is a part of that)… the classical cake in face- no, burping jokes – no, stepping in dog shit and going mad – no, man accidentally punching friend instead of foe – no. I think to make a German laugh it would take an INCREDIBLY SKILLED comedian and he still has a good chance to fail… oh well, German humor. It does exist… but not on TV. German comedy shows are so goddamn unfunny. So awful… so much awful
Yes, I too generally fall into the slapstick and crude jokes – – including bodily function jokes – – are not funny. I’m not aprude… just don’t apprecaite it 99% of the time. However, that one video was actually quite amusing. You kind of ‘had to see it’. Crude… yes, but actually quite funny in the context, setting, visuals (the guys, the scene, etc) and the total inappropriateness of it. Crude, yes… but so over the top you had to laugh. I did anyway… ;-)
Two small points: Far more common that “snuffle” is “sniffle”
“Hicksen” in English would actually be the verbal construction “to hiccup”.
oh cool… thanks for the corrections :)