Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will take a look at the meaning of:
die Langeweile
As you are reading the Word of the Day right now you are far from having Langeweile, at least you were up to this point but let me tell you some facts about my kitchen cupboard. So my kitchen cupboard is hanging over my sink and my stove. It is about 1.3 m long and 0.8 m high and it has two folding doors.
These are made of laminated fiber sheet while the rest of the cupboard is made of some sort of metal. It has 2 levels. I use the upper level for my frying pans, oil, honey, some tupper boxes, flakes and rusk… yeah rusk. In the lower level I store my pasta, rice, tea, nuts and all kinds of spices. One interesting spice I am using is called pepper, which I grind using a wooden pepper mill. This pepper mill is right next to the salt mill but don’t worry guys, the former has a little dark spot that allows me to distinguish it from the latter…
and …are you bored yet?
Great!
Because now you have Langeweile.
Langeweile consists of the parts lange, which means long, and Weile, which is a while. And when does time usually seems to stretch aaand streeetch aaannnd strrrrreeeeetchhhh? Exactly, when you are bored out of your mind. So Langeweile is the German word for boredom. Langeweile is used way more often than the English boredom, as it is used to indicate that you ARE bored. In German you can say
- Ich habe Langeweile.
“I have boredom. (literal)” - I am bored.
Of course there is also a word for boring and this word is langweilig. You can use it whenever somethings is boring.
- Der Film ist langweilig.
It is also what the German Homer Simpson shouts by the way… ok he says it more like laaaaaangweilig.
Anyway, boring is considered such a basic characteristic that you can even use it with the German formula for expressing basic sentiments. Just like
- Mir ist kalt.
- I feel cold.
- Mir ist warm.
- I feel warm.
you can say
- Mir ist langweilig.
- I am bored.
But be careful. The subject is technically not I in that sentence. Mir is ich in case 3 suit so it is some object. The subject is the famous it. So suppose you have learned “Mir ist langweilig.” and now you want to ask your date whether he or she is bored, DON’T say this.
- Bist du langweilig?
That means “Are you boring?”… well, this question is certainly one your crush hasn’t heard a lot before. The correct question would be:
- Ist dir langweilig?
- Are you bored?
Dir is the case 3 suit of du so this is what you need. Now if you don’t want to bother with all this and you want to make sure to avoid this obvious misunderstanding, you could also use the German word for bored – gelangweilt.
- Ich bin gelangweilt.
- I am bored.
Now is there any difference between “Ich habe Langeweile“, “Mir ist langweilig.” and “Ich bin gelangweilt.”? They all seem to mean “I am bored” after all. Well, the first 2 are really pretty much the same but a phrasing with gelangweilt is indicating that you are bored by something particular, like a movie or a conversation, whereas the first 2 are expressing that you do not know what to do with yourself. The reason for that small difference is that gelangweilt directly comes from the verb langweilen, which means to bore. Just put ge in front and a t at the end and you get the ge-form gelangweilt. Langweilen is used on a regular basis in German. We use the phrasing “something bores me” a lot.
- Meine Arbeit langweilt mich.
- My work is boring.
My work bores me. (literal.)
- Mein Professor langweilt mich.
- My professor is pretty boring.
Langweilen is also something you can do to yourself. In that case it means … well that you are bored yet another time. When would this phrasing be used?
- “Wie war es auf der Konferenz?”
“Oh, ich habe mich viel gelangweilt.” - “How was the conference?”
“Oh, I was bored a lot.”
So whenever you hang around somewhere and you sort of do stuff but it is mainly boring to you, you can say it this way. But you don’t have to. Some conference might be boring, to express that fact in German sure isn’t thanks to the variety of ways to say a simple thing: I am bored.
- Ich habe Langeweile.
- Mir ist langweilig.
- Ich bin gelangweilt.
- Ich langweile mich.
Now how to say I am VERY bored? For the last 3 versions you can just add sehr to the sentence and you got it. This won’t work for the first one though. Why? Because this would literally be “I have very boredom.” It also won’t really work to say it in plural “I have boredoms” so what actually happens is that boredom gets bigger.
- Ich habe große Langeweile.
And just a little bit of colloquial speech:
- Ich habe tierisch Langeweile.
“I have animal-like boredom. (Lit.)” - I am so/damn. bored.
To wrap this up let me tell you that what reason other than the meaning there is to remember Langeweile. It can improve your grammar. Remember the sound and the rhythm. Why? Because it it Lang-E-weile and not Langweile. It is this very e you need to add to every adjective as soon as it is in front of a noun. It is Die schön-E Frau and not Die schön Frau, although the dictionary says schön. Automatically putting an e there will help you a lot later on and Langeweile is a good example for this.
Oh shit, I almost forgot the grammar. Langeweile is feminine and it has no plural. And done :).
So this was our Word of the Day, die Langeweile. If you have questions or suggestions, please drop me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.
I’m going to try leaving a comment in German, so here it goes. (Please, feel free to correct me)
Du hast einen bisschen Fehler in der Beschreibung deine Küche. “It is about 1,3 m long and 0,8 m high and it has two folding doors.” In die Englischsprachige Länder, das Dezimaltrennzeichen ist ein Punkt “.”, und das Tausendertrennzeichen ist das Komma “,”. “It is about 1.3 m long and 0.8 m high and it has two folding doors.”
Du hast wahrscheinlich schon darüber wissen, aber es hebt sich.
And here come the corrections :)
– Du hast einen kleinen Fehler…
“bisschen” ist kein Maß für Größe sondern für Menge oder Intensität
– … in der Beschreibung deiner Küche.
“deine Küche” ist im Genitive, deshalb “deiner”
– In den englischsprachigen Ländern ist das …
“in den Ländern” ist Dativ Plural. Deshalb “den”. Die Länder sind auf Position eins. Danach muss das Verb kommen. Und das KOmma muss weg, da in Position 1 kein Nebensatz ist.
– Du hast wahrscheinlich schon davon gewusst…
Wenn du “darüber” benutzen willst dann braucht du noch ein Objekt… man nimmt da meistens “etwas”
– “Ich weiß darüber etwas.”
Da wir hier aber eine ziemlich singuläre Information haben, passt “davon” besser. Und dann musst du natürlich “gewusst” schreiben. Ist ja Vergangenheit :)
– …, aber es hebt sich.
Das verstehe ich nicht. Was wolltest du denn damit sagen?
Vielen lieben Dank übrigens für die Spende. Ich hab’ mich voll gefreut!!
I obviously have a long way to go :-)
Du hast wahrscheinlich schon darüber wissen, aber es hebt sich.
That was an attempt to say “You probably already knew that, but it stands out.”
Thanks for the corrections.
Ah… das wäre dann
– Du wusstest das wahrscheinlich schon, aber es fällt auf.
Das Wort “abheben” passt nicht gut, wenn es um einen Moment geht. Ein Buch kann sich von anderen Büchern abheben. Aber nicht ein Fehler in einem Text. Der “fällt auf” oder “sticht hervor”.
Hi Emanuel
Greetings from Thailand! I found your blog just now. German is not (and will never be) easy for me, but you make it much much more fun! (like, seriously, all your posts are like from a German-made-fun book)
One question for this post: Why we write ‘Ich habe tierisch Langeweile.’ instead of ‘tierische Langeweile’?
(just finished reading you Adjective Endings posts, so I’m a bit curious here.)
Thank you very much for all efforts you’ve put through to make this impressive blog
Cheeeeeeers!!
Fahsai
Hey Fahsay,
danke für das liebe Feedback. Freut mich, dass dir der Blog so gefällt.
About your question… you’re right that it looks like “tierisch” would be an adjective for “Langeweile”. Like “How’s your boredom?” “Tierisch”. But it really is an adverb that refers to the verb. Kind of like “vielleicht”, just with a completely different meaning
– Ich habe vielleicht/tierisch/manchmal….
It means roughly the same as “extremly”
– I am extremely bored.
But you can definitely also find people using “tierisch” as an adjective
– Ich habe tierischen Hunger.
– I have an enormous hunger.
– Ich habe tierisch Hunger
– I am extremely hungry.
The message of both is roughly the same and the only way to tell is the ending of “tierisch”
Hope that helps :)
Vielen Dank, sehr hilfreich. Meine Mahnung wird sein: Aus für Aktiv stehen;und Vor für Vegetives Nervensystem stehen!.
Freut mich zu hören :). Eine kleine Sache… “Mahnung” ist ziemlich ernst. Es wird eigentlich immer im Kontext von Fehlern verwendet. Wenn man seine Rechnung nicht bezahlt, dann kriegt man eine Mahnung, wenn man auf Arbeit etwas sehr schlechtes macht, dann bekommt man eine Abmahnung (written warning) und ein Mahnmal (memorial) erinnert immer an Sachen, die sich NICHT wiederholen sollen.
Ich würde hier “Merkhilfe” oder Gedankenstütze” sagen… oder “Eselsbrücke”. “Eselsbrücke” passt hier fast am besten da du ja einen Trick verwendest :). Ich finde sie (die Eselsbrücke) echt gut.
Danke übrigens für die Spende. Ich hab mich sehr gefreut!!
Hallo
My textbook says that the preposition “aus” is used when there is “ein Gefühl, das eine bewusste Handlung zur Folge hat” zB “aus Langeweile, “aus Angst”; while “vor” is used when there is “ein Gefühl, das eine unbewusste körperlich Reaktion zur Folge hat” zB vor Erschöpfung, vor Aufregung
For me I’ve never been aware that my feelings of “boredom”, “fear”, etc are intrinsically different to my feelings of “exhaustion” or “excitement”.
I’m all for tips on how to use the right German preposition but this tip doesn’t seem to work for me.!
Am I missing something in translation?
Regards
Richard
Well, the point is not the feeling itself but your response to it. The book claims that a conscious response tends to be “aus” the feeling while a subconscious or sort of automated response is “vor” the feeling.
– Ich schlafe vor Langeweile ein. (it just happens)
– Ich esse aus Langeweile. (I did that on purpose)
– Ich zittere vor Angst (automated response)
– Ich gehe aus Angst vor Spinnen nicht in den Keller. (conscious decision)
I think that as a very rough guideline this works okay… but of course there are exceptions.
– Ich habe meinen Chef vor Freude umarmt.
Hugging my boss is always something conscious, I’d say. But “aus Freude” is just way less common.
This last example made me think of something else… “vor” is probably more in the moment. If you do something “vor Angst” that means that you’re pretty scared that moment. If you do something “aus Angst” then maybe it is more of a diffuse anxiety. You were really scared once and that causes your decisions now. So… “vor Freude” is very impulsive. “Aus Freude” would be a longer lasting joy maybe…
Just to make sure though… this isn’t super strict and I’m sure there are examples out there that totally don’t fit in. Hope it helps a bit anyway :)
I guess he meant “gespannt sein auf…”- this would also be an intersting word to explain :-)
The root of that is spannen… which is indeed interesting… not so much as a verb itself but rather for the many words that derive from it like gespannt, spannend, Entspannung, entspannend, entspannt…. I’ll add it to the list :)
Hi Emanuel, with that comment I was just saying (in a komisch/doof) manner – Im excited to use the word Langeweile… And I did! In fact I over-used it slightly at work and it was quite funny. I have funny colleagues :-)
Also I have a request… Could you please do a word-of-the-day on “doch” sometime? I kinda get the meaning, but I dont think we have an english equivalent and would love a good explanation of it.
Hey Aaron, cool that you use Langeweile at your work :).
Spannung means tension or suspense. Excited is aufgeregt in German but it does not have an as positive connotation as the English excited. Exceitement is Aufregung and this does have a negative touch in German. So if you are positively excited about something you could either say “Ich freue mich darauf, Langeweile zu benutzen” which would be literally translated “I am looking foward to use Langeweile” or “Ich kann es nicht erwarten, Langeweile zu benutzen” -literally “I can’t wait to use Langeweile.”… but the latter sounds a bit… well … booky.
Anyway… I was already pondering doch for a while as some ppl on Facebook asked for it and your comment just gave the decisive push… so I hope it clarifies a bit.
Awesome man, thanks for that! Also, ich freue mich darauf, doch zu lesen.
Hello Emanuel,
I have little pony toy which I bought in Gernany and she says “Bist du aufgeregt?” and many other words after that :)
However it is sounds like a positive connotation.
Is there are other uses of ‘aufgeregt’ ?
Danke
Yeah, it can be “nervous” but also “excited”. You could check out my article on “regen”, there’s a closer look at “aufregen” in there
https://yourdailygerman.com/2016/04/26/word-of-the-day-regen/
Haha I almost panicked when I thought you forgot all the grammar. Thanks for another great word of the day ich habe Spannung für Langeweile.
Hey Aaron, I am glad that you liked this post as I was actually a bit scared that it is too confusing with all the different ways to say the same thing :).
Anyway… now the big let down… Ich habe Spannung für Langeweile is not correct. I am sorry to say that but I am not sure what you are trying to say. I guess you mean something like excitement but then again the phrasing is komisch. So if you could tell me the English, I will tell you how to say that in German and when Spannung is adequate… Grüße aus Berlin