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Hello everyone,
and welcome to your German Word of the Day, this time with a look at
The Meaning of “schief”
When you look it up online, you’ll get a whole bunch of translation options. Dict.cc actually lists like 20 or so.
But it’s a great example for this concept of a “meaning cloud” and how it can be useful for learning vocabulary.
Let me explain …
Meaning Cloud – How to think about Words and Translations
You see, words in different languages rarely map onto each other precisely.
Concrete nouns tend to do it. The word fork and the word Gabel do more or less represent the exact same “concept”.
But the majority of words does not match that well, because a “word” in a language is kind of a crazy shaped cloud that covers some idea areas while not covering others that are adjacent.
And the same goes for the translation of that word in another language. That is also a cloud, but with a different shape. The two clouds intersect, so they partially cover the same idea area. THAT’S why they are translations, but they’re ONLY translations within the area where they intersect.
And the parts that don’t intersect… well… they’re NOT translations for each other there.
If you’re now like “Huh?” no worries, because schief is the perfect word to give an example with.
And I’ve also written an article about this concept of meaning cloud with some actual visuals. I’ll leave the link below, so you can explore it further if you want to.
But let’s get to the example – one of the many translations for schief is crooked.
And an idea area that they share is for example a picture that’s a bit crooked on the wall.
- Das Bild hängt schief.
- The picture is (“hangs”) crooked.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
In this sense, the meaning clouds overlap.
But crooked is also used to describe a type of character or behavior and for that schief is NOT the right word (in fact, there is no good direct translation).
So there, the meaning clouds of crooked and schief do NOT overlap.
And it’s the same for schiefe Ebene, which translates to inclined plane, not crooked plane.
Now, we could just say that these are different usages of the words and learn them all separately, but that’s not really the most efficient way.
It’s often much better to try and find the “core” of a meaning cloud. What idea is in the center of it that all the various uses are kind of variants of. Because once we manage to grasp a word in this way, once we see its “soul”, all or at least most of translations a dictionary offers you start to make sense and we kind of can tell when they fit and when they don’t.
Take crooked for instance.
It comes from an old Germanic word for a hook, and the core is the idea of something like bent out of shape.
A crooked picture on the wall is “bent” out of alignment, same for crooked teeth and also for a crooked institution.
And that’s different from the essence of schief.
The Core Meaning of “schief”
Schief also has a notion of “out of alignment” but the true core of it is simply “at an angle” compared to the horizontal line (or the vertical).
A tilted image is actually the perfect visual for schief because it’s purely about not being horizontally aligned AND it does have a negative touch… like it’s something you’d want to correct and make “straight” (gerade).
- “Ist das Bild gerade?”
“Nein, es ist ein bisschen schief.” - “Is the image straight?”
“No, it’s a little tilted/crooked.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Mein Becken ist schief.
- My pelvis has a tilt.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Oh Gott, wie hast du denn geparkt?! Total schief.
- Oh God, how did you park?! It’s super crooked.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Das Foto ist der schiefe Turm von Pisa.
- The picture is the leaning tower of Pisa.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This slightly negative touch is also a good way to differentiate between schief and schräg, which is also about “not being at a 90 degree angle” but it’s a bit more “on purpose“.
Like… if the roof of a house is schräg, that’s an architectural choice (sloped roof), whereas if it is schief, that sounds more like a construction error of some kind.
And this notion of error is also present in many of the related words and phrases and there are actually some really cool and common ones.
Words and Phrases with “schief”
First up, we have the verb schiefgehen. Taken literally, it’d be something like “to go out of a horizontal angle” but the actual meaning is pretty much to go wrong in a sense of not working out or going awry.
- Ich meine… was kann schon schiefgehen?
- I mean… What could go wrong, right?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Das Experiment ist schiefgegangen.
- The experiment went wrong.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Der Trainer muss der Presse erklären, was im Halbfinale schiefgelaufen ist.
- The trainer has to explain to the press what went wrong in the semi finals.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
It’s not used for small scale stuff not working, like trying to make the recipe from the cookbook or trying to catch a train. You’d use nicht klappen or nicht schaffen for that.
But you’ll definitely see schiefgehen and schieflaufen in daily life and they’re good addition to your active vocabulary if you’re B1 level or higher.
Cool.
Next up, we have the expression die schiefe Bahn. Literally, it means the tilted track, and the real meaning is pretty much off the straight and narrow in a sense of toward illegal activity.
- Über falsche Freunde ist er auf die schiefe Bahn gekommen.
- Through bad friends he ended up breaking bad.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This is not one you need to use actively probably, but you’ll definitely hear it sooner or later.
Sweet!
The next expression I want to share is jemanden schief angucken.
And I’ll actually start with an example that might give enough contextual clues :)
- Immer wenn ich im Einkaufszentrum mit meinem pinken Einhorn rede, werde ich schief angeguckt.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Do you have an idea what it could mean?
It’s about giving or getting “weird looks”. Like… when you see someone act weird, you’ll look at them with this skeptical look, and a tilted head.
- Whenever I talk to my pink unicorn at the mall, I’m getting weird looks.
Again, definitely a phrase you’ll hear in daily life and if you manage to use it yourself at the right time, you’ll have one of these “native” moments where people forget you’re not a native speaker for a second.
And the same also goes for our last verb schiefliegen. Literally, it’s lying at an angle and it can be used in this sense, but it also has the figurative sense of being wrong.
You think it’s A, but it’s actually B… that’s a classic case of you schiefliegen.
- Der “Experte” lag mit seiner Prognose komplett schief.
- The “expert” was completely off the mark/wrong with his prediction.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Oh… when you use it, make sure that you pronounce it schief-liegen and not schie-fliegen.
Because that would sound like you’re talking about ski flying, the sport.
All right.
Now, of course there are also some compound nouns with schief, like finanzielle Schieflage (financially difficult situation) or the beautiful der Beckenschiefstand (pelvic tilt).
But they’re not as useful and you’ll be able to guess most of them from context.
So I’d say… let’s wrap it up here :)
This was our look at the meaning of schief and its little family. It has dozens of potential translations, but all you really need to think of a tilted image. Not horizontal and something you feel should be fixed.
Now, usually we do a recap quiz here together, but this time, there isn’t really that much to ask aside from the meanings of the various phrases we went over.
And I think the better way to practice this is by using my awesome text comprehension tool.
Create a short text on your level that uses the words we talked about today and see if you can understand it and answer a few “exam”-style questions.
And of course, if you have any questions about any of the words e talked about today, just leave me a comment.
I hope you enjoyed it, have a great week, and I’ll see you next time
Further Reading:
Text Comprehension Practice with “schief”
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Hmm, the Generate Text button appears to do some work (spinning progress indicator) but generates no text. Tried several times with no luck.
Just a note about the quiz — it was fine but all the correct answers were A. Not sure if this is a problem with the AI.
You mean in the text comprehension? Might have been a coincidence, but if it happens more often then I’d have to look into it.
Good word. What about a path (Weg)? Kann ich einen schiefen Weg machen?
What are you trying to say here?
I’m not sure what you mean by “schiefen Weg”?
Nor I.
“krummen Weg” perhaps??
“schief” sounds to me more like a perjoritive, “krumm” as though the road/path is not physically, rather than morally, straight.
I was thinking more the physical path, such as I’ve had to much to drink and someone is trying to trace footsteps. But we can contrast that with a moral path too I suppose. Sounds like it’s probably different words based on your response.
In that sense, “krumm” is the best choice!
Hmm, could you give me an example sentence in English that you’d say? I understand the concept but I can’t think of how I would actually say it in either language.
Physical – The path through the woods was crooked and narrow.
Der Pfad durch den Wald war verschlungen und schmal.
This is what I’d say. The verb is “schlingen” in a sense of winding. “krumm” wouldn’t be “long” enough for a path with multiple curves.
Would “eng” work here as well, in the sense of tight or narrow, you think? We can speak of an “Engpass” , but perhaps eng is too figurative.
eng works but it only means that the path is narrow, not that it’s winding.
Engpass .. I only know that as a figurative word for a shortage.
…..or a bottleneck
Moral – Driven by greed, he abandoned his integrity and chose a crooked path filled with deceit and empty promises.
Tough one. i think I’d lean toward not translating it, but ChatGPT offered “krummen Weg”. I looked in phrase search and found only one match for this contextual use, so it’s definitely not a common turn of phrase.
Love the Text Comprehension exercise. Totally awesome!
Hallo! I’m in Berlin- where can I go swimming in the Spree?! ;) vielen Danke!
Nu, also wo genau in Berlin befindest du dich ueberhaupt? Der Spreefluss ist sowieso ziemlich lang, woher sollen wir das wissen?
Gut nass!
Das ist ein Insider, ich weiss Bescheid, was gemeint ist.
Ach, so.
Here :)
https://maps.app.goo.gl/gZ5JhreKjGGTaqBL7
:-)
I always liked sidestroking at Krumme Lanke.
Oh, I’ve never been there. It’s quite far from my place but definitely a popular lake :)
Hello,
Found only one typo:
“a whole bunch of translation option.” (a whole bunch of translation options.)
Have a question: you mention a “crooked institution,” I don’t get how that fits with the concept of being bent out of alignment… to my ear, it sounds like the English meaning of “crooked” you said that German does not cover… Can you give us an example?
Bis bald!
I think the original meaning in this instance is actually “krumm”.
AI can be dodgy, but “einen krummen Laden betreiben” might be what is meant
Yeah, it is the English figurative sense of “crooked”, which (as far as I’ve read) comes from a sense of bending and winding to get around the law or whatever is considered being “right”.
And in German, “schief” does NOT work.
Translating “crooked” is super dependent on the context. A crooked deal would be a krummes Geschaeft, but a crooked politician would NOT be called ‘krumm’, but rather ‘corrupt’ probably.
Does that help?
Although I didn’t post the query, your explanation’s spot on!
Me, I love Mosel wine and speak only wine German. To me Schief is slate. So how does this equate to ‘slating’ something – giving it a dramatically bad review?
Related no doubt to the geological designation “Schiefergebirge”.
Looks like it could be, but it is not.
Schiefer is related to ‘Scheibe’ and comes from the same root as ‘scheiden’, and it does NOT connect to “schief”.
Ah, thanks, but pity! – or schade!
Hmm, interesting.
Ought to have caught that.
That is not expressed with “schief” or anything similar.
The main word we use is “zerreißen”, which means “to rip apart”
“zer” is always a fun prefix! No pussyfooting around!
“to rip apart” certainly works, but I’d probably go with “rip to shreds” here, which is one way you’d idiomatically describe a particularly harsh review (for example). “She ripped his performance as Odysseus to shreds”.
Interestingly, it can also mean the opposite(#) when you change perspective, and describe an outstanding performance or the execution of a task (athletic mostly, but not exclusively). “Tadej completely shredded the course ((or ‘ripped the course to shreds’)), finishing 2 minutes before the peloton”.
(#) as can a standalone “shredded”
And let’ not forget about being shredded, which the modern alpha male needs to be to abs-mogg his peers.
Vital vocabulary for your garden variety looksmaxxer. It feels almost feminizing to only type two x’s in there, surely at least three should be required? I guess I’ll just have to apply some extra hammer-blows to (over)compensate.
“Philosophastering with a Hammer”, as Nietzsche might have described it. Or was it perhaps: “What doesn’t smash my (cheek) bones makes me prettier?”, I can’t quite remember…
Lol, OMG, you made me notice the double X chromosomes in looksmaxxing. Very low T word, that gets xy-mogged by anxiety. Of which it is a child.
“Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich staerker”, I believe, is the original quote and indeed attributed to Nietzsche.
It means ‘”to do to the ‘nth degree”, e.g. reissen = to tear, ZER reissen = to rip, rend etc..
He knows that.
Great article. I like the concept of trying to grasp the core meaning of a word so that I can hazard a guess at a word not encountered before but which looks vaguely as I should know the meaning. Duolingo (Level 79/80 A2/B1) is just introducing alternative meanings of words so I have to think which meaning is more likely to be correct. Prost Peter
Part of the fun, indeed the challenge, for serious students of German, is figuring out the meaning of words through their roots.
Any number of books on the subject.
Alternative meanings can help to kind of “outline” the cloud, but you do need to build an intuition for that kind of deducting. Like, when you see a bunch of possible meanings of a word getting an intuitive sense of what the core could be.
And then, sometimes, there might be two cores or even three, each with their own little bubble around them.
Breaking words down into their prefixed components, then divining their correct meaning, is an adventure undisguised in language acquisition!
it describes Trump perfectly.
Purely from a language level, you wouldn’t use “schief” to describe a politician. It would sound like you mean that they’re standing at an angle, which arguably is true for Trump, he does have this weird forward lean sometimes.
Exactly
Wow, you managed to bring President Trump into this, but I should not be surprised…not really. He probably lives rent free in your (leftist) head.
I mean, he’s president right now. He kind of lives rent free in everyone’s head while he’s in office because he’s a very visible man.
Excellent ! Succinct and effective. I’m really looking forward to jemanden schief angucken!
“schief” means skew, slanted, crooked, the opposite of “gerade” or straight, right, straight ahead/forward.
The former is one of the all-purpose words in German, sometimes aligned with another adjective “schraeg”!
schieflaufen = to go wrong
schiefhaengen = to hang crooked, off of center
schiefgehen = lexically similar to 1.
schieffahren = to fail, lit. drive wrong…
Numerous examples can be found in a good dictionary.
I have never heard of schieffahren and it’s not in Duden or Dict.cc.
Is this a regional thing?
For sure!