Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day, this time with a look at one of the most German sounding words ever:
schrumpfen
A word like the smell of moss on an old musty oak tree deep in the forest where a boar forages for truffles.
Or the sound of an old, giant steam engine piston moving.
Or the name of a German metal band.
A word that seems like it’s a freeze dried version of a real word and you have to pour water on it to make it expand.
And a word that describes what happens to our self confidence when we make our first attempts at speaking to a native speaker.
Because schrumpfen is the opposite of wachsen and means to shrink.
- Wie schnell schrumpfen meine Muskeln, wenn ich keinen Sport mache?
- How fast do my muscles shrink when I don’t work out?
- Nach dem letzten Date ist Thomas Selbstvertrauen sehr geschrumpft.
- After the last date, Thomas’s self confidence has shrunk a lot.
- Die Wirtschaft ist im dritten Quartal um zwei Prozent geschrumpft.
- The economy contracted two percent in the third quarter.
- Schrumpflation ist, wenn der Preis gleich bleibt, die Portion aber schrumpft.
- Shrinkflation is when the price stays the same, but the portion is getting smaller.
Now, just like English, German has more than one option to express the opposite of growing.
Like kleiner werden and abnehmen or eingehen.
And I know your brain is yelling at you that you need to know the difference between all of them RIGHT NOW! But trust me… the opposite is true.
You do not need to know that now. I’ll give you a little overview at the end of the article, so tell your brain to chill.
Schrumpfen is definitely not all that common in daily life, but it’s a good choice for shrinking that you want to sound “severe” and colorful. And there are a surprising number of compounds with Schrumpf-.
Most of them are technical terms for industrial parts or processes, or they’re niche words like Schrumpfkopf, which is a shrunken head (and a great name for a metal band, once again) or der Schrumpftrank.
Those of you who are into role playing probably intuitively know what that could be right away.
I mean… the D&D style role playing. Not the adult, fifty shades of gray style role playing. You’d probably want the opposite of a Schrumpftrank there. Unless you’re super well hung.
Anyway, so now you know schrumpfen, one of the German translations of to shrink. Are the two related? Well, no, most probably not.
But schrumpfen does have a close relative in English. And at least if you’re into seafood you’ll have had a fair share of it.
Any idea what I mean?
I am talking about shrimp. And seeing how much shrimp shrink when I fry them, that’s a very fitting name. And they’re also called die Shrimps in German. Or die Garnelen. It’s the same thing pretty much. But not Scampi... those are a different species, actually, even though they look similar.
“Oh great, you’re telling us the difference between Scampi and Shrimp but not between the various word for shrinki…”
Quiet, brains!
We’ll get to that later.
First, there’s also a German relative I want to tell you about – the verb schrumpeln.
And schrumpeln is basically what happens to grapes when they become raisins.
So while schrumpfen is about a reduction in size, schrumpeln is about the pruney, shriveled surface.
And I don’t know about you, but for me, schrumpeln really “sounds the part”. Schrumpeln.
I mean… the English translation to shrivel is also not bad, but schrumpeln… I don’t know, for me it just perfectly sounds like what it stands for.
Anyway, so schrumpeln is to shrivel, to get pruney and its equally common brother verschrumpeln is essentially the same; just a little more focused on the result. Oh, and then there’s the adjective schrumpelig, which of course means pruney, shriveled.
- Warum schrumpelt die Haut, wenn man zu lange im Wasser ist?
- Why does the skin shrivel when we’re in the water for too long?
- Der Apfel ist ein bisschen verschrumpelt, aber für Apfelsaft ist das kein Problem.
- The apple is a little pruney, but for apple juice that is no problem.
- Der Salat war braun, das Gemüse total schrumpelig.
- The salad was brown, the vegetables were completely shriveled.
Oddly enough, there is no noun based on schrumpeln, so if you want to talk about the wrinkles and puckers, the word is either die Falte(n) or die Runzel(n).
- Die Falten auf deiner Stirn sind tief genug, um Kartoffeln anzupflanzen.
- The wrinkles on your forehead are deep enough to plant potatoes.
- Hilft Einhornurin wirklich gegen Runzeln?
- Does unicorn urine really help against wrinkles?
Neither of those really fits for, say, the shriveled pepper in the back of the fridge, so go for a phrasing with verb or adjective there.
And that’s pretty much for today.
This was our quick look at the meaning of schrumpfen and schrumpeln.
As usual, if you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Oh… and I totally forgot the overview:
abnehmen: moon waning, losing weight, temperature going down
eingehen: shrinking for clothes
kleiner werden: most generic word that works for lots of things that grow in size
sinken/fallen: prices getting smaller
It’s a really coarse overview, but I hope it helps. Just check my dictionary for more details :)
I came across this sentence “Nach dem ersten Waschen kommt es zu einer gewissen Schrumpfung des Stoffes.”
What does the “kommt es zu” part mean? I’m not sure what I’d need to search for to get a dictionary result
The phrase “es kommt zu” means that something happened with a slight undertone of “culmination”. Think of English phrases like “It came to a head” .
The most common context is when during a protest or a soccer game at some point people start a scuffle with the police.
Then the newspaper would write
I think in the sentence you gave I’d translate it as “there may be”.
Hope that helps :)
I see what you’re saying thank you. Is it really just a maybe that the shrinking will occur or does it sound more certain? “There may be” sounds kinda like “this is a potential side effect we’ve observed before, so don’t complain to us if this happens”
Oh, I actually put that in because I falsely remember the sentence to be “kann es zu Schrumpfungen kommen”.
The sentence as you stated it is definite, so there WILL be shrinking.
Re: the moon…
I wasn’t sure what you meant by decreasing.
Does abnehmen mean the moon going down (i.e. setting) or the change in visible shape of the moon caused by the earth’s shadow (i.e. waning)?
Ohhhh…. “waning” is what I meant.
In German it’s “abnehmen” and “zunehmen”. And the rising/falling is like for the sun… aufgehen/untergehen.
Ooook make sense with the losing weight concept as well. The moon and the person both get narrower and more angular when they abnehmen.
Thanks!
Just wanted to thank all the people that payed more than they had to and gave me this oppurtunity to study from these great resources!
Schade dass die von diesem in der Naehe Supermarkt verkaufende Obst, sind immer ganz verschrumpelt worden.
Schade dass die vondiesemindernaehesupermarktverkaufende Obst, sind ploetzlich verschrumpelt worden wenn ich in diesen Geschaeft ankomme.
Hmmm ich muss die zweiten Satz aendern ein bisschen
Versuche N. 2: Schade dass die indiesemindernaehesupermarkte Obst, werden immer ganz geschrumpelt wenn ich ankomme.
Besser oder?
Nice trying!!
There are two issues with all of the attempts.
I encourage you to give it another try :)
Vielen Dank fuer das Korregieren. Versuche N 3: Wenn ich diesem Supermarkt besuche, der in der Naehe von meinem zu Hause ist, sind die Obst immer verschrumpelt.
Viel besser!!
Hier mal komplett richtig:
This sounds quite formal though. German uses “besuchen” very rarely compared to English. Germans just say “gehen” hier.
Aha! Danke sehr! Einfach ist immer besser!
V. N.4: Wenn ich zu diesem Supermarkt gehe, . . ., ist das Obst immer verschrumpelt.
A quick shout out to the people who sponsor others’ memberships– vielen Dank für eure Unterstützung! :)
I am not quite sure, but I seem to have seen a certain discrepancy between the German sentence and its English rendition. Sorry to have mentioned this, if I am wrong.
Do you mean the quarter?
Das war Grossartig! Danke, Emanuel.
Eleanor
Danke :)!
Good…. but SO talkative!
You don’t need to prove that you can write and be whimsy and be cool all the time.
Keep it simple, keep it clear, keep it humble … please!
I’ll keep it in whatever way I actually enjoy writing. Sometimes, that’s simple, sometimes it’s wordy and full of unnecessary tangents.
I know that it can be annoying for some people sometimes, but lots of people also enjoy all the stupid detours.
Personally, I love your writing style! Entertaining and engaging. I guess you can’t please everyone!
Oh no, no way to do that :).
That’s primarily why I am now mostly focusing on how much fun I am having while writing.
I used to force jokes and tangents, but now, if I don’t have any ideas, I just stick with information.
The only thing I am really spending time crafting is the structure and progression of the article. So what information comes when and why and what’s the transition.
I remember learning a long time ago, in an undergrad psychology course, about studies showing that people tend to retain information better when it is accompanied by jokes and funny stories. Your sense of humour is not always an exact match for my own, but you are justified in incorporating it into your articles on pedagogical grounds. I agree there is no need to force it when it does not come naturally, but there is nothing wrong, in principle, with a bit of silliness.
I just wanted to say that I absolutely love the style of your articles, please DON’T “Keep it simple and keep it clear”!
If I wanted straight up grammar explanations then I would just read a dry grammar book… I think most of your readers enjoy the articles specifically because of the added whimsy. :)
It keeps saying I’ve reached my limit of two posts per week. It’s bad enough that I paid up for a subscription and through some weird problem with the log on on my phone I lost about 3 weeks. Maybe more. But I haven’t seen,/opened an email from this site in several weeks due to illness. So how did I over do my ^free” articles? Please unsubscribe me.
I have absolutely no problem to refund you or extend your account for three weeks.
However, you’re commenting here without a name, so who am I supposed to unsubscribe?
Are you even logged in?
Have you sent me an email about the issues?
If you follow the link from your email, your browser doesn’t automatically log you in (unless you clicked “remember me” when you logged in last time. Click the top right icon and log in and it should take you back to the article ;)
Vielen Dank Emanuel, das war prima.
Danke Emanuel, super wie immer. Mit lustigen und Kreativen Beispielen, so man kann begeistert lernen
Thanks- soooo very interesting and informative wie gewönlich!
Freut mich :)!
Thank you for this post. You describe it so well and the article is so entertaining I will never forget the word now!
I’m happy to hear that :)!
Hello,
Let’s schrumpfen the percentage of typos:
self-confidence (has a hyphen)
“there are a surprising number of compound” (there are a surprising number of compounds)
Do clothes schrumpfen or eingehen (or either)? Which is more idiomatic?
Bis bald!
Ahem…. there is a surprising number (no s) of compounds…. Or, you could say, “a lot of compounds”….
The standard is “eingehen”. That’s what you’d use for a t-shirt shrinking after laundry.
But you could use “schrumpfen” as well, if you are jokingly talking about a shirt magically “getting smaller”.
Schrumpeln and Schrumpfen put me in mind of the English adjective „frumpy“, meaning wrinkled, ill-fitting, the opposite of elegant or stylish.
Diese Worte machen mir Spaß!
Frumpy does sound really cool :). Could also be a mix of friendly and grumpy.
Frumpy is often used to describe women who dress older than their age or who don’t dress sexy. I imagine things like long skirts, loose blouses, cardigans, sensible shoes, etc.
It’s probably sexist, because men aren’t being criticised in the same way so gender clearly plays a role.
Yeah, that is sexist. I’ll stay away from that word then :).
Frumpy isn’t specific to women at all, it just means unfashionable. It just happens to be that women generally concern themselves more with fashion
It actually did originally mean grumpy according to the dictionary
“I’ll give you a little overview at the end of the article, so tell your brain to chill.”
(Es wird ein bisschen kühl hier drinnen…)
Oh damn… I totally forgot about that :D!!
Thanks to team spirit for my membership, won’t give you up, A1 soon.=)
And then fluency next :)!
Und was uber GMbH