Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time, we’ll take a look at the meaning of
Rücken
You might know that der Rücken is the German word for the back of the body and you might wonder “Why are we doing an lesson about this.”
Well, first of all, just like in English where back is a body part but also a word for the idea of “backward”, so is rück in German so we’ll check that branch out and gather some useful vocabulary like zurück, rückwärts and Rücksicht.
And then, there is also the verb rücken, which comes with a bunch of prefix versions like abrücken, anrücken, aufrücken and most importantly, verrücken.
So we’ll take a look at those as well.
Lots of useful words to be found today, so if you’re ready, let’s jump right in.
“back” in German – Rücken, zurück and more
Now, the original Germanic word for the back was indeed the word “back”, but while English has kept it, it has disappeared from most other Germanic languages including German.
They all use a version of Rücken.
Rücken is related to the English ridge and the two words probably go back to the obscenely ancient Indo-European root *(s)ker which was about bending, turning.
People called a back a Rücken and a ridge a ridge because they’re slightly curved.
Today, this connection to the idea of bending is long forgotten though, Rücken is just a word that means the back.
- Mein Rücken tut weh.
- My back hurts.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich habe Rücken(probleme).
- I have back problems.
(just saying “Ich hab’ Rücken” is quite a fad at the moment – young, old… all “have back”) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now, both in German and in English people started using the word for their back in a more abstract, broad sense of “what’s behind us” and before long back had taken up the very general idea of “turning around“.
Like, to look back is quite literally to look in the direction of your back, to go back is the same idea, and from there it’s only a small step to to give back, which doesn’t have much to do with actual back anymore. This back that is used with activities is zurück , which literally means “to the back”.
- Ich fahre morgen zurück nach Berlin.
- I’ll go back to Berlin tomorrow.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Bin gleich zurück.
- Will be back in a minute.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Was kostet das?”
“120 Euro hin und zurück.” - “How much is that?”
“132 Dollars roundtrip. (lit.: forth and back).” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Zurück is (of course) also used as a prefix, there are (of course) MANY verbs with it and the translation is (off horse) not always with back. But the idea is always in there somewhere and I think you can get from context.
- Ich ruf’ dich zurück sobald ich zu Hause bin.
- I’m gonna call you back as soon as I’m home.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Die Verkäufe des neuen Deos bleiben hinter den Erwartungen zurück.
- Sales of the new deodorant fail to live up to the expectations.
The sales […] remain/stay back behind the expectations. (lit.) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Einsteigen bitte…. zurückbleiben bitte.
- All aboard.. please stand back.
(Standard text you’ll hear on train stations) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Thomas ist ein zurückhaltender Mensch.
- Thomas is a restrained/reserved/unobstrusive person. (lit.: back-holding)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Der Politiker tritt wegen der Carport-Affaire zurück. (lit.: steps back)
- The politician resigns because of car port gate.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now, there are also many many nouns and what’s interesting here is that for nouns, at least for most of them, the prefix is just rück, not zurück, even if they’re based on a zurück-verb.
Like… the noun for zurückgeben (give back)and is die Rückgabe.
Or for zurückgehen (to go back, to decline/recede) it’s der Rückgang.
Or for zurückziehen it’s .. meh, I think you get the idea.
Besides these verb based nouns there are plenty others like Rückseite (flip-side, back side), Rückweg (way back) or die Rücksicht which means respect or consideration.
But I’d say most of them are more or less “guessable” by context, so let’s now pivot and talk about the verb a bit.
OMG, I used “pivot” in a sentence. LinkedIn would be so proud of me.
I have to wash out my mouth real quick hold on…
The Verb “rücken” – Meaning and Family
In a perfect world, rücken would mean to back.
But then, the 2020s started, we live in clown world now and rücken is far from to back.
Okay, of course the verb rücken didn’t mean to back even before our “modern times” now. It just fits in really well, because it’s not even related to the word Rücken.
It’s just spelled the same.
The verb rücken is related to the English word rock.
Not the stone, not the actor and not the music, but the verb to rock.
Originally, to rock meant to move gently from side to side.
Think of what mother does with her child.
But over time the verb kind of got less gentle. Just like the music. Like… back in the day people were rocking (moving gently) to Mozart’s mellow melodies, some 200 years they were rocking (head banging) to Iron Maiden mauling their guitars and the phrase rocking a baby to sleep is kind of funny.
But anyways… this loss of gentleness of the verb also happened in German and today, there’s a Ruck which is sudden movement, a jolt and there’s rücken which could be described as:
to move (something) over small distances across a surface in a stop and go fashion.
You… you don’t have to remember that definition. Just try to visualize it.
So, rücken is a bit like schieben but way less smooth. Think of moving your kitchen table to the side. It’s really noisy because the legs of the table kind of stutter, rock across the surface.
In practice though,the verb is often used in the broader sense of to move slowly … or even just to move. And it’s used for abstract movements, too. Just keep in mind that you cannot really rücken anything that has wheels or slides well because that goes against the stuttering background of the word.
Enough theory though… examples.
- Rück mal’n Stück.
- Scooch over.
(common way to ask someone to move to the side a little on a bench or a
couch… for joke also often said as “Stück mal’n Rück.”, that’ll really make you sound like a native) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich habe den Kühlschrank zur Seite gerückt – ein Fehler.
- I moved the fridge a bit to the side – a mistake.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Weihnachten rückt immer näher.
- Christmas is inching closer and closer.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Nach dem überraschenden Rücktritt des Ministers beginnt im Ministerium jetzt das große Stühlerücken.
- After the surprising resignation of the minister, the big shake-up in the departments commences.
(Stühlerücken is a common term used in newspapers to express how everyone gets up to move to a new position)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Of course, there are also prefix versions of rücken and they’re all in some way about movement.
- Im Schlafzimmer sind zwei getrennte Betten, die man aber problemlos zusammenrücken kann.
- In the sleeping room there are two separate beds but you can move them together without problems, if need be.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Zitate werden oft eingerückt.
- Quotes are often indented.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Nach heftigen Protesten ist die Regierung von ihren Plänen zu einer Smart-Phone-Steuer abgerückt.
- After heavy protest the government has backed away from plans for a smart phone tax.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Katzenbaby auf Baum – Feuerwehr musste anrücken.
- Kitten on a tree – fire fighters had to show up.
(using “rücken” here implies mass, it’s not just one guy, it’s a whole unit)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
While not super common, all these verbs are definitely in use and you’ll come across them in spoken and written German. But as long as you know that it’s about movement and not about back you’re good and you don’t really need them to express yourself.
Well… except one: verrücken.
The Meanings of verrücken and verrückt
Verrücken by itself simply means to change the location of something by rückening it. What makes this verb really REALLY useful though is it’s ge-form… verrückt.
Why is it so useful? Because it’s the number one German word for crazy. This meaning is not crazy at all if you thing about it… the crazy mind has been moved, shifted a bit, away from normal,
- Du bist verrückt.
- You are crazy.
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- Heute in der Bahn war so eine Verrückte, die voll laut über irgendwelche Verschwörungstheorien erzählt hat.
- Today on the train there was this lunatic/crazy person who was very loudly rambling on about conspiracy theories.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Thomas hat immer so verrückte Ideen.
- Thomas always has these crazy ideas.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now, the word crazy is used like crazy in English.
Some of the expressions are the similar in German. But there are differences too. Besides real crazy-ness verrückt can express oddness or curiousness. But not extreme-ness. For crazy in sense of extreme I think krass is the better choice.
- Mein Rücken tut krass weh.
- My back hurts like crazy.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Wusstest du, dass Maria letztes Jahr beim Iron Man dritte geworden ist?”
“Nee. Aber krass/krasse Scheiße.” (very colloquial) - “Did you know that Maria made third place at the Iron Man last year?”
“No. Crazy shit.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Wait a second… krass, crazy... could they be related?
Let me find that out for you, hold on… hey, can one of you interns ask ChatGPT about the background on crazy and krass real quick?
Yes, now please! I need it now, so hurry up! And don’t give me this long winded AI slop answer. Have Gemini summarize it or something.
Sorry for the wait, folks. Just a second… oh, actually, there’s a call coming in, Melanie fromWinooski, Vermont, welcome to the show.
“Hey Emanuel, I have a question about to back.”
Sure, go ahead.
“So .. you said that rücken does not mean to back in sense of backing someone and I was wondering how I could translate that.?”
Oh that’s a good question … I think the most generic option is unterstützen but there are other versions like hinter jemandem stehen so it depends on context, I guess. Oh and there’s one with Rücken, too…. jemandem Rückendeckung geben. This is pretty much to have one’s back.
“Ah cool, thank you so much.”
Oh you’re welcome, thanks for your call.
And by now the result of the little research are here, too. The question was whether crazy and krass are related and it turns out … drum roll…. drrrrrrrrrrrr… dishhhhhh…. they’re not!
Crazy is related to a French word écraser, which is about breaking, while krass is related to grease and both words gehen zurück to Latin crassuswhich meant fat, solid, dense.
And that’s it for today. This was our look at the word rücken.
The noun der Rücken means the back and just like back in English rück is used in all kinds of contexts about reverse or turn around. The verb rücken, related to to rock, is about moving across a surface but in colloquial speech it’s used rather freely.
As always, if you have any questions or suggestions about Rücken, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Vocab:
der Rücken – the back
der Rückenwind – the tail wind
zurück – back (as a direction)
zurückbleiben – remain behind, also “stay back” on a train platform
geistig zurückgeblieben – mentally retarded
zurückkommen – to come back, to return
zurückgehen – to go back, also to recede, to decline
zurückgeben – give back, to return
zurückhalten – hold back (careful there, not the same idea as Rückhalt)
sich zurückziehen – to retreat, to seclude oneself, to go to the back room to ponder
die Zurückhaltung – the restraint (as a behavior)
der Rückhalt – the support
der Rücktritt – the resignation (stepping down from a position)
die Rücksicht – the regard, respect (implies that you act on it)
der Rückblick – the look back, the retrospective
der Rückgang – the decline
der Rückruf – the call back
die Rückrufaktion – the call back (for car parts with a production fault)
die Rückendeckung – the backing
der Rückspiegel – the rear view mirror
das Rückgrat – the spine
rückständig – backward, underdevelopped
rückwärts – backward (as a direction)
rücken -move (small distance, stuttering fashion)
“Rück mal’n Stück” – “Scooch over/Move over a little so I can sit there, too”
vorrücken – move forward (often for armies)
abrücken – move away from (also for armies)
anrücken – colloquial term for “to show up in force”
einrücken – to indent, also: to invade (for armies)
zusammenrücken – move together, also used for getting closer as a group
verrückt – crazy
krass – extreme-crazy’
Das macht mich wahnsinnig – That is driving me crazy.
I was just thinking over the verb “abrücken” and thought I’d see what YDG had to say about the rücken family, and this article did not disappoint! It really helps to memorize all this vocabulary by seeing how they ware all interrelated, and to start off by looking at the literal meaning of the root word and moving gradually toward more figurative uses…like from rücken to abrücken.
So I’m guessing that “ruckeln” is also somehow related to rücken…and maybe rütteln is too? They all seem to share a common meaning.
“ruckeln” definitely belongs to the family, but I just checked “rütteln” and the origin of this word is uncertain. It might tie in with the family of rob (rauben), robbery (der Raub) and corrupt and rupture.
The original sense of that family was “breaking”.
Hi Emanuel, thank your for the post. Oldies but goldies :)
I was curious when I read this:
How would you translate this “a fad at the moment” to German?
You could say “Es ist Mode” oder “Es ist grad in”, but both don’t really have this transitory/fleeting vibe that “fad” has.
Interestingly, while not related to crazy, krass is related to crass though crass means impolite/rude rather than what krass means.
Oddly enough, an older loan in English than German. German borrowed krass from Latin in the 18th century while English got it from French back in the middle ages. Neat coincidence
Yiiiyu
If you don’t already have it in one of your False Friends sections, you really should add “Rücksicht” as to the English eye that just screams “Hindsight”. Which of course it isn’t, “Hindsight” being (a quick lookup suggests) either “Nachsicht” or “Rückschau”. Fascinating, and useful to know!
Or “Rückblick” :). “in hindsight” for instance would be “rückblickend”. Blick and Sicht are really interesting because in compounds you never know which one it’s gonna be. I tried to find some system in the usage but so far I failed.
By the way… I think “Nachsicht” is more “lenience”. If “hindsight” has that aspect , too, then it fits but otherwise “Nachsicht” won’t work.
I must confess I can’t (as a native English speaker) think of any “lenience” context to “hindsight”. Hindsight is simply the opposite of Foresight. Foresight is the ability to consider what will happen in the future; hindsight is considering something that happened in the past (and taking the advantages that that brings in terms of understanding). It has a definite feeling in English of “wisdom you only have after the event”, though this can be either wisdom someone could not reasonably have had – “yes, but how much of that is hindsight?” – or wisdom that they really should – “in hindsight, the third slice of cake may have been a mistake”… :-)
Ah dictionaries! dict.cc doesn’t give “Rückblick” for “hindsight”, nor “hindsight” as one of the meanings of “Rückblick” (review, retrospect) but it *does* then have “im Rückblick” for “in hindsight” or “in retrospect”. I think it may be closer in sense to “Review” than “Hindsight” though? Review also means looking back but without that sense of only-after-the-event-wisdom that Hindsight has.
I also see “aus der Distanz betrachtet” – viewed from a distance? – for “with the benefit of hindsight” which is a fair enough idiom and perhaps captures some of the sense of the English word.
It also gives both “Rückschau” and “Nachsicht” as translations for “hindsight”. (I also see (lurking in contextual notes) “Sicht im Nachhinein” for yet another variant!) But it does also have “Nachsicht” as lenience so I’m wondering if Nachsicht is busy changing its meaning? Google Translate on the other hand doesn’t list “Hindsight” anywhere for “Nachsicht” – indulgence, leniency, forbearance, patience, tolerance, clemency. Though how this comes from adding “Nach” to “Sicht” is a separate curiosity!
Danke!
I checked for hindsight on Linguee and I found “im Nachhinein” in quite a few of the translations.
https://www.linguee.de/englisch-deutsch/uebersetzung/hindsight.html
That makes sense considering what you said about wisdom. That aspect is not very strong in “Rückblick” indeed.
As for “Nachsicht”… I checked Grimm’s Wörterbuch and back some 200 years ago it could still mean “to check on something”. That’s still the meaning of the verb “nachsehen” while the lenience aspect is only a side meaning
– Jemandem etwas nachsehen
The noun already could mean lenience back when Goethe lived, though. I don’t know when it lost its other meanings but I think it’s not changing anymore.
As for the logic, my guess would be that it is inspired by the notion of looking behind something that passed by.
An event goes by and you just watch it pass without taking action. That was a meaning nachsehen had originally and from there it’s not far to lenience.
Danke nochmals. One thing I love about looking at another language is how it makes you reexamine your own in a new light, in this case thinking about the differences between “review”, “retrospect” and “hindsight”. “Hindsight” is made up of rear+sight, looking back, whilst “retrospect” is, now I think about it, exactly the same – “retro” as in retro-rocket (something that pushes you backwards to slow you down) or retro-fashion (clothes that echo fashions of the past) plus -spect as in aspect or spectacle or spectrum. Whereas with “Review”, whilst it does necessitate looking back into the past, the emphasis is more on looking at something *again* – literally re-viewing. Three words, all about looking back/again at something but not meaning quite the same thing. But trying to pin down the difference, ah, therein lies the fun.
“Review” is the outlier here. It does only mean “look at again”. That may be to try to learn lessons; it may be that mistakes are spotted and wisdom is gained – “following review, we have decided your performance score should have been Good” – but the emphasis is on the looking-again part.
“Retrospect” the emphasis is on looking back from a distance, and it’s *sometimes* interchangeable with “hindsight”. You could just as easily say “in retrospect, the second helping of dessert was a mistake” as you could “with hindsight…”. (It has perhaps a slightly more formal/sophisticated feel, but can easily be used in a jokey mock-serious sense because of that.) But you would *not* say of somebody’s opinion “Yes, but how much of that is retrospect?” Retrospect is the act of looking back; hindsight is the only knowing after the event. They overlap but the emphasis is subtly different.
So how do those map to “im Rückblick” ( “rückblickend”), “Rückschau”, “im Nachhinein” … and possibly also [Ich sehe jetzt in späte Einsicht!] “späte Einsicht” (literally “late understanding/realisation” which does sounds very hindsight-ish as an idea). Linguee shows it *sometimes* translating as “hindsight”, though also often just a sense of either “being slow to realise” or just of “further examination”.
https://www.linguee.de/deutsch-englisch/uebersetzung/sp%C3%A4te+Einsicht.html
I’m perhaps getting the impression that “Rückblick”and “Rückschau” are somewhere between “review” and “retrospect” with the emphasis on the looking again/looking back part – the former possibly being closer to “review” – so like “retrospect” they do overlap a little with “hindsight”), whereas “im Nachhinein” and sometimes “späte Einsicht” are closer to “hindsight” (but therefore also overlapping with “retrospect”!)? And as usual I feel for dictionary compilers! *grin*
– Phil
Yeah, you’re impression is pretty good. Rückblick and Rückschau are about looking back, Rückschau sounding a bit more evaluating…. like looking back on the process of doing a project. It’s not a word I use very often.
Im Nachhinein is definitely about that idea of being wise after, späte Einsicht to me has more of an “better late than never” kind of vibe. Like… a person who takes a while to accept/understand something. But yeah… creating a dictionary is fun when you only have words like “book”. But with words like Rückblick and hindsight… they can spend hours debating. I guess they must have some sort of statistical criteria or something to help them decide whether something make the grade “translation”. Oh, or the swarm does it (as for instance in case of dict.cc)
Exactly the reason I came to this article! I couldn’t shake away the hindsight-association and wanted to replace it with another. Thanks, Emmanuel.
You’re very welcome :)
Small note: What about “Rücktritt”? I guess it’s also related with Rücken and you even used it in one example… but it’s neither marked nor listed with the vocab. Just in case you wanna add it there!
Ops, no idea why I missed that :). Of course it’s related. It literally means “the stepping back” and that’s not too far from the actual meaning “the stepping down/the resignation”
Definitely belongs on the list. Danke :)
Weihnachten rückt immer näher.
Could be
Christmas is inching ever closer.
One important – IMHO – expression is missing, rückgängig machen.
Oh, yes… this is a good one!! Want to try an example :)?
Es kann schwierig sein, aber mal versuchen.
– Verdammt, ich hab zufällig den ganzen Text gelöscht!!!
– Na, drück mal einfach auf den Undo-Pfeil, das macht alles rückgängig.
Ja, super! Hier ist noch eins:
– Ich kann die Buchung nicht mehr rückgängig machen.
– I can’t undo the booking.
Kleine Korrektur:
– Es könnte schwierig sein… nicht “kann”. Ist nicht falsch, aber eine zu faktische Aussage in dem Kontext.
Hi. I am the one who mentioned about translating this contents into korean lately. I have done half of the prefix ‘be’. And here is the link https://blog.naver.com/blackcowboys/220386380099 . But I already have tried Google translation…and it make no sense …..
If you really want to know what I post on that, I could translate into English for you. Anyway thank you again for making this awesome contents:)
Oh no worries… I just wanted to see the nonsense Google Translate creates :)
On the court-sy courtesy thing – does Höflichkeit have the same vibe of formality? Since Hof = court I have long supposed so.
Rücksicht is exactly what I’d like large people to have/take before putting themselves where they block a smaller one’s view! There doesn’t seem to be any English word that conveys it so well. …. Hindsight is something completely different.
Did the Rücksicht campaign make any noticeable difference? I was fortunate enough to have a few days in Berlin last year. It seemed that the vast majority using roads and footpaths were admirably aware and considerate of others. Strikingly so.
Rucksack is indeed used in English. I learned it with the “ruck” pronounced like “rook”, but find that many who use it pronounce the first syllable to rhyme with “luck”, which sounds very clunky to my ears. Using “backpack” avoids disagreements.
Addendum.
Should use phonetic symbols. There are so many variations in vowel pronunciation in English that examples from other words only work for folk who pronounce them as the example-giver does. “ʊ – lax high back rounded vowel” is what I use in “rucksack”, not “ʌ – mid central unrounded vowel”.
Hahaha. Well, if it is any consolation, I’m 6’2″ (189 cm), and I do feel bad for whomever has to sit behind me in a cinema. This is because occasionally (not very often), someone with a bigger head sits in front of me, and so I know how annoying that is. But would you have us poor, blameless, tall souls sit in the very back row at every event? :-)
You should come to Germany then and o to the movies here. The room is so steep, sometimes it’s like 45° almost. You can be 8’2″ and it wouldn’t matter. Well, unless you go to artsy off-cinemas :)
Oh, that image is perfect …. literally Rücksicht :).
Is for “Höflichkeit” and “courtesy”… they do come from the same idea of behavior that is fit for court but judging by the examples of Peter, to me courtesy leans toward “ein Gefallen, eine Nettigkeit”. “Höflichkeit” implies some distance, that’s the focus. It’s really just about politeness and manners. “Courtesy” on the other hand seems to be (at least sometimes) about little treats you give someone… like wrapping in their present or something. In that context I’d use “Service” or “Extra-Service” or “Extra-Wohlfühl-Service” :)
Did the campaign? I don’t know. I find it hard to imagine that some stressed person in a car sees one of these really badly made posters and goes like “Yeah, I can totally identify. I’ll slow down now.” but then again… nobody goes to buy a Snickers just because they have seen an ad for it. I guess it’s just to hammer the word into the unconscious, have it be part of people’s “horizon” so to speak.
I bike a lot and I regularly do have my “You’re not alone here you moron”-moments but I think that just comes with the terrain. And there are also many moments where people do pay attention or show some “Rücksicht”… like letting one cross, NOT going through the puddle, going slow and staying behind a bike at a narrow part of the road”. Thing is… if each individual does just a tiny bit the result is just sooo much more pleasant for everyone. And if someone treats you nicely you’re in a good mood so you’ll treat someone else nicely and so it propaga… hold on, I’m preaching now, aren’t I :D.
I don’t have much to compare Berlin to. I can say that in Münster, which is an incredibly bike friendly town, the bikers are really bike nazis. No matter how narrow the way is or if there is construction on the part for the pedestrians. YOu step on the bike lane they will ring your ass out of the way and pass you by without breaking even a bit. And I’m talking everybody… young old, rich, poor, man, woman… they all feel a bit too entitled to their bike lane. I think there’s a better balance between regulation and letting it slide in Berlin.
At least the bikers in Münster have bells and use them!
Before the opportunity is gone – does anyone else out there think that some (especially American) usage of “fu..ed” could be a corruption of “verrückt”?
For me (American learning German), I’ve always thought of them as cognates (whether or not they are) to remember the meaning of verrueckt.
Thank you for that. In British and Australian usage I don’t think you could go any further than to say that there’s some overlap. I’ve heard it in American films and thought that it sounded as though “verrückt” was pretty much exactly what was meant. Given the similarity in sound and the extent of immigration of German speakers to the US …. Possible?
@Ruth. I’m not seeing it. I think maybe in the past tense, “that’s F***d up,” we use it sort of like, “verrueckt,” but that is still a stretch for me. And I come from a part of the US where German had a big influence (Wisconsin). For example, people often use “by” instead of “at” in everyday English the way German’s would use “bei.” You’ll hear, “we have roast beef dinners by our house on Sundays”… This would sound completely normal to someone from Milwaukee (very German) but it always sounded strange to my ears (I’m from closer to Minneapolis)… So, I don’t think there is a connection. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks for your 2c worth, too, Anonymous. I do mean only past tense, but no prepositions. With “up”, the crazy meaning is within the familiar range. It might help to know where I’d heard it – things my children have watched and the swearing has got my attention, but not much else.
Will now listen out for the sort of “by” usage you describe.
Maybe part of the issue is that there is actually a difference between “courtesy” (non-count) and “a courtesy.” I think the former is much closer to “Rücksicht” (certainly closer to “Höflichkeit”), while the latter is more like “ein Gefallen.” (Actually, “consideration” is like that too, with a sharper difference in meaning – “a consideration” is the thing you need to take into account/think about.)
“Courtesy” (the “stuff”) feels more to me like a personality trait: you can have, show, or exercise it, and to me, none of those are really that different from “Rücksicht nehmen” – they’re just the basic expectation for civilized human behavior. But “do someone a courtesy” is definitely different from that – it’s going beyond your obligations in order to be nice.
Sweet. That totally nailed the word “courtesy” for me :).
Probably the closest cognate I can think of is “Rucksack.” In the military, we never said “backpack” but only “rucksack” and I think more people use backpack and rucksack as interchangeable in everyday English now.
Thanks for posting that Youtube clip of the announcer who does the voice-over for Berlin’s U-Bahn system. I rode the U-Bahn to and from (back and forth to :)) work during the 18 months I lived in Nürnberg, and I clearly remember that guy’s baritone voice to this day. (Maybe that guy had a Bavarian accent, because “nächste” in the video you linked to sounds different, more like “nieschte” to my ears, which is maybe more of a Berlin accent?) Back then (early ’80s) there was only one U-Bahn line in Nürnberg, and I had all the stops memorized in order. “Die nächste Haltestelle ….. Hauptbahnhof.” “Die nächste Haltestelle,,,,, Weißer Turm.” “Die nächste Haltestelle ….. Maximilianstrasse.” Good memories.
Here’s another one :)… a while back my girlfriend told me how the voice in Dresden tram is … well… very salacious. Not only the voice but the way she says the names.
I don’t know it first hand but she was asked out on dates based on her way of saying the names and apparently some professor conducted a research about that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ajM5O3xiOw
It doesn’t really come across that well though. The imitation my girlfriend gave was hilarious. Like… “Nächster Halt : neuer Markt” would sound like “I live there. We could go to my place and do adult things”
I’m sorry, this is so off topic. The Metro in Washington, DC, has “safety doors” which means that even if someone’s coat is touching the doors to the trains, they cannot close. (Maybe you use them in Europe too, now, but I remember once in Munich, the subway doors closed with a buddy of mine trapped briefly when the doors closed in tightly on his shoulders and caught him for a few seconds.) There is the recorded voice (which you can hear in the link below) that says, “Step back, doors closing.” Well, tourists often don’t catch on, so sometimes, this announcement gets repeated 3 or 4 times before the doors actually can close. Someone had the bright idea about 10 years ago to make the voice “more rude and urgent sounding” so that people would pay attention. So, for about 3-4 months, they had a new recording, where the announcer practically yelled, “MOVE AWAY FROM THE DOORS!!” The locals here were actually offended, so Metro went back to the original recording, a woman’s voice everyone recognizes. Anyway, in addition to that recording that announces stations and doors opening/closing, the local conductors can also use the public announcement system. And people who ride the trains every day start to recognize the individual conductors (some of them are quite chatty and have humorous personalities). So, on this link, someone has posted a clip, where you hear the recorded voice (female) but also, the voice of his favorite local conductor, who is clearly having some fun, and sounds like he’s auditioning to be a radio DJ or something. It’s pretty funny. (One line that is a little hard to understand is when he says, “Orange line train to Vienna.”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ7U4IwmHfQ
Again, sorry for the rant, but the clip you posted above from Freiburg reminded me of this, and it is pretty funny.
Hahahaha… this clip is hilarious. This simply doesn’t happen in Germany ever. Such a pity. We could all have so much more fun :). I remember that one time when I was a kid when a station announcer would do something like that… but really just this one time. What they do do often is be in bad mood and then they mumble so much, you cannot make out anything.. like … really,
“nshteeh… srublha” (that was supposed to be “einsteigen bitte, zurückbleiben bitte)
Also, the story with the rude announcements… that’s really funny, too. And actually I find the “Step back” still quite resolute (resolut in German).
But it’s nothing compared to Berlin bus drivers. There’s a light control inside the bus that prevents the doors from closing when someone is too near to it. But people often like hanging out next to the door when the bus is full. Then you’re in for something like this from the driver:
– Aus dem Türbereich raus, maaaaan ey , der janze bus is frei. Jedet mal ditt gleiche hier.
I was wondering about the English “to ruck” as in to make creases or crinkles on a smooth surface and how when you rub your hand along your spine it feels all bumpy like its been rucked up. (depending on how skinny you are of course). any connection do you think?
Yap. According to Wiktionary it is from the same root as “der Rücken” so it’s based on the idea that the surface is “ridge”-y after rucking.
It’s related to German “runzeln”, by the way, which means “to wrinkle” in context of skin.
I have never heard of the verb “to ruck.” I don’t think it is used in American English much (if at all); at least I’m not at all familiar with it.
Yes in British English we say to ruck up which means to crumple up also in rugby there is a ruck or scrum.
I wouldn’t use back and forth in that context at all. I would say it’s €120 there and back. Back and forth is when something goes one way then another way and then back the first way etc, repetitively. Like to and fro. But not like a train ticket. Normally.
Now that you said that, I remembered “round trip”. Changed it. Danke!
I looked up some examples for “back and forth” then and it looks like it is more like “hin und her”
Thanks for the article.
I’m a little confused on “krass”, though. In English we have “crass” – and both Pons and Oxford list krass and crass as synonyms (however neither list krass as crazy). Whenever I’ve seen “krass” in a sentence I’ve always used the English interpretation – but I’d never use crass in any of the circumstances that you listed above*. If I were to tell someone that their idea was crass I’d probably be indicating that their idea was tasteless, low-class, or inappropriate for the circumstance. I’d use similar adjectives to describe a crass person. I’d also say that if you were describing someone as crass you would be feeling some kind of second-hand embarrassment; their lack of awareness/foresight/care for social mores is almost painful. I think crassness also has something to do with circumstance too, however. For example, to gossip with my mother about a family member in the privacy of my home might only be a little crass, to do the same at a function hosted by the family member in question would be VERY crass. Crass as a more abstract adjective can also indicate something is blatant – but again, for me it’s very negative – I’d say it indicates a lack of awareness,foresight, and class, in addition to being obvious.
I find it interesting in your second(?) example:
“Did you know that Maria made third place at the Iron Man last year?”
“No. Crazy shit.”
Krass seems more like “Wow, way cool, go her!”
Where as to me that exchange sounds more like:
“Did you know that Maria made third place at the “Iron Man” (read: fun run aimed at school aged kids) last year?”
“What, Maria? The 25 year old cross-fitting, protein-shake-smashing, gym fiend is bragging about coming third in a fun run? Ugh, how crass.”
What my very long winded question comes down to is:
Does krass carry any of those connotations? It feels strange that dictionaries are listing krass = crass, when you’re usage doesn’t feel like it reflects the English idea of crass at all. Or is it a young/colloquial thing/recent usage that has removed negative stigma? Or is my interpretation of crass perhaps regional?
Thanks again for all the work on the blog, it’s been incredibly interesting and very helpful.
Thanks
*Australian English – YMMV.
I agree, American English uses “crass” the same way you describe, and really only that way. Always negative, and never in an ironic sense to imply “that’s nuts!” BTW, speaking of the most common way to say “you’re crazy,” I remember hearing the phrase, “spinnst du?” often (though not necessarily directed at me, :))
Good phrase. useful.
Yeah, that’s still used…
– “Maria will einen Marathon laufen.”
“Spinnt die?? Die hat gar kein Training.”
Another common one (or at least I use it a lot) is “den Arsch offen haben”. That’s not so much for crazy ideas but ideas that offend others.
– “Maria will heute früher Schluss machen.”
“Hat die den Arsch offen??? Die hat gestern schon früer Schluss gemacht.”
So… I’ve actually never looked up “krass” and I have to say the dictionaries got it wrong. If I had to choose one translation t would probably be “extreme”. That 90s slang word “extreme”. You can use it for something that is extremely good or extremely bad or just extreme in some way
– Die Suppe ist krass lecker. (mega tasty)
– Die Suppe ist krass eklig (mega disgusting)
– Die Suppe ist krass.
The last one means that the soup is something very special. And without context I’d probably assume it’s positive.
Same here
– Krasser Typ.
This can mean that the guy is an extraordinary person… maybe he has done a lot or he can play a billion instruments or speak gazillion languages. But it can also mean that he has a lot of muscles or is extremely brutal. The word “krass” really just marks that it’s extreme.
As a stand-alone it expresses that something is impressive news, be they good or bad. In the marathon example it expresses that the person would not have expected her to do that, but it’s in no way negative. Here are two more examples:
– “Ich musste gestern 14 Stunden ohne Pause arbeiten.”
“Krass!”
– “I had to work 14 hours without a break yesterday.”
Wow. That’s crazy.”
-” Mein Chef hat mich gestern massiert, mich zum Essen eingeladen und mir dann eine Gehaltserhöhung gegeben.”
“Krass.”
– “Yesterday, my boss gave me a massage, took me out for dinner and gave me a raise.”
“That’s crazy.”
So… ultimately I’d say “krass” and “crass” are actually false friends. Or at least “krass” is way broader than “crass” in that can be both negative AND positive.
Hope that helps.
Sorta like toll initially meant something else…
That’s a nice example where the original meaning has pretty much completely faded. “Toll” and “Tollwut”… the “toll”s seem like two different words for me.
Thanks for the response – that clears it up heaps (boo to the dictionaries). I’m glad this one has been explained – if someone told me soup I made was “krass lecker” I’d freak out trying to translate it. “Whats wrong with the soup? How does something taste classless? Oh god have I made a horrible faux pas? Are they vegetarians? Did I know they were vegetarians?…”.
Hah… that’s kind of funny :)
I would use ‘consideration’ or ‘considerate’ for ‘Ruecksicht’.
– I don’t like my neighbor, but I play my music quietly out of consideration of his kid.
I often tell my children : “Please be considerate”. Depending on context, they know what I mean. For example, don’t be loud after your little sister is in bed, or don’t take too big a piece of cake [out of consideration for those who haven’t had any yet], or hold the door open for your grandmother. This seems consistent with the ‘Ruecksicht’ examples you gave.
Wegen “krass”: Es gibt auch im Englischen das Wort “crass”, das so viel wie “grob” oder “anstößig” bedeutet.
“Courtesy” wäre auch eine gute Übersetzung für “Rücksicht”.
Echt? “Courtesy” klingt nach viel viel mehr Nettigkeit als Rücksicht. Rücksicht ist wirklich das absolute Basic-Ding… die sollte man auch haben, wenn man die andere Person nicht mag. Passt courtesy da auch.
– Ich mag meinen Nachbarn nicht, aber aus Rücksicht auf sein kleines Kind mache ich die Musik leise.
– I don’t like my neighbor but as a courtesy for his toddler… ?
Geht das?
Da würde ich wahrscheinlich wie Peter “consideration” bevorzugen, irgendwie klingt nämlich “courtesy” etwas komisch, wenn es ein kleines Kind betrifft. Aber die anderen Beispiele, die er auflistet, könnte man auch mit “courtesy” beschreiben (also “Please be courteous”). Bei Google kriegt man z.B. mit der Phrase “as a courtesy to other guests…” 11000 Treffer oder so. “Common courtesy” ist auch sehr sehr häufig. Vielleicht wird Nettigkeit doch als das absolute Basic-Ding im englischsprachigen Raum angesehen. :)
Thinking a little more about this, I would say that I think of ‘courtesy’ as having some business or organization involved (not just person to person). The big notable exception is the “common courtesy” phrase berlingrabers mentioned. “At least have the common courtesy to call me if you knew you were going to be late”. But most things I can think of where ‘courtesy’ is used are things like:
* courtesy desk at a store where you can get gift wrapping, lost&found, other customer service stuff.
* courtesy clerk is someone who puts your groceries in a bag.
* I think courtesy also has the implication that you are getting something for free that you would/should otherwise pay for. “This photo provided courtesy of FunFoto studios”, “The little league baseball team has new uniforms courtesy of SomeLocalBusiness”. You can get a courtesy wakeup call in a hotel.
There are a lot of service industry businesses that have ‘courtesy’ in the title… limos, hotels, valets, etc…
Yeah, there’s definitely that hospitality aspect to it, and I think there are places where it would sound a little weird to use it interchangeably with “consideration.” I guess the reason it occurs to me as a good translation for “Rücksicht” is largely that it’s less ambiguous than “consideration” when it shows up out of context – since “consideration” can also mean “something that one thinks over/takes into account.” “Courtesy” always has something to do with how one treats other people.
As to the original concern Emanuel expressed, though, would you agree with me that showing/exercising courtesy has nothing to do with your actual feelings toward the other person involved? I’m pretty sure a lot of people at “courtesy desks” feel nothing but pure, white-hot hatred for all the people they’re there to be courteous to… :D
Haha… good point. Being a bartender and waiter, I do know about “yeah, thank you so much”-(go f.. you so hard) aspect.
Still, after what Peter said, I think “consideration” is the much better.
Like…
– The car driver went around the puddle out of courtesy (not sure about the preposition )/consideration for the pedestrians.
With “consideration” it sounds like the German version with “Rücksicht”. With courtesy, it leans toward “Gefallen” in my head. Maybe the thing is this… “Rücksicht” has not much to do with politeness and court-sy behavior and often you only realize it when it wasn’t there (some biker riding past the tram while people enter and leave… you wouldn’t notice the biker who stops as he should). I feel like courtesy kind of wants to be recognized on some level. “Rücksicht” can be a gift that is received but not recognized.
In these context “Rücksicht” wouldn’t even make any sense :)
Das geht doch schön! Aber man würde in diesem Fall “to” statt “for” verwenden.
Ah, ja Präpositionen hört man nie auf zu lernen :).
Kleine Korrektur: gehen+schön klingt nicht gut. Nimm “gut” oder “super”. Und dann das “doch”, das passt irgendwie nicht. Was wolltest du damit machen?
Weil du gedacht hast, dass es vielleicht unrichtig wäre, habe ich “doch” verwendet…?
Warum funktioniert das hier nicht?
Ah verstehe deine Überlegung… “doch” funktioniert hier nicht gut, weil ich eine “ja/nein”-FRage gestellt habe. Ich habe keine Ahnung, dann kannst du mich nicht einfach “dochen” :).
Ausserdem sollte so ein “doch” dann am Satzanfang stehen.
– Doch, geht gut.
– Es geht doch gut.
Das zweite Beispiel könnte man in dem Kontext so verstehen, dass DU überlegst, ob es geht oder nicht, und erst dachtest du eher “nein” aber dann kommst du zu dem Schluss, dass es doch geht.
Aber ja… lange Rede kurzer Sinn. Für neutrale ja/nein-Fragen kein “doch” verwenden.