Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day, this time with a look at
die Schwelle
And I’m sure that based on the looks of it, many of you immediately thought of to swell.
But are things really as they seem?
I mean… looks can be deceiving, right?
But then again, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is one.
In fact, I’m curious as to just how suspicious you really are of German, so let’s do a little poll.
And now, let’s jump right in.
If you want to stop hitting the wall in German – Join as a member!
As a member, you can study as much as you want and find lots of information you won’t find anywhere else. Not in class, not in a textbook and not Duolingo or Youtube.
You’ll also get pdf-download, progress tracking, note taking, comment notifications and all practice tools.
Already a member?
Log in here:
Brand new member here. I’m getting ready to move to Germany and, while my German is around the C1 level, it’s pretty rusty. Especially when it comes to vocab. The “Word of the Day” is a fun way to get my vocab up to speed. I appreciate how the explanations and examples are laid out. It makes things easy to read and remember. And I love the quiz at the end! Thanks for putting in the work to make a really awesome learning tool!
Ich war verwirrt, da alle Wörter ähnlich aussehen. Daher ist das Quiz sehr hilfreich. Danke(^^)d
das war sehr interressant für mich, danke
Gerne :)
Redeschwall made me think of a ‘squall of words’ – any connection, do you think? So glad to be back with you…..as a linguistics grad (forgotten more than I ever knew, though) I love your way of looking at language. It’s like a treasure hunt.
So I just did a quick check on Etymonline and it said that “squall”, the noun, is based on “squall” the verb, which is based on “squeal” and so is an onomatopoeia.
Hard to accept that though :). The similarities between “der Schwall” and “the squall” are soooo convincing :D
You forgot “die Bahnschwelle”, which translates to “railway sweeper/tie”
I actually had to look up what that is in German :D
Hallo, Leute. Wir Hatton technische Problem, aber die Sendung ist züruck
lass uns los gehen!
Gespräch
Einhorn : Hast die geschwollene Lippen gesehen?
Einhorn 2 : Hab’nicht? was hat passiert?
Einhorn 1 : Hier….
Einhorn 2 : Eww.
und das ist alles heute
Kleine Korrektur:
– Hab ICH nicht.
Du hast das “ich” weggelassen, und das geht nicht.
For this example:
Whats the difference between wieso and warum here?
I would have used warum here but I don’t know why and I find the difference difficult to distinguish.
No difference at all :). “Wieso” lends itself better to be “drawn out”… like… wieee-sooooooo. I think that’s why I picked that but there really is no difference.
I searched „Fremdscham” on dict.cc and the given translation was „vicarious embarrassment”. It is my new favourite expression. The word „cringe” is so passé.
Can’t wait for kids to pick that up… like “Vicarious embarrassment, mom!”
Or maybe a short version… “viemb”.
“Viemb, mom!!”
The best one-word English translation of schwül is probably close.
I’d say (in AE) either just humid or, maybe more specifically, muggy.
My own personal definition is New Orleans in July. Like walking through a bowl of hot pea soup, but still a good time.
Interesting relationship between schwül and schwul, too. I figured they just happened to look similar.
I think New Orleans is actually a bit too humid.
I feel like “schwül” only works in a region where this isn’t the default. Or maybe there needs to be a looming thunder storm. Like.. I’m not sure I would use “schwül” to describe the climate in New Orleans.
New Orleans would be an extreme, but the idea I had is the air is thick, humid, still, and warm. Is that off? I’ve lived in places where most summer days were like that, and other places where it only tended to happen every so often, or before a storm, like you mentioned, and I never really made a distinction.
Most of those places it was hot enough to take two showers a day. Although where I am now, it can happen when it’s still kind of cool. For me, that’s all just muggy. Maybe schwül is different?
What would you use to describe that kind of climate, then? That’s interesting. It sounds like “close” might be best after all, but now I don’t know how to talk about hot, humid weather anymore…
If it’s a place that’s hot and humid all year round (maybe Thailand, but I’ve never been), then I would probably just say it like that. More technical would be tropical or subtropical. For places that have more traditional seasons with hot, humid summers, I would say it gets muggy in the summer or just that it tends to be hot and humid.
It kind of depends on where I am. FWIW muggy seems to be common in the parts of the US where it gets hot and humid most often. It seems a lot less common where it’s drier or cooler. Close is something I associate with British English. So I guess it’s complicated….
I meant in German XD
Oops. Heiß and feucht are the first words that come to mind. Not fully sure if that’s right. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if I’ve heard schwül to describe a climate/weather over a period of time. But to be honest, this is an area where my vocabulary is kind of lacking :)
I think I’d say “feucht-warm” or “tropisch”. But that’s just me… someone else might well say “schwül” :)
Interesting. Thanks!
To keep track of schwul vs. schwül, I think of the umlaut on schwül as drops of humidity associated with humid/muggy weather.
Yeah, I’ve claimed to meet up with some humid friends to celebrate the Rainbow festival and have complained about gay weather on hot, humid dog-days.
But since I found the drops of humidity on the u in schwül, it’s all wieder in Ordnung.
New Orleans is below sea-level, it’s like being in an aquarium. Growing up there I can say that we use humid in the same way Europeans use humid/schwül but everything is relative. In NO it’s often above 37°C (or was when I lived there). After 35 years in Europe, I found this past weekend of 32°C just as unbearable as I found 37°+C 35 years ago. It’s just that in NO, they move slower, and unlike northern Europe, no one expects much of anyone – here in Europe, everyone’s expected to be productive, even in temperatures above 28°. Verrückt.
There really are no gradations in Hell – everything over 21° is torture.
Great mnemonic :)!!!
I live in Wales where we have kind of standard UK weather but generally cooler and windier. We have had some humid weather lately and the locals could be heard saying, “Gosh, isn’t it close today?!” That sense of the stifling, humid, still air clinging to you a bit. Hope that helps.
Yeah, that’s a perfect description of “schwül” :)
So I had fun learning why Schwellkörper was plural instead of singular. The more you know. :) I can even pronounce the umlaut right, finally (I think). Short ö and short ü have been the most challenging for me.
Can echt gut mean both ziemlich gut/ganz gut and sehr gut? I thought I heard it used in the sense of sehr gut before, just want to make sure if I understood it correctly. Like a concert where the singer said “ihr seid echt gut” and seemed happy with what the audience just did. And I think I’ve read things like “das sieht echt gut aus!”
Good question about “echt”. I totally didn’t notice that my translation was a bit off. So “echt” is definitely an intensifier as strong as “really”.
I feel like my translation was based a bit on what I would say as a coompliment in either language. But technically, it should be “very” or “really” .
– Du siehst echt gut aus.
That has the same feel to me as “You look great.”
I have always thought that one should learn to drive when one thinks he/she is immortal, i.e. teenager. I have been licensed since age 15. I have an amusing story about qualifying for a license in New York City. Can I send a pdf?
15?!?! That’s soooo young! But what you said makes sense. You’re probably less scared then, and confidence is important to stay calm while driving.
As for the story… I gotta be honest and say that I probably won’t end up reading it. I have too much screen time as it is and I am happy for any minute I am away from it :D
Hello,
Only a couple typos:
“been wishing for a long time that Thomas start a diet” (been wishing for a long time that Thomas started a diet)
“my lip swells” (my lips swell – plural)
“Just thi smorning I read” (Just this morning I read)
lukewarm is just one word
Oh, I reached 110% in the quiz, that defies the laws of physics! :)
One question about the spicy food and the lips swelling – is the lip, as in singular, used in German instead of the plural?
Bis bald!
Danke wie immer :)!!
Gute Frage über Lippe.
I didn’t even notice that I used singular but it’s not an idiomatic expression or anything. It’s not clear which lip it is, so technically, the other person would have to ask.
The plural would be idiomatic, as well.
Oh, it makes me feel like a grammar cop… But seeing as this is a grammar blog, I guess that’s fine? :)
In this instance, “…been wanting that Thomas start a diet”, I’m pretty sure, is actually correct. This is one the few places English maintains a subjunctive form: If you’re going to use “…wants THAT Thomas X”, then X will be subjunctive. Well in line with usual Indo-European subjunctive tendencies, note the optative nature of the sentence and the subordinate clause, etc…
Übrigens wollte ich halt sagen, dass dieser Artikel war toll… Es gibt viele lustige Wörter dabei, “Schwellenland” und Hemmschwelle” gefallen mir besonders gut.
Danke für ihn, freue mich darauf, dass du besser wirst und zurück bist :)
‘Warum redest du denn so geschwollen.’
Oder als sagen wir ‘Why are you talking bollocks’
Ah, that’s interesting. I thought bollocks was something like “nonsense”. So it’s pompous speech then, right?
You’re right, it does mean nonsense/bullshit, so “talking bollocks” might be otherwise rendered as “crapping on” (that one has a distinctly late 20th century Australian feel!) or “spouting nonsense” or “bullshitting”. You often here a raw “That’s bollocks” –or simply “Bollocks!”– as well, with the obvious meaning.
? I’m confused :D
For Redeschwall, “torrent of words” is possible. As a Fachbegriff, we say “pressure of speech” for example as a symptom of hypomania. Umgangsprachlich, we say “verbal diarrhoea”.
Cool, danke :)
Super wie immer. Danke. Ich möchte noch ein paar Wörter hinzufügen: aufschwellen und abschwellen.
Kann ich einen Vorschlag fur nächstes Thema machen? Danke
Danke :). “abschwellen” ist gut, ja, das Gegenteil von “anschwellen”. Aber “aufschwellen” habe ich noch nicht gehört.
Klar kannst du einen Vorschlag machen :)
Hallo Emmanuel
Nochmal ein echt helfreiche Artikel. Ich habe fast alle Frage geschafft ausser Schwellesmitz .?.
Vielen Dank
Bis nächstes Mal .
Schwellenschmitz ist kein Wort, das war die richtige Antwort :)
“Von einmal Fegen kriegt man keine Schwielen” Fegen = sweeping, not brooming?
Is there a difference between “sweeping” and “brooming” in context of cleaning a room?
Brooming simply doesn’t exist, as far as this mega-old native English speaker is aware! Well, you do of course get a couple of hits on Google (and it seems that ‘broom’ itself was occasionally used as a verb), but “sweeping” is what you want here.
I’ve heard it in the context of curling. It can also mean…other things…according to Urban Dictionary. Tbh I don’t hear those too often, but it’s a rare word in general.
As odd as it sounds… that might actually be where I got it from. Watching boring curling during the winter Olympics happened more than once during my adolescence #sad #nerd
I loved the winter Olympics as a kid. Still do, actually.
Dictionary.com does indeed give several meanings for “to broom,” including as a synonym for “sweep,” but I’ve never heard or read it. No idea in what countries or regions it might be used.
I think that’s where I checked for it, actually :). -1 dictionary.com.
That’s the danger with community driven dictionaries… they include too much sometimes.