Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of
winken
Winken looks a lot like to wink. But that’s deceiving as this old Goethe** poem tells us.
Under the tree, I sit,
and I think:
“Winken” and “to wink”
are like red and pink.
(**: poem might not have been written by Goethe;
Goethe might have actually hated it)
What the poem is trying to tell us is this: red and pink are somewhat similar colors. Yet, a red shirt and a pink shirt are TOTALLY different things… fashion-wise. Trust me. I’m an expert.
And it’s the same with winken and to wink. They have similar ideas and yet they are completely different things translation-wise. So, today we’ll find out what winken is why it is so similar to to wink. And that’s not all. Winken comes of course complete with a bunch of prefix versions and as if that isn’t enough already there are some cool, useful related words in family. Curious yet? Moderately? Well, that’s curious enough. In we dive :)
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waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait
‘Ich habe dir zugewunken’?
Isn’t the perfekt for of ‘Winken’, ‘Gewinkt’?
That’s atleast what the gymglish says.
I had to look this up myself. Apparently, gewinkt is technically considered more correct but it does sound really clumsy to me and I will never ever ever use it.
I guess I should modify the article though.
great post as always! I’m definitely getting a subscription this week.
just one error in the English translation of rechter Winkel. it should be ‘right angle’ not square angle
Vielen Dank :)!!
Since I can’t figure out how to add your vocab to Anki automatically by clicking the link, I add it manually, which allows me to look stuff up.
So I looked up the past tense of durchwinken and look what I found and wonder what you think of it.
Das Verb durchwinken hat die Bedeutung »jemandem mit Winkzeichen signalisieren, zu passieren« – etwa an einer Grenze oder Absperrung. Standardsprachlich ist als 2. Partizip nur durchgewinkt richtig. Die Form »durchgewunken« ist in den Wörterbüchern Duden und Wahrig mittlerweile aber auch verzeichnet, jedoch als »umgangssprachlich« ausgewiesen.
I have to manually approve access to the Anki decks and I haven’t been in my mails for a few days, so I didn’t see yours :).
As for “durchwinken”, what exactly are you asking? I don’t remember what I said in the article to be honest. The definition from the Wörterbuch is fine.
About the Wankel-motor: it was invented by one Felix Wankel (1902-1988) from Germany. But maybe his family name’s etymology has to do with wanken (he was born in a wine-growing district ;-)
Please do a Word of the Day feauture on ‘dran,’ I am having a hard time with this one as it seems to be used so many different ways. Please and thank you! :)
Yeah, I was thinking about doing “drauf” some time ago and “dran” is a good one too. Part of many expressions.
Another question – Duden (and LEO) have “winken / winkte / gewinkt” as the “proper” or preferred forms (Duden lists “gewunken” as “auch häufig”). Does anybody actually say “(zu)gewinkt” or is that one of those things where the dictionaries haven’t caught up with reality? (Like American English “sneak / sneaked” – everybody I know would say “snuck” for the simple past and participle.)
Ha… I recently said “gewinkt” but immediately after it did feel a bit childish. I think if I had to say which version is the original and correct one I’d say “gewunken” and I’m surprised to see that Duden lists “gewinkt”. I bet there are lots of discussions among native speakers as to why one or the other version is heresy :)
Unlike many German verbs, that originally had been strong and then lost the irregular past tense forms, winken developed its old-sounding past forms quite late, the original one being winkte and gewinkt.
Thanks for teaching me a new English word: goniometer! BTW, protrector should be protractor, with an A.
I was wondering about “goniometer”… is there another, less scientific sounding word or is that how it’s called in school?
So you would use zuwinken in everyday conversations as opposed to just winken (just in writing/stories)?
For bis zum Abwinken maybe “more than you could shake a stick at”? “There was more food at the wedding than you could shake a stick at.” Although personally I’d just say “more xyz than you could ever drink/eat/want/etc.”
Hmm… if one person waves at one other person, a star at a fan for instance, I would use “zuwinken”. If the star is just waving at the crowd indiscriminately I’d go for “winken”. Same for kids waving at trains and boats… oh and animals. “zuwinken” kind of implies that the wave is perceived and acknowledged. But those are really just nuances and might just be my own idiosyncracies
– Den Siegern winken ein Verwöhnwochenende am Meer und eine neue Kamera.
– Lit.: To the winners are waving a blah-weekend and a camera.
– The winners can look forward to a weekend of relaxation and wellness at the Sea as well as to a new camera.
For this meaning, “beckon” is a pretty perfect translation: “A weekend of relaxation…and a new camera beckon to the winners.”
– Der Turm wankt im Wind.
– The tower teeters in the wind.
(does teeter sound too light weight?)
I don’t think it sounds too light, but it definitely does sound like the tower is in serious danger of actually falling. “Sway” would probably be better if it’s just a normal degree of movement.
– Hier gibt es Bier bis zum Abwinken.
– We have beer ad nauseum/more beer than you can drink.
Ad nauseam is definitely not positive sounding – although it’s probably literally accurate in an all-the-beer-you-can-drink setting…
Cool, I didn’t know English had such a similar phrasing (“beckon” ). As for the tower example… now that I think about it, I actually feel like “schwanken” would be more idiomatic.Anyway, I think “wanken” is somewhere between “sway” and “teeter”… so not on the verge of falling but falling is definite option.
Do you have an idiomatic idea for “bis zum Abwinken”? Or is “more than enough” the only option that fits the tone?
By the way… I looked up the etymology of “to beckon” and I found the word “beck”. And now I am wondering whether “Beck’s” has anything to do with that :)
I’ve been trying to think of something that matches well… I think “all you can eat/drink/whatever” is about as close as you can get with an idiomatic phrase. “All you can handle” might work too. But I’ll have to keep thinking about it.
Yeah, I’d say something like: “We have all the beer you can drink.” Or “We’ll be swimming in beer.” Or “The beer will flow like water.” Or “We’ve got beer galore!” I always like a good galore.
“More X than you could possibly Y” would be the generic phrase for me. But for beer in particular, “enough beer to sink the navy” is surfacing from somewhere in my brain. Perhaps more common: “enough food to feed an army”.
The beer will flow like wine, and beautiful women will flock like the salmon of Capistrano…
By the way, I assume the English word “wave” (if it’s a Germanic root, and it kind of feels like one from the spelling) would have a German cognate something like “waben”. Is there such a verb? I don’t remember ever seeing it…
Good intuition. “waben” doesn’t exist but “wabern” does. It stands for the wavy movement of a fog for example. There’s also the noun “die Wabe” which means honeycomb (of bees). It’s based on the verb “weben” which is the German version of “to weave”. They’re all one family. The idea of weaving is moving the little weavers shuttle back and forth. Oh and “web” of course also belongs here.
The soup would be “homemade”, not “self made”. Unless it really made itself. That would be really weird, though, self-organizing soup.
For the overall translation, you could probably get away with something like:
“Thomas offers Maria some of his homemade soup but she passes on it.”
or
“Thomas offers Maria some of his homemade soup but she takes a pass on it.”
Oh, and you wouldn’t “wave a fee”, but rather “waive a fee”.
Yeah, you really only see “self-made” with reference to people – “a self-made millionaire.”
“To pass on something” is a good equivalent, I think. I wouldn’t find “to decline (politely)” too formal either, but it’s certainly less casual-sounding.
Haha… that’s the next step after smart homes… smart foods, foods that cook themselves. Every steak has a little chip implanted that communicates over the cloud with the pan, the oven and your car so you get a perfect medium rare right when you walk in the door :).
Thanks for the corrections. “to pass on it” seems like a great match.
Food can be “self-prepared”, but I think I would say that means pretty much the same as “homemade”.
re the unwanted soup, I’d perhaps say Maria “waved it away”, which is idiomatic in English. Though it’s not an exact translation for “declined” as it’s informal, e.g. family, close friend or a superior-subordinate relationship (e.g. servant). Does the German have this same informality?
e.g. “The waiter handed him a menu; he waved it away”
“He waved away the whiskeybottle with a smile.” (a quote – yes for some reason “whiskeybottle” is one word; very German :) )
Also I would use “wave someone away” to mean (a) indicating to someone (subordinate) they can leave; (b) indicating to people to physically move away. e.g. “He waved away the waiter” Basically like “shoo them away”, though to me “shoo” implies more vigorous movement.
To me, all these imply an actual hand gesture in addition to whatever you might verbalise. And I guess the more gesture and less verbal, the less respect you’d be showing someone.
I’d agree that “waving away” is perfectly idiomatic, though as you say, you can’t really do it purely verbally (is that the case in German?), and I think that unless you specify otherwise, it tends to sound a little bit condescending or at least less positive in connotation than it sounds like abwinken might be, especially “wave someone away.”
Just out of curiosity, do you just mean that “whiskeybottle” is actually written as one word in the quote you cite or that you’d also write it that way?
“Abwinken” is used by newspapers in contexts of people declining posts, so it can definitely be done purely verbally.
Just saw this, sorry for late reply – the former: whiskeybottle was written as one word in the quote, and no I wouldn’t write it that way myself. It was fiction; I didn’t investigate but maybe it was old or being poetic or something.
“abwinken” definitely works in more formal contexts too. It’s used by newspapers a lot in context of people passing on posts.. like…
– Ihm wurde der Vorstandsvorsitz angeboten, aber er winkte nur ab.
There’s a crucial difference to “to wave something away” and that is “abwinken” cannot take a direct object. You cannot “abwinken”something. So none of the examples you gave could be translated verbatim.
As for the notion of signalling someone to leave…”fortwinken” and “wegwinken” would be generic options, I guess, but I think I wouldn’t use them. “winken” has a bit of a vibe of “come toward the waving person”, not much, but that clashes a bit with the away-part. I think in such a case I would use a longer phrasing like:
– Mit einer Handbewegung bedeute ich dem Kellner zu gehen.
That’s very scripted though. Maybe just “wegschicken”
I really think your next book should be ‘The Continuing Adventures of Thomas and Maria’ :)
I’m at it. I’m aiming for a mixture of Big Bang Theory and Shades of Grey.
Wankelmotor, that wasn’t quite expected
I know :). I love it when I find one of these little connections.