Note on pronunciation : The “ie” try pronounced like English “ee”, nothing like English “eye”

Periodic musings, Geistesblitze, photo, sketches etcetera. by a “resident alien”, who has got arrived on American land from a far-away earth called “Germany”.

Word of the month: Liebeskummer

A combination of Liebe (admiration) and Kummer (suffering, sadness) that refers to the state of mind of men and women whose sex life isn’t going well, particularly the sorrow considered by jilted lovers.

10 commentary:

Hello Ulrich, i believe this might be a wonderful word, and I also can not think about an equivalent in English. although previously or some other, all, or at least the majority of, of us need must put it to use. What is the publication when it comes to? I enjoy the concept.

The succinct subject associated with the publication, Moselfahrt aus Liebeskummer, is tough to translate gracefully–the exact meaning are “Moselle River travel considering Liebeskummer”. It is a novella, written in the 30s, explaining a visit alongside and on the Mosel (Moselle) lake where the narrator tries to over come their Liebeskummer. It contains enjoying information associated with the lake, the towns that line they, and those who grow wines there–I lived-in one of them communities when I went along to elementary school.

Upon rereading passages of it, however, I must confess the title is probably the best part from the publication!

“The Germans should have a term for it. Doppelgedanken, probably: the feeling, when checking out, that the very own thoughts are pregnancy into the phrase as they show up on the web page. These could be the pride that in these unusual instances your wonder, a€?just how could the author has recognized the things I ended up being thought?a€?

I believe the offer shows that the customer companies exactly what your blogs features over and over shown, your Germans become masters at creating terminology that exactly recognize claims of attention. Liebeskummer are just one more instance.

: Thx for directed this assessment down. We retrieved the evaluation from your heap of papers to get reused (I’d misied it the other day).

Your quote, generated more powerful b/c simple fact is that beginning part of the assessment, confirms, because state, it is an easy task to coin brand new conditions at that moment in German by hitching along two separate words (typically nouns, yet not necessarily thus). Doppelgedanke try an example–I’ve not witnessed they in German, but Germans would understand it when you look at the context which really provided, provided they get the allusion to the well-established DoppelgA¤nger.

I’m also, of course, considerably used from the ‘official’ recognition with this capability of German from inside the part and astounded that reviewer thinks this way, that she discovers it–apparently–convenient, every so often, to ‘think in German’.

It certainly inspires us to carry on with my word-of-the-month posts. But In addition need say that English offers coinages which have no counterpart in German, and I may develop a thread shortly working with this complementary topic.

Which is an appealing topic, the English coinages with no actual counterpart in German. We ask yourself for a moment find in English–and perhaps you will–the sorts of words I have found therefore wonderful in German, those compounds highlighting, extremely properly, some frame of mind. Not every one of their German examples have inked that but a few have actually and that I like them better than their English competitors, if you don’t equivalents, including, Fraidy cat versus Angsthase. I actually do hope you certainly will manage together with your terminology of thirty days. I truly enjoy them.

The typical types of English words w/o genuine counterpart in German tend to be “fair gamble” and “common sense”–they were used like that in German a long time before current tsunami of English words started to strike German, including statement that you don’t have after all, like “game”, whoever connotations can be found in no chance not the same as regarding German Spiel. In teen talk, on the web, advertising etcetera German occurs today as an assortment of German and English. I am, in fact, into watching how this will pan out in the end–i.e. if this will blow more than as a fad or has a lasting affect German, e.g. dramatically enlarge their language. My guess could well be the second can happen.

The upshot is when I would like to start a thread on English terms with no real cognates in German, the situation is created more difficult through this situation. Nevertheless, i am starting a page in which I gather prospect phrases–I need certainly more than “reasonable play” and “wisdom”.

Breathtaking phrase, Liebeskummer, and there’s a Dutch counterpart, liefdesverdriet. Really it is incredible that there’s no English word because of it. It occurs often that i am trying to translate an English expression into Dutch, there only is not any best keyword. I’ll make the time to show you, Ulrich.