
It’s kind of like a reverse homesickness ( Heimweh in German), a longing for a place that isn’t where you are right now. This gem describes the feeling of wanting to be somewhere else. The beautiful German word Ohrwurm describes the fact of having a song stuck in your head as if it wriggled itself into your brain through your ear. Have you ever listened to a song on the radio while driving to work only to find yourself still humming the same tune by lunch time? Congratulations, you’ve had an ear worm. Try the FluentU free trial to start learning German words, from the essentials to the weirdest ones, in an entertaining and immersive environment. Plus, you’ll get fun quizzes and multimedia flashcards, so you can practice and review your German vocabulary. FluentU will also show you other videos that use the word, so you understand how native speakers use it in different contexts. (Download)įluentU takes real-world videos-like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks-and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.Įach video comes with interactive captions so you can learn new words as you watch-just click for an instant definition and native pronunciation. However, there are many more beyond those two.īelow you can find some of the most entertaining examples including their literal translation and what they really mean.ĭownload: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that youĬan take anywhere. Many German words have found their way into the English language, think Schadenfreude and Wanderlust. Other languages sometimes get word-envy when comparing themselves to German. It’s always fun when you can express something in one perfect word, while others require a whole darn sentence. Many German words have no close translation in English. One of the greatest things about learning languages is to discover words which exist in one language but don’t have any equivalent in your own – or any other for that matter.

Luckily, you do have the special prize of learning fantastically creative new ways to express yourselves. You guy deserve some reward for all your hard work. German learners have to slog through learning masculine and feminine words, challenging pronunciations, complex word order and curious vocabulary words. It’s no small wonder that German boasts many unique, highly-specific words that have no literal English translation.

Thanks to its lifelong love affair with compound nouns, the German language has smashed all manner of words together to form new, unique vocabulary.

The road to German fluency is full of twists and turns. By Nick Schäferhoff 18 Weird German Words You Won’t Believe Exist
