Learn some common German idioms
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are some common German idioms? |
| Igor: And how are they used? |
| Michael: At GermanPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Jing Liu wants to talk with his friend Ben Lee very seriously.. |
| "Let's be honest now." |
| Jing Liu: Jetzt mal Butter bei die Fische. |
| Dialogue |
| Jing Liu: Jetzt mal Butter bei die Fische. |
| Ben Lee: Was? |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Jing Liu: Jetzt mal Butter bei die Fische. |
| Michael: "Let's be honest now." |
| Ben Lee: Was? |
| Michael: "What?" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: The topic of this lesson is German idioms or |
| Igor: Redewendungen. |
| Michael: Idioms are groups of words that represent a meaning that is not evident from looking at the words themselves. A good example for this is the English "a piece of cake," meaning that something is very easy. We usually use idioms to emphasize the message we try to deliver to the listener. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: To make it more understandable, let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Jing Liu says "Let's be honest now." |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Igor: Jetzt mal Butter bei die Fische. |
| Michael: Actually, the literal translation of this sentence is "Now butter with the fish." It doesn't make sense, right? Well, in Germany, usually fish is served with butter. Butter is added on top of the fish just before you start to eat, so that it won't melt too fast. As soon as the butter is on top of the baked fish, you can get down to business. Without the butter, this food is not complete. |
| The phrase "Now butter with the fish" is, however, a request to deliver the highest quality like in the phrase, |
| Igor: Jetzt mal Butter bei die Fische, und wir gewinnen das Spiel. |
| Michael: meaning "Try to give your best, and we'll win the game." |
| But there's also one other meaning to this idiom which was used in our dialogue. Back when the idiom was invented, butter was a luxury item, and the cherry on top of the dish. Asking someone to add the butter to the fish could also be understood as a request to add the most important ingredient to the dish. Today, the phrase is commonly used to ask someone to add the most important thing to their testimony, honesty. So, |
| Igor: Butter bei die Fische |
| Michael: is also used as "Let's be honest" or "speak plainly." So when Jing Liu asked, |
| Igor: Jetzt mal Butter bei die Fische, hast du die Kekse gegessen? |
| Michael: He meant "Let's be honest, did you eat the cookies?" |
| But did you notice something? In the phrase "butter with the fish," "the fish" are in the accusative case, even though Standard German would require us to use the dative here. This is because if we talk about movement, we use Accusative, and when we talk about location, we typically use dative. If we applied this general rule, the preposition |
| Igor: bei |
| Michael: would require use of the dative. So it should be, |
| Igor: Butter bei den Fischen. |
| Michael: However, this idiom originated from the northern German dialect, also called |
| Igor: Plattdeutsch. |
| Michael: In some German dialects, the preposition |
| Igor: bei |
| Michael: can be used to express location with dative, but also movement using accusative. |
| You won't find this in proper German language, where this preposition always asks for the dative case. But since idioms are oftentimes an exception to the official language, the idiom is commonly accepted throughout the country. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson you learned that idioms are non-literal phrases that are used to emphasize your statement. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Learning and using idioms will help you to use German more freely, and to express your feelings in a more accurate way. |
| To help you with idioms, we created a list of ten very common idioms, with a short description of what they mean. The first is |
| Igor: Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof. |
| Michael: literally meaning "I understand only train station." This is used if someone does not understand what's written or said. For instance, if someone without a scientific background would have to read a paper on astrophysics, he'd summarize his experience with this idiom. |
| It's difficult to say how this idiom originated, but one of the most plausible origins was during the First World War. The tired soldiers hoped to get back to their families as soon as possible, and train stations were a symbol of getting home for them. They were stationed in foreign countries, and they could not understand the local language, which is why they could literally understand only the name of the train station they needed to use to return.That the word |
| Igor: Bahnhof |
| Michael: refers to "train station name" was the only thing the soldiers would catch in a conversation in an unknown language. |
| The next idiom is |
| Igor: Spreche ich Chinesisch? |
| Michael: meaning "Do I speak Chinese to you?" It's usually used if a request has been ignored by someone several times. Since Chinese is a very abstract language for German natives, and these two languages are not similar, people would use this idiom to ask "Is it really that hard to understand?" |
| Igor: 08/15 [nullachtfünfzehn] |
| Michael: This, even though it's just a number code, is something you will probably hear many times in Germany. What most people don't know is that the phrase is a reference to a German machine gun from the First World War, the |
| Igor: MG 08/15 |
| Michael: A possible origin of the idiom is connected to the training soldiers had to complete, in order to master the machine gun |
| Igor: MG 08/15. |
| Michael: It was a very long and tiring training, which is why soldiers started to call everything that was ordinary and boring by the code of the gun itself 08/15 [zero eight fifteen]. Today, it's one of the most common idioms, and means that something is very average with a negative undertone. You could, for example, say |
| Igor: Er hat sich so ein nullachtfünfzehn Fahrrad gekauft. |
| Michael: Meaning "He bought just an average bicycle." Our next idiom is |
| Igor: Zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe schlagen |
| . |
| Michael: literally meaning "to hit two flies with one swat." Or the English equivalent of this idiom is "to kill two birds with one stone." It's used when you can solve two problems at a time. The next idiom is |
| Igor: Die Kirche im Dorf lassen, |
| Michael: literally "to leave the church in the village." This idiom probably goes back to medieval times, where the church was the hotspot of the village, and processions were held regularly. If the village was too small for the procession, the procession left the village, which didn't please the neighbors. |
| Today, if someone starts to be carried away, you can put that person back on the ground by telling them "to leave the church in the village." Our next idiom is |
| Igor: Trick 17 |
| Michael: literally "trick 17," meaning a lifehack, or a clever solution to a problem. The origin of this idiom might be the English card game Whist. The highest possible trick in this game is 17. Another possible origin of the idiom can be tracked to the German mathematician and philosopher |
| Igor: Carl Friedrich Gauß, |
| Michael: who proved that a compass and a straightedge are enough to construct an even heptadecagon. No matter the origin, a "trick 17" is the perfect solution for everything in Germany. For example, if someone has a wine bottle, but no bottle openers and you know a trick for opening it anyway, you could say, |
| Igor: Ich zeige dir einen Trick 17, wie du das ohne den Korkenzieher öffnen kannst. |
| Michael: meaning "I will show you a clever trick for how you can open it without a corkscrew." The next idiom is, |
| Igor: Er kocht auch nur mit Wasser, |
| Michael: meaning "he also cooks only with water." This idiom is used to lower someone's expectations about something. For instance, if someone expects you to do something in an hour, which usually takes about a day, you could say, |
| Igor: Eine Stunde ist zu wenig, ich koche auch nur mit Wasser. |
| Michael: meaning "One hour is not enough time, I'm also cooking only with water." The next idiom is |
| Igor: Schwein haben. |
| Michael: meaning "to have a pig." In Germany, the pig is a symbol of luck, so this expression can be used interchangeably with |
| Igor: Glück haben. |
| Michael: meaning "to have luck." The next one is |
| Igor: Den Wald vor lauter Bäumen nicht sehen. |
| Michael: meaning literally "to not see the forest because of too many trees." This describes a situation where someone is concentrating on small details, without seeing the whole picture. And our last idiom for this lesson is |
| Igor: Den Spreu vom Weizen trennen, |
| Michael: literally meaning "to separate the chaff from the wheat," and is an actual quote from the Bible. To separate the chaff from the wheat means to separate the important things from unimportant things. For example, you could say, |
| Igor: Wir haben genug Beweise, nun gilt es die Spreu vom Weizen zu trennen, |
| Michael: meaning "We have enough evidence, and now we need to separate the chaff from the wheat." |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Igor: Tschüsschen! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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