Friday, April 30, 2010

Der Wortschatz

There's a story in the news today about a man getting fined 14,000eur for jumping into a pool. But it wasn't just a normal jump: it was an Arschbombe. Yes, the German word for cannonball is Arschbombe, or 'ass-bomb'. Priceless! In the past months I've learned some other great tidbits of vocabulary, such as:
Handschuhe: the word for gloves translates literally as "hand shoes."
Pickel: not the word for pickle. This means "pimple." I first heard it when watching a German movie about teenagers in Kreuzberg. I assumed at first that it was a slang word for male genitalia, but soon realized from the context--a guy was happy that his "pickel" was getting smaller--that it had to be something else!
Partymaus: literally 'party mouse', this is the equivalent of party animal. I don't really understand how mice got the reputation of being hardcore partiers, haha.
aufmotzen: I encountered this word while watching MTV in English with German subtitles at the gym, a very handy way of learning interesting vocab. In Pimp my Ride, this is the translation of 'to pimp.' At first I thought it was derived from Mütze, which means cap or bonnet. I figured putting a cap on something could kind of be a synonym for pimpin it out. But according to Leo, the online dictionary that probably should have been on my useful websites list, 'aufmotzen' means 'to start something up', which is a much less imaginative translation.
Balkon: one night at the Weinerei a drunk old guy came up and chatted to us for a while and when he walked away, he slyly smiled and complimented my 'Balkon' or 'balcony'. I was wearing a low-cut top at the time (I didn't realize it was that low!) so we surmised that this is a slang word for boobies. hahaha.
verlaufen: this is a recent one. My friend was making a frozen pizza in my oven and I checked the label for the cooking instructions. You're supposed to heat it until the cheese is "gut verlaufen": 'running well'. That made me smile.
I feel sad that I am leaving right when I am just starting to get jokes in German and understand more of the subtleties of what's happening around me linguistically every day. When I visited the US I was kind of relieved to be able to communicate easily with the people I encountered--bartenders, grocery store cashiers, etc--but I also really missed the thrill of having even the most everyday task be a bit of a challenge. Living in a place where you don't speak the language fluently makes every day an adventure and an opportunity to learn, and it's so gratifying when you make progress or are able to get through a whole encounter without the other person realizing you're a foreigner. I don't know if I'll ever live in Germany again, but I hope I'll live in a foreign country again sometime. The daily challenge is fun and exciting.
Tomorrow is May Day and it's going to be nuts!
Bis bald,
D.

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