When I first started learning the German language,
I was laughed at and people asked me
"Evan, why would you want to learn such an ugly, ugly language?"
And to that, I'm a bit insulted
I consider the German language very beautiful.
Yes, it may have 48 different adjective endings
But they're there for a reason
Okay? They like their structure
And they stick by their rules.
One of the reasons I think German is so beautiful is for its practicality.
Why make up a new word
when you can just combine two, three, four, even five previous words into one word?
Boom!
You've just got your new meaning.
Why say "insurance companies providing legal protection"
When you could say "Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften"?
I mean that just flows off the tongue really.
And all it needed was one word.
So today I'll be going over my favorites, my funniest, and the most interesting words in the German language.
Let's go!
The first example is a very popular one
That really portrays
How practical the German language is.
You see, if there's already a word for something you put on your feet
You know, as a form of clothing to keep them warm
Keep them- you know, shoes?
Why not just use the same one for hands?
Gloves? What's a glove?
No no no no
We got hand shoes
Hand shoes. 'Gloves' in German: Handschuhe
Perfect!
Also, this is a look. I just wanted to say,
Like "look at me, I'm the handshoe man!"
I'm very "handschuchme" (handsome)
*laughs*
Usually when you're learning a new language the lessons start with animals
So you learn different animal names.
With German, it's super easy 'cause you just have to describe them and that's their name.
Wow, that's a lazy animal! What a Faul Tier.
It's a sloth.
It's the Faultier.
Lazy an- perfect!
Perfect!
When you look at a turtle, what do you see?
'Cause I know what I see here:
I see a toad with a shield.
Schildkröte
It's pretty obvious!
If I were to ask you what Schnecke was, you'd probably guess
"Is it a snake?"
That's a good guess, it's a false cognate, it's actually a snail
But let's look at that snail and take the shell off.
It's just a naked snail.
Why call it a slug? It's a Nacktschnecke.
That animal smells! What a stinky animal!
Stinktier
It's a skunk.
When you have to wait behind people in England, which is part of the culture here,
You just wait in a letter filled with four nonsense letters afterwards.
A queue
In America, we wait in a line.
We like geometry.
In Germany, well...
They wait in a Snake
A Schlange. It kind of- I'm gonna be honest, it does snake; It makes sense.
But it's also ya'know a pejorative for dick so..
"Gonna wait in this dick dick. The Schlangeschlange"
Is that a thing? Can you wait in a Schlangeschlange?
*weird noise for "I don't know"*
Now we do have our fair share of slang in English
For instance, if someone gets a tattoo above their butt on the back,
It's usually referred to as a 'tramp stamp'.
In Germany, they took that a step further.
That's just Arschgeweih.
Ass antlers.
*laughs in confusion and disbelief*
Just imagining antlers coming out of my butt
Arschgeweih!
*piano music*
"Josh, I'm breaking up with you"
*cries*
*gasp*
Kommerspeck!
Evan: Grief bacon!
When my brother and I were kids, we used to make up fun insults
By combining vulgar words with something innocent.
Put em together and you've got yourself a funny little insult.
Like "don't be such a penis waffle" and you'd be like "Don't be such a vagina pancake"
Well, in German, they took that childlike insult
And they made it real and popular and you know what?
They call people Arschgeige.
That is an ass violin.
*sounds of confusion*
*deep voice* "Don't be such an Arschgeige!"
I'm gonna be honest, it sounds fun, I'm gonna use that and be like "ass violin!"
Is it tootin- is it playin on the strings on my butt? I don't know!
It's German, it's pretty. Its a beautiful language, like I said.
It's beautiful.
We've all had one of those moments when we had one too many drinks
And then we came up with a really good idea that we ended up regretting quite a lot.
What is the word for that?
We don't really have one.
Well, Germans do!
It's a Schnapsidee.
Schnaps idea.
An idea after drinking too many schnaps.
Perfect!
I mean it's not perfect, I should stop having all those regrets.
If you only speak English, you might be hearing a lot of these words for the first time.
But! There are a lot of German words that have weaseled their way in to English vernacular.
Such as 'Zeitgeist'
I learned that in university.
The spirit of the times. Zeit means time, geist means ghost
Time ghost?
Time ghost??
One that you'll see on all those "inspirational" Instagram posts is Fernweh
Which is basically a wanderlust,
A sense of longing to leave and travel.
Like the opposite of home sickness.
When you're away and you just really want to go home
Imagine that but the opposite.
You're home and you're like "Uhhh, I need to go out and travel!"
"I've got Fernweh!"
Just make sure you don't pronounce it Fern-wah, okay?
It's not it. It's Fernweh.
Now the next one's very special and any German watching this will have heard the word many times.
It's used colloquially in every type of speech and it's a nice thing to use
If you're trying to chat up a member of the opposite sex
The word is 'Fotze'.
Now 'Fotze' can be used in many different ways
But in a chat up way, 'Fot' is short for 'Fotomodell'
Basically, a photo model,
And 'Ze' is short for 'time bomb'
Fotze
Photo model time bomb
Basically, when you use those together and use it on someone
Like "oh, du bist eine Fotze"
You're saying "it's only a matter of time before you're a photo model."
"You're so beautiful."
What a Fotze
Learning German with Evan!
*cackle*
We're gonna get into toilet humor here because you know what I've had some bad food and I just *fart noise*
It all just came out in the toilet, okay?
It just *whoosh* went right through me
Through. Fall.
It was- it was diarrhea. Okay?
Why call it diarrhea when you can just call it durchfall
Through fall
Food goes in *whoop* falls right out
*fart noise then laughter* So gross
Hmm speaking of a toilet I think I need to go check out something in there
Toilet glasses
Loo glasses
Klobrille
Now even though I find German very beautiful I do find their insults
Are funny sometimes and sometimes a bit lame
For instance, you may have heard of this word if you've read the second John Green book "An Abundance of Cathrines"
But if you're a guy usually you stand up to pee
If you sit to pee its like "Oh"
"Don't sit to pee or you're a woman or something"
Gender roles.
In German we have a word for that
Sitzpinkler
You sits to pinkle. You're a sitzpinkler.
Don't be one of those guys. Stand up and pee all over the place.
Sitzpinkler
Do you guys ever spend each waking night closing your eyes and try to get some sleep
while your mind just constantly plays movies of all your massive mess-ups today, the day before, every year of your life?
Well, theres a word for that in German
Kopfkino
Your head cinema
You get to play the things out in the little cinema in your head.
Kopfkino.
I mean it doesn't have to be bad to be fair. I took a pretty negative approach
You could think of the positive things in your life
Like
That time that you did something nice and it just plays in your head over and over
Now this is how I know I was meant to learn German
When I was a kid and you jump in the pool
What do you yell when you do a cannonball?
You yell cannonball.
I don't know why you have to announce it like you're a pokemon thats also swimming
But thats what you do
I had another name for a cannonball when I was a kid
Butt bomb
I would yell that. "~Butt bomb~"
Guess what
German: Arschbombe
Ass bomb. Thats it. Its an ass bomb
I mean its a good name for it
If I'm gonna jump in a pool now I'm gonna be like "Arschbombe"
Arsh-obama?
We're not gonna get into politics here okay?
As we inevitably get older and get closer and closer to death we begin to get scared
We begin to panic that maybe our life goals will never be completed before we die
It gets really deep right?
Whats the word for that in English? You could say "mid-life crisis" maybe. Three words but-
Mmm I don't really know. Theres no accurate way of describing it
But in German we have torschlusspanik.
Tor: gate or goal
Schluss: Closed
Panik: panic
...at the disco
Thats right, you're scared of dying before your previous goals of meeting Brendon Urie, from Panic! at the Disco, come to pass
We've all been there
Have you ever been having some banter?
Ya know, some classic schnick schnack with the lads?
And then your mate Luke is like "Oi mate. Your mum!"
And you're like "Oh gosh"
He got me. You take the L.
You're walking down the stairs after you leave the house 'cause you just have to give up
And then you're like *gasp* "Your mom!"
Y-you come up with that joke. Oh darn its too late
You've already left the house
Its a treppenwitz
Right? Its a joke that you came up with afterwards
Its when you're-you come up with a joke when its too late. Its too late to use it
You can't just George Castanza it and come back the next day and try and use it
It doesn't work like that. Okay?
Its a joke when its too late that you came up with
Its a beautiful word!
Why don't we have that in english?
Treppenwitz: staircase joke
"Hey Evan what you got there?"
Oh nothing. Just my rain sheild
Regenschirm
Gotta protect ourselves. Get a shield from Ronal Reagan. H-He's coming for you *mumbling*
When you think about it the human body is pretty symmetrical.
I mean we got two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears
Why would you have to make up a word for every different part of the body when you could just reuse some?
Thats what the Germans would say
You might think of this as a wrist. I think of it as a hand joint
Handgelenk
Makes way more sense to me
I wrist my case
Lets think about this practically
Your teeth?
Basically bones. But your gums, very meaty, right? Its the fleshy part of your mouth
Why make up a new word (gums) when you can just say tooth meat?
Zahnfleisch
Zahn. Fleisch.
I mean it looks like flesh, right?
Zahnfleisch *clicks tongue*
There is a big movement in the United States right now to desexualize the nipple
The nipple is seen as an overly sexualized thing.
Now in German culture I don't necessarily know how sexual the nipple is
I just know it must be pretty difficult to sexualize something thats referred to as...
A breast wart.
Brustwarzen
Hello chanel want to grab my brustwarzen?
No?
You do not like my breast warts??
*laughter*
Free the breast warts!!
In America when we wanna clean something up we just use the vacuum
Because you know, its a device that creates a vacuum which creates suction
In England they use the hoover
Because they really love Herbert Hoover. He was a good president, I guess
In Germany
More literal, kay? We gotta go more literal. What does it do?
It sucks the dust
Staubsauger
*deep voice* Sucking that dust up.
Dust sucker
*laughter*
Come here and suck my dust!
Now in english we get our light from a lightbulb
Which is, to be fair, a compound noun in itself
It produces light and it looks like a plant's bulb, possibly
German, they get it a bit more exact with Glühbirne
Glowing pear
It does look like a pear
I-I think thats cute. Its cute!
Glowing pear
"Turn on the glowing pear darling"
"Oh thank you"
You're eating out with your friends
You order the same thing you usually do
But then your friend orders something different, gets his food, you look at it and go like
Oooh I've got some food envy
Thats the word we use
We've got one word in German
Futterneid
Just got that envy of the food
Futterneid (eid sounds like I'd) use that word from now on if I were you
Its a good word
And one of my all-time favorite German words
The German word that basically got me to make this video
I made a tweet about it the other day
and it went quite viral
What do call the contraceptive pill that you take when you don't wanna have babies?
You can't get more practical than that
Anti-baby-pillen
It tells you everything about the word
Everything about the pill, right there
Now I did have some people try and correct me and say
"Evan"
"Its actually, sometimes, just referred to as die pille"
But even that tells you the answer right there
You give it to yourself and what happens to the baby?
DIE
"die" pille
*laughter*
I love German
Now if you are learning German but are having a hard time remembering a lot of different words
just remember one word
Zeug just means thing or stuff
Throw it at the end of any other word and guess what
Germans are gonna understand because its already a word
Oh hey Luke! I love your vehicle!
Vehicle?
This is my drive thing
How was that? Wanna go for another one?
Ehh hold on
Pause for plane
Don't you mean fly thing?
*big sniff*
Woah Josh, do you- do you have a lighter?
Oh! You mean my fire thing
I guess!
*laughter*
*with more laughter off camera*
I guess this is called a wax thing
No its just a candle
oh..
Hey Evan! Thats a really nice fridge
Oh? You mean my cool cabinet?
*door crashes into counter*
*laughter off screen*
Wow. I love all this foliage.
Don't you mean green stuff?
No.
*more laughter*
Hey James
Oh.. Hey Evan
I really love your bedding
This is my bed stuff
Well hopefully you enjoyed my video
If you did you can give it a big thumbs up below
I appreciate that
And subscribe!
I make new videos every Sunday
Hopefully I didn't make a cuddle-muddle of this video
I don't think I did
I really enjoyed it
Thank you so much for watching
I will see you guys next Sunday
If I left out any funny German words that I should have put in this video please tell me in the comments
we can laugh at them together
I'll see you guys next week
Goodbye
Hey Josh can I borrow your lighter?
*laughter*
*from offscreen* don't you mean my fire thing?
*more laughter*
Dont you mean my fire thing?
Hey J-aHHHH
*ughhh*