My 12 Illustrations Of Literal Word Meanings Will Show You The Fun Side Of The German Language

Same in Dutch: naaktslak

That’s a homeless snail but ok

Since you've gone to the trouble of learning my native language, here are a few more colorful expressions for you to illustrate: #1 Kammerjäger: an exterminator. Literally, a hunter of small game in a chamber. #2Fleischwolf: meatgrinder #3 Blattlaus: aphid #4 Knollenblätterpilz: Amanita Virosa, one of the world's deadliest mushrooms. This word describes its appearance. # 5 Gulaschkanone: large cooking pot, like those used by the military. #6 Friedhof: cemetery #7 Augenweide: while the English language uses ''eye candy'', I love the metaphor of a relaxing green meadow. Please be sure to distinguish between actual words and slang expression so as to save yourself and your readers embarrassment. This isn't always obvious, as German permits the unlimited coinage of neologisms, but but if something is too cute to be real, it probably isn't.

Picture is not to the point. It is demonstrably not naked.

This is my favorite German word! Makes me laugh!

To be fair, in English it's a light 'bulb' - i.e. it's so named because its shape is similar to things like tulip bulbs. We're just so used to saying it that we don't 'hear' the word bulb for its true meaning any more.

Same in Norwegian: lyspære. Or simply "pære".

In Hungarian too...😁

It also stands for tortoise. Tortoises are sometime called "Landschildkröten" which means land dwelling in order to distinguish them from other turtles, but usually both turtles and tortoises are simply called "Schildkröten".

This is going to be the basis of a future password!

Sorry, but that's wrong. You have to kiss a frog to get a prince. The fairy tale is called: The Frog King ;) Greetings from Germany

This is why I adore etymology (study of the origin of words). Handschuhe sounds so much "cuter" than glove. Glove actually evolved from the Old English "glof" (hand-covering). There is a lot of influence from German, proto-Germanic, and Nordic languages in English.

Same in Norwegian (hansker,), but I suspect we were lazy and stole it from the Germans

I've lived in Germany and Austria and never heard a single person refer to a Fahrrad as a Drahtesel. (And cycling is far more common than driving where I lived.)

works for me.

That's what it's called in English too!

Its not the word for a small child generally. When a child acts like its very smart and knows everything.... then you say its a Dreikäsehoch. But its a term that is oldfashioned. Not much you people use it. wonder how „Klugscheißer“ would be illustrated. 😁😁

The equivalent to "knee high to a grasshopper"?

That pieces of cheese would have to be rather high.

I don't get this is this a German word for dead or jeans

In czech language we say that too. Always found that odd even in my native language.

In spanish we call it "Grifo" (Griffin in English) so it's more badass than a water rooster 😎 hahaha

I have heard the term water c**k. This is just another rooster name.

I'd like to note that despite the fact it came from Greek hippopotamus, which means the same, but that they've actually 'saved' the original form while other languages didn't. It appears Germans do have humor, unlike what others think.

Actually, hippopotamus means exactly this: Hippo=horse, Potamus=river (Greek)

In Dutch it is "Nijlpaard" Witch translates as Nilehorse in English.

In Dutch/Flemish it is called a nijlpaard. A horse of the Nile. Because that's the only place they are at :D

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why is the tornado thicc tho

Germans are just following along from the Greek, in which "hippopotamus" literally means "river horse." Why the Greeks thought it was a horse, I dunno. Maybe they were being metaphorical or something.

To be precise, "Hose" (singular) stands for one leg only and the correct translation of trousers would be "Hosen" (plural). The singular is only a colloquial word.