Silent Schwa » Deutsch

Grausamkeitsspäße

Michael — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:27:22 +0000

Grausamkeitsspäße [ˈɡʀaʊ̯zaːmkaɪ̯tˈʃpɛːsə] - “cruel jokes”

German always has such great words for describing deriving pleasure from someone else’s pain.

(Thanks to Chuck Gordon for turning me on to this word!)

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Doof

Michael — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:45:13 +0000

Doof – stupid; lame; dumb

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Ausgezeichnet

Michael — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:07:33 +0000

Ausgezeichnet /ˈausgətsaiçnət/ – excellent; awesome; fantastic

I love the sound of this word. Listen for it in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds” (an awesome movie for language nerds).

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Backpfeifengesicht

Michael — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:36:27 +0000

I’ve decided to share interesting (to me) foreign words for which there are no real concise equivalents in English. I’m doing this mostly for my own entertainment, but if you know of an interesting or amusing word in another language, and think the rest of us should know it too, please don’t hesitate to contact me. For Japanese words, please see my nihongo à gogo site.

And now, on with the show:

Backpfeifengesicht – a face that begs to be smacked

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