Help a guy impress his german girlfriend ;)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It’s my girlfriend’s B-day. She’s from germany so besides the american express gift certificate and the cake I’m making her (and a subscription to a magazine she never fails to pick up when shopping every month), I want to make her smile a little by trying out a little german on her.

So what I need help with:

  1. How do you say “happy birthday” in German, and most importantnly, how do you pronounce it? (I have taken some ‘light’ classes with her and in school so I do know some of the basics, if that helps :wink: ).

  2. How does the happy birth day song go in German?

  3. Do you know any particularly interesting tablature takes on the birthday song I can play for her on the guitar?

Help would be much appreciated! :slight_smile:

2

I think you would really impress her with a knowledge of beer. Bring her a case of Bud. :smiley:

3

Also, change your name to “Herr In Sich Heinen Lachen Hosen”.

Loosely translated: Mr. Chuckletrousers.

4

No, get her a case of Bitburger…if you’re in the States you should be able to find it at a beer distributor.

And as much as it shames me to admit it, after 4 years of German, I swear I do not know how to say “Happy Birthday” in German. It’s possibly “Frohe Geburtstag!*”, but that’s a word for word translation and the actual German phrase might be more idomatic.

*Fro-huh Ge-bohrts-tog

5

Always happy to help romance sniffle :

  1. It’s actually “Alles Gute zum Geburtstag” (Ahl-las Goo-tay tsoom Gay-boorts-tahg) ← vague attempt at pronounciation. Though I’d find my boyfriend wishing me a “Frohe Geburtstag” really cute - YGMMV

  2. The Happy Birthday song goes (watch for it, it’s hard) “Happy birthday toooo you, happy birthday toooo you, happy birthday liebe insertnamehere, happy birthday toooo you”

Not as popular but in German: “Zum Geburtstag viel Glueck, zum Geburtstag viel Glueck, zum Geburtstag alles Gute, zum Geburtstag viel Glueck.” (pronounciation see above, “viel Glueck” means “good luck” and is pronounced “feel glick” (sort of - pucker your lips when pronouncing the “i”)

  1. No, I don’t. :smiley:

Hope this helps. Good luck and Frohe Geburtstags-celebration!

6

If you really want to impress her, correctly pronounce the German word for “Squirell”.

7

I thought it would be cute, even if it was wrong, but I didn’t wanna make that leap. And good ol’ Babeflish said “Alles gute zum Geburtstag” but I didn’t want to trust it…c’est la vie, lol

8

Depending on where she’s from you might even want to branch out and try for the Bavarian “Oachkatzlschwoaf” (squirrel’s tail) which reduces grown German Northeners to tears if they try to pronounce it.

Bring paper napkins.

9

When she says “Ich liebe dich,” the correct response is not “Halte den maul.”

:wink:

10

das Maul = “Halt’s Maul”

11

I gotta side w/Call me Frank as opposed to Einmon on this one - but that could be a regional disparity. I’ve usually heard the simple Frohe Geburtstag, Zum is really closer to to (As in: Let’s go to bed or Let’s go to the restaurant).
The former being the better of the 2 suggestions.

But much more importantly:

Now let’s let that, (your primary gift), sit out there for a minute & let it settle in

Bist du verrückt?

Even German women (stereotypically not known to be the warmest people on the planet) like romance. An Amex GC (or any gift certificate for that matter) - even if desperately needed or asked for - doesn’t exactly fall anywhere close to the realm of romantic. Practical? Ja. Easy to pick-out/purchase? Ja. Likely to be appreciated by a woman (even if she said that’s what she wanted)? I go with: Nein.

12

[QUOTE=JohnBckWLD]
I gotta side w/Call me Frank as opposed to Einmon on this one - but that could be a regional disparity. I’ve usually heard the simple Frohe Geburtstag, Zum is really closer to to (As in: Let’s go to bed or Let’s go to the restaurant).
The former being the better of the 2 suggestions.

That’s why I didn’t trust Babelfish, because it literally translates as something like “Everything’s good to the birthday”. Now I have some light experience with German idioms, so I can readily accept that they are absolutely incomprensible if you don’t know what they mean*…but that just seemed odd…

  • For example, “Ich pfeiffe darauf” means “I don’t give a damn” and the literal translation is “I whistle about that”…

As for Cervaise’s suggestion, I wouldn’t recomend saying “Shut your muzzle” after she’s declared her love for you, lol…!

13

Hm, I’ve never heard “Frohen Geburtstag” being used on its own. But as you said, it might be a regional thing…I could imagine using it in a sentence like “Ich wuensche dir einen frohen Geburtstag” (I wish you a happy birthday).

You might skip the whole congratulating thing and use JohnBckWLD’s other suggestions rightaway :smiley:

And in retrospect I have to agree about the gift certificate somewhat but I would be mollified by the cake. And the song.

14

hiya. Well, I’M in Germany now and whenever I hear it, it’s Herzlichen Gluckwunsch.

Don’t panic over the funny spelling; there are harder languages by far. Z is like a TS sound, and the U’s in Gluck sound more like the OO in book. More or less…

so if you say “hert-slicken glook-voonsh”, she should be quite pleased with you.

As for a song on the guitar, well, I don’t do music, so I have to try and talk through it. When people celebrate birthdays in bars, they sing a simple song called Hoch soll sie ( or "er " for a man, but ignore that) leben, which translates as "High (i.e. happy, well) shall she live. And the good news is that the main bit of it sounds, to me anyway, close to the tune of “Waltzing Matilda.” Close enough that you could fake it. So it’s:

HOCH soll sie leben,
HOCH soll sie leben,
Sie lebt hoch, (she lives well!)
HOCH soll sie leben,
HOCH soll sie leben,
Drei mal hoch (3 times well!)

And the first two lines could be picked out with Waltzing Matilda. The third line and the sixth are three long beats, going down in pitch the way you do in that kind of a song, you know… The rough pronunciation is:

CH just say K, unless you know how the Scots say CH in Loch. It’s like that.

DREI like DRY

SIE (she) the S sounds like a Z, so like Americans say the letter ZEE.

HOK(H) ZOL ZEE LAY-BEN
DRY (loong) MAL (loong) HOK(H) (loong)

Yeah, really, nice idea. Good luck. And of course give her the gift certificate, man. She’s YOUR girlfriend. No worries. These other guys don’t even know her.

Viel Gluck! (Best of luck)

15

I agree with JohnBckWLD about the main gift. I was actually going to post asking if you were Sure this was what you wanted to give yesterday. It just didn’t seem romantic enough to come from a person willing to learn another language just to impress his girl.

16

er… I suppose it’s a keyboard issue with zapomel’s PC. It’s “Herzlichen Glückwunsch”, with u-umlaut. There is a word “Gluck” in German but it has the same onomatopoeic meaning that “glug” has in English…

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag = hert-slicken glewk-voonsh tsoom geh-boorts-tahg = cordial best wishes on the occasion of your birthday.

17

Uh, well, it’s not exactly a keyboard issue. I’m never sure if stuff I send out onto the ether will be able to handle foreign diacritical marks once it shows up on someone else’s monitor. Much too complex for me… But also, I just thought it might be too much information.
And that was all, really, but SINCE I’M ON AGAIN, hon-est-ly, people… I can’t believe you’re all still whalin’ on this poor guy for getting his girlfriend a gift certificate. Come on… He baked her a cake. He’s asking strangers to teach him how to sing to her in her native language. And she’s HIS girl. You don’t know her… It’s not like it’s the only thing he’s bought for her.
(I’m not hijacking, I’m standing up for the OP. Stick with it, I think what you’re doing is great.)

18

Ditto on Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag. Lived in Germany, remained in contact with German friends after returning to the States, took 3 years of HS German, and hosted a German exchange student. And in high school, yes we did in fact sing the whole thing to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” Really fast. Trying not to wet our pants laughing so hard. Oh we thought we were so clever. :stuck_out_tongue:

I agree with the English version of “Happy Birthday” with liebe instead of dear. Sounds good.

19

I suggest invading France and marching at the head of your victorious army through the Arc de Triomphe.

If you’re on a budget, invade Poland or the Czech Republic.

20

I wasn’t dog-piling on anybody. Do you honestly think I posted what I did to hurt the poster (or anyone), or to help? If I can save just one person from the “If you don’t know what you did, well I’m certainly not going to tell you!!!” trap, then I’ll be happy. And, For all I know, there is no German equivolent for that expression anyway.