My best friend is German. It’s funny how often we have similar sayings, which he will translate for me, and it is not quite the way we say it, but it’s the same thing really.
One recent instance was when I was talking to him about a girl in a story who “got shafted by the guy, no wonder she flipped out.”
His response was first to ask me what “got shafted” meant, then to laugh that they actually have a word for “flipping out” – ausflippen (out flipping).
One that I can’t remember the German for is “Show me the bus, with the people who care” in response to someone continuing to talk about something you’re not interested in. (They use more commas than we do, I have noticed.)
One memorable occasion that we still joke about is when another mutual friend translated “you have a nice ass” through Babelfish, and told him he had a nice donkey. He fell out of his chair laughing and we still joke about it today.
“-chen” is often added to the end of names as a term of endearment - My mother calls me Katzchen or Inchen. It lead to a very amusing conversation with my Uncle who happen to -chen my brother, Erik. My brother (being only about 8 years old and already teased at school for his name) burst into tears, and my mumma had to explain to my Uncle what the English word “Erikchen” meant. ha ha!
You gotta love German, what other language can you sling all three genders of article together and still have them make sence:
The reason why Maedchen is neuter is because of the “chen” ending. Maedchen literally translates into “little maid,” and adding “chen” or “lein” as an ending both makes the noun it’s added to neuter and adds the meaning of the item being little. It’s very common in Maerchen, or German fairy tales.
Knochelchen: little bone
Ringlein: little ring
etc.
I have an extremely vague memory of seeing a humor book as a child containing stories told in hilarious mock German. The only thing I specifically remember is that the dogcatcher was called “der Barkenpantensniffensnatcher.”
