So I’m watching Andre Rieu on PBS. And he’s speaking German and says something about ‘jet lag’ but says ‘jet lag’ in English, not German.
Why didn’t he say it in German? Isn’t there a German term for ‘jet lag’?
Not as far as I know, and I am a native German speaker living in Germany.
For the same reason you say “deja-vu” in French.
Sorry, this could have been a bit more elaborate.
The German Wikipedia entry does not mention a German term. I couldn’t find one cursorily checking some online dictionaries, either.
From my personal experience, “jetlag” as a loan word is common in everyday German - at least among people who experience it.
Schnellflugzeugermüdeheit*. ‘Jetlag’ is easier to say.
- Actually, I made that up.
Maybe that’s the word he learned for it in kindergarten.
Not relevant at all, but I can’t quite stop myself from pointing out that the phrase “loan word” is a calque of the German “Lehnwort”.
Languages have that Reese Peanut-Butter Cup thing going on, only with several million ingredients.
Whereas calquer is…
Yup.
Ditto on there being no other term in German (dict.leo.org’s only other offering is physiologische Beschwerden des Körpers aufgrund des schnellen Wechselns von Zeitzonen bei Reisen, which is hardly an improvement.). Jet Lag is the common term, and the rule for words of recognizably foreign origin (Fremdwörter) is to [try to] pronounce them as in the language of origin.
Just to mention that “jet lag” is also used in french.
How do the French pronounce it?
Mon dieu!
Haven’t the language police purged that yet? 
English is the official language of international civil aviation.
And St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota. So what?
Johnny L.A. beat me to it. I was going to say that the German word would most likely be:
Fastairplanescrossingmanytimezonesmessoneup
Or maybe
Fastairplanesmanytimezonescrossinguponemess
I dunno, but I bet they spell it with lots of extra letters. Jette Laguequez?
I don’t think he did say it in German. Andre Rieu is Dutch.
(In your defense, Dutch sounds an awful lot like German.)
Interesting thread, anyway.
Sorry I didn’t catch this. You’re right, of course.
Hmm… no. True, both languages are related, grammatically similar even - but most German speakers (apart from people who speak one of the Low German dialects of Northern Germany, too) won’t understand a word of spoken Dutch. Written Dutch is easier, sometimes you can guess what a Dutch text is about, but without really understanding it, either.
On the other hand, a language that really sounds like German is Danish. Given the fact that it’s way less related to High German than Dutch, I can’t say why - but when overhearing people talking Danish (at airports, mostly) I always get the impression that I should be able to understand them. The tone and speech rhythm feels very familiar. The actual words remain unintelligible to me, though.
Some Norwegian type has to say it, so it might as well be me:
Just ask them to take the hot potatoes out of their throats 
You’re welcome.
Oh, it seems to be “jet-lag” in Norwegian, too; that’s what people seem to call it, though it sure isn’t in my copy of Bokmålsordbok. I heard someone using it (in Norsk) as a transitive verb, and nearly had to have my brain re-booted… :eek: