German Language Stack Exchange is a bilingual question and answer site for speakers of all levels who want to share and increase their knowledge of the German language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
Sign up to join this community
All the above three phrases mean "on the third floor/storey" since Etage, Geschoss and Stock all mean "floor/storey" according to the dictionary. My question is how one determines that which particular german word should be used to refer to "floor/storey" (of a building, e.g.). Is there a regional preference to use one over the other.
Those words are synonyms, they all mean the same, so you can you can use what ever you like better.
But your prepositions are wrong, and you forgot two synonymes:
(*) The word Geschoss/Geschoß is one of the very rare examples, where the orthography of German German and Austrian German are different. The reason for this is the different pronunciation. The o in this word is short in German German, but long in Austrian German. And there is a rule that says: "After short vowels use ss, after long vowels use ß". And that's why the official standard-writing of this word is different in Germany and Austria. (I am from Austria, so I will write »Geschoß« here in this article.)
(Also note, that in Swiss German there is no ß. In Switzerland every ß has to be replaced by ss.)
Etage is a little bit exhalted.
The word Stock can also mean "stick" (like walking stick or drum stick), so if you want to be very clear, better use Stockwerk instead of Stock.
Geschoß (and Obergeschoß) has imho a more technical connotation than the other words.
This Ngram shows you, how frequent this synonymes are used:
(source)
The level of the pavement is called Erdgeschoß. In elevaters you will see either the letter »E« or the number »0«.
The next higher level is erster Stock or erste Etage. In elevators the number »1«. (Higher levels are zweiter Stock, dritter Stock etc.)
The first level below Erdgeschoß is called erstes Untergeschoß. In elevators the number »-1«. (Similar for lower levels.)
But there are also some special names:
Keller
In buildings with only one level below street level, Keller is this lowest floor. But the word Keller is more bound to its usage than to its place in the building. A Keller is an area, where you can store goods. This means: A Keller exists only in buildings, where you have the need to store things for a longer period of time. You find a Keller in residential buildings, but it is very rare to have a Keller in office buildings.
I lived for many years in a multi-functional-building. There was (from bottom to top) an underground car park, a shopping mall, offices and apartments in this building. It had 4 levels below ground and 13 levels above ground. We residuals needed storage space, so this building had to have a Keller, but in the lower 4 levels was no space for it, because there was the underground car park. We had our Keller between the highest office level and the lowest residual level, in the 5th floor. This is very rare, but it shows, that the word Keller more stands for its usage than for its position in the building.
In elevators, there sometimes is K for Keller, but this is rare. More often you just see -1 (if Keller = erstes Untergeschoß).
Parterre
Just a synonym for Erdgeschoß. So in some houses you find a »P«-Button in the elevator, where you would expect »E« or »0«.
Dachgeschoß
More and more people move into big cities, and all want to live near the center, but you can't build new buildings there, because there already are buildings. And you can't make those building higher, because there often are laws that limit the height of building. Very often building are under monument protection, so you can't change their appearance. But you can build new apartments into the former attics. This is called »Dachgeschoßausbau« (loft extension).
Although those added levels could be called for example fünfter Stock (if the former last level was vierter Stock), they very often are called »Dachgeschoß«. If there is only one Dachgeschoß in the building, then it is simply called »Dachgeschoß« (»D« in the elevator). If there are more than one, then you have »erstes Dachgeschoß«, »zweites Dachgeschoß« and so on (»D1«, »D2« etc.)
Special floor names in Vienna
Very special are names of foors in Vienna, because in the time of monarchy, there was a law that said, that there must not be a floor above the fourth floor. A fifth floor would be illegal.
But in 1900 Vienna was the 4th biggest Megacity in the world (only New York, London and Paris was bigger). About 2.1 million people lived there, and the city needed place for their residents. So people built buildings with much more levels then just four. But to have the highest level to be named »vierter Stock«, they needed to invent new names for the lower levels. So in some old buildings in Vienna you still find this names of levels (from bottom to top):
I don't remember to have heard Geschoß or Geschoss (both spellings are valid) with an ordinal number, there are only compounds like:
or the meaning auf dem selben Geschoß (on the same floor).
The other ones are quite exchangeable, Etage being slightly more high-brow, but no so much, not to read it in classified ads. I would assume that Stock gets a higher share in the Southern parts of Germany.
There are no differences - these 3 words are synonyms.
Die Etage is generally used for residential apartment complexes. Der Stock is used office buildings. This is what I have learnt. When is Das Geschoss used
