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Oans, zwoa, drei, g’suffa!

The first three words in the above quote are Bavarian for “eins, zwei, drei”. Is g’suffa also Bavarian, and what does it mean?

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7 Answers 7

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It’s a Bavarian dialect expression and it means gesoffen. That’s the Partizip Perfekt of saufen: colloquial/vulg. for trinken (to drink).

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  • 16
    +1 - Zudem ist es ein feststehender Trinkspruch.
    – Tomalak
    May 26, 2011 at 14:08
  • 10
    +1 nur im Zusammenhang mit Bier anzuwenden.
    – bernd_k
    May 26, 2011 at 14:21
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    @Tom_Au The expression is older than the song.
    – splattne
    Jun 17, 2011 at 17:21
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    A good translation would also have to include that "g'suffa!" is meant as a kind of prompt or even military-style order to take a gulp of beer.
    – 0x6d64
    Nov 27, 2011 at 15:47
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    @berd_k: Lässt sich auch mit Schnaps anwenden.
    – rimrul
    Aug 27, 2013 at 17:18
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G’suffa means to guzzle the drink down; it is not just drinking.

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    Und was heißt to guzzle? Saufen, schlucken, verschlingen - danke. Aug 28, 2013 at 6:23
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My translation would be

Down the hatch.

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Well, I’m still learning a lot about the German language but I know that “eins, zwei, drei” is “1, 2, 3” and g’suffa is chug, gulp or guzzle. So this clearly is a drinking song! My uncle’s ex wife would sing this and drink German beer.

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Saufen is to trinken as fressen is to essen. Fressen translates more "to wolf" down food or to eat as greedily as an animal. So too does saufen/gesoffen (g'suff') translate as "to slug" or "to chug" a drink in English or chupar whiskey in South American Spanish.

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This phrase comes from the song "In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus. It uses the past of the verb "saufen" which refers to "serious" drinking; e.g. "tossing" one's beer.

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    I was quite skeptical about this short answer. Indeed the reference seems to give a wrong date and no explanation. But the fundamental info in this answer seems to be correct, surprisingly –– if you include 1,2,3 to gsuffa. See here for a short text you should also quote in your answer merkur.de/bayern/… Sep 4, 2018 at 19:50
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I was in Germany 50 years ago in the military and eins, zwei, dre soufa was what the Germans would toast to during a beer fest. The band would play, and then they would say, eins, zwei, dre soufa and everyone would gulp down their liter of beer.

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  • Did they use Dre or Drei? Jan 28, 2019 at 8:44

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