1

How would I say phrases like the following in German:

A: Woah, did you delete your one-year-old account?

B: Yes, and I am awesome like that*.

Or

C: What a nice question, how come it got a close-vote?

B: Well, people are silly like that.

By "I am awesome like that" I mean I did something that shows how awesome I am or I am pointing out something about myself that I consider to be a good quality.

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  • 2
    "and I am awesome like that": What do you mean by that, is it: "this is how I roll!" or "and I'm still awesome without my account!" (or sth. different)? – 0x6d64 Jun 13 '12 at 16:46
  • As in "I usually do weird things" and "people are usually silly when it comes to voting". The point it "usually", I guess. – Gigili Jun 13 '12 at 16:55
  • Regarding your first part: I guess "I am awesome like that" is a way to prevaricate answering a question which they can't or don't want to answer. A common method of Germans is to answering a "Warum?" question with "Weil ich es kann." - Example: "Warum hast du deinen Account gelöscht? - "Weil ich es kann." – Em1 Jun 14 '12 at 13:04
  • Regarding your second part: There are two ways. Either you don't worry about that the question was closed then you will just say some along: "Weil Menschen nunmal so sind." or you feels hurt (maybe it's your own question, which has been closed) then you will stroppily answer: "Weil die (halt) doof/blöd sind." – Em1 Jun 14 '12 at 13:08
  • Those two comments were very helpful, thank you @Em1. – Gigili Jun 14 '12 at 16:11
9

I would translate it like that:

A: Wow, hast Du Dein 1 Jahr altes Konto gelöscht?

B: Ja, weil ich halt so geil/cool/genial/... bin. (hopefully in an ironic meaning!)

and

C: Das war so eine gute Frage, warum wurde sie geschlossen?

B: Naja, die Leute sind halt so blöd.

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  • So, what's the role of "halt" there? Could you elaborate? – Gigili Jun 13 '12 at 16:55
  • @Gigili It's a word mostly used in statements that means that the statement is pretty much common knowledge or self-evident. "It's like that, what can you do about it?" translates to "So ist es halt, was kann man da schon machen?". A shrug gesture is often added to it to enforce the sentiment. – Hackworth Jun 13 '12 at 17:01
  • 2
    @Gigili Modalpartikel ist das Stichwort – Em1 Jun 13 '12 at 20:42
3

A: Woah, hast du deinen 1 Jahr alten Account gelöscht?

B: Ja, ich bin halt so cool.

and

C: Was für eine gute Frage, warum wurde Sie geschlossen?

D: Naja, (die) Leute sind halt Deppen.

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  • @Andreas: Fixed it - hope you don't mind! :) (also added an optional article - makes it slightly more idiomatic) – Mac Jun 15 '12 at 12:49
  • @Mac Both is correct "der Account" und "das Account" ;) – Em1 Jun 15 '12 at 14:38
  • @Em1: Laut Duden ja - aber ich habe "das Account" im richtigen Leben noch nirgends gehört/gelesen... :) – Mac Jun 15 '12 at 15:09
  • @all ahhh that's the beauty of the Germanic language. Go to the Schweiz and you Deutsch folks will be giggling about the grammar. Go to Oesterreich and it gets so extreme that from dorf zu dorf there are different grammatical considerations/phrases/etc. Das gibts doch nicht?! But since this is a GERMAN forum I guess Duden is the big daddy. – DribblzAroundU82 Jun 15 '12 at 16:39

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