41
votes
Accepted
What is the appropriate German phrase for letting you pass crowded areas?
Most people just say
Entschuldigung
which just means "excuse me" or "sorry". Sometimes you hear just the colloquial shortened version
Tschuldign
which sometimes gets condensed to even more ...
- 110k
34
votes
Accepted
Natural way to deny help from a shopkeeper
The problem with your attempt is that sich etw. anschauen (in contrast to to look) needs to have an object (and also requires sich, being reflexive). So the minimal correct alternative would be:
...
- 21.5k
25
votes
Accepted
“Especially because” in German
besonders weil
insbesondere weil
gerade weil
vor allem weil
sind alles mögliche Alternativen, die im Deutschen gang und gäbe sind.
- 22.6k
21
votes
„Eine Datei hinlegen“ oder „eine Datei legen“
in der Regel werden Dateien "abgelegt".
Siehe hierzu auch Wikipedia: Dateisystem.
Das Beispiel ist demnach
Ich habe die Datei unter C:\work abgelegt.
- 336
18
votes
German equivalent of “It works”
The most commonly used expression would be
Es funktioniert!
Sometimes it is phrased colloquially as
Es geht!
or
Es hat geklappt!
or
Es läuft!
The latter is mostly used when you managed ...
- 281
18
votes
German proper name or funny paraphrase for a slightly stupid dragon (Zmey Gorynych)
The dragon of classic German literature is "der Lindwurm" who is killed by Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied. Actually Lindwurm is an old word for dragon, but I only know it in reference to ...
- 14.9k
17
votes
“Especially because” in German
A somewhat more free translation would involve not using a subclause:
[…], gerade nach dem kalten Winter.
[…], insbesondere angesichts des kalten Winters. [rather formal]
[…], erst recht nach dem ...
- 21.5k
16
votes
Accepted
What is the German equivalent of the proverb 水清ければ魚棲まず (if the water is clear, fish won't live there)?
There are at least two common sayings expressing the idea of not being too strict in following the rules:
[wir wollen] nicht päpstlicher als der Papst sein source
(we don't want to be more pope ...
- 14.8k
15
votes
Accepted
Sagt man "Was ist Ihr Name"?
Normalerweise fragt man:
Wie heißen Sie?
Wie/was ist ihr Name? hat für mich einen leicht denglishen Beigeschmack …
- 2,434
15
votes
Difference between two possibilities for a warning label
The typical German instruction manual idiom would be:
Nur bei Stillstand des Fahrzeugs zurücksetzen.
Your first variant wenn angehalten would imply to a German reader that the tripmeter itself had ...
- 2,549
14
votes
Accepted
“sehr wundervoll” — idiomatic?
No, you are not alone.
The word in itself expresses a degree of excitement that cannot be increased further.
Many. You find some quickly by browsing the synonyms of wundervoll: ausgezeichnet, einmalig,...
- 18.8k
14
votes
Wie kann man dem Kellner sagen, wieviel Trinkgeld man ihm gibt?
Wenn ich bei einer 19€-Rechnung 20 € geben möchte (also 1 € Trinkgeld), aber nur einen 50er habe, dann sage ich "20, bitte", d. h. Nr. 12.
- 426
14
votes
What if someone says "Ich bin" as a self-introduction?
The difference is in the level of formality vs casualness here.
Ich heiße Fritz Müller
would be a formal, almost stiff way of introducing yourself. Someone presenting himself to a conference ...
- 30.6k
13
votes
Accepted
Expression for "little people"
Personally, I’ve never encountered little people being used that way in English, but I’m not a native speaker and since there are some similar phrases in German I’ve no doubt it can refer to unknown ...
- 9,013
12
votes
What is the German equivalent of 干物女 (dried fish woman)?
In short: There is none
At least none which barely covers more than two or three of all these aspects.
But, as japanese wiki says it's a term originated from the manga Hotaru no Hinari by Hiura ...
- 14k
12
votes
Accepted
Best way to say 'to move up' as in 'reschedule for an earlier point in time'
A good choice would probably be vorverlegen. "Verlegen" refers, among other meanings, to changing the position of something - in space and/or in time. Therefore,
Die Besprechung nächste ...
- 14.3k
11
votes
Natural way to deny help from a shopkeeper
It is common to say:
Danke, ich schaue mich nur (mal) um.
- 7,186
11
votes
Accepted
Different ways to say “are you ready?”
There are lots of ways to translate that, especially because it differs in dialects.
First of all, I think your professor rather said
Hast du das? / Habt ihr das?
what most possibly means “Did ...
- 469
11
votes
Accepted
Idiomatic usage of ‘über’ vs ‘an’ when thinking
It is pretty simple: One is correct and one is wrong.
It is correct to use an:
Ich denke an dich.
Ich denke an meine Zukunft.
Denken itself does not allow an argument with über. You may be ...
- 38k
11
votes
What is the appropriate German phrase for letting you pass crowded areas?
An often used (colloquial) phrase in such situations is
Entschuldigung! Darf ich bitte einmal durch?
(Beg your pardon! May I pass, please?)
With the "bitte" and the "Entschuldigung" it is a polite ...
- 11.4k
10
votes
German equivalent of “It works”
As others have said
Es arbeitet
does not sound right. Beyond that, “to work” can have many slightly different meanings and you need to distinguish them to find the proper German idiom.
Es (hat)...
- 426
10
votes
no days off : translation?
Kein freier Tag!
The simple imperative; German is well suited as a command language ;-)
Of course it can be embellished, or in another context becomes a complaint...
- 600
10
votes
Accepted
German idioms like "Draining the swamp"
The German idiom is
die Sümpfe trockenlegen; das Trockenlegen der Sümpfe
to drain the swamps; the draining of the swamps
This is one of the rare cases where an idiomatic phrases uses the exactly ...
- 110k
10
votes
Accepted
Difference between two possibilities for a warning label
You can say
Nur bei Fahrzeugstillstand zurücksetzen.
Personally I would prefer
Nicht während der Fahrt zurücksetzen.
This is not a literal translation, but it says that the tripmeter must not be ...
- 8,433
9
votes
Accepted
German equivalent of “It works”
When you would like to express that something worked, like a suggested solution, you could say “Das hat funktioniert!” like “Hey, that worked!” so change “Es arbeitet” to “Es funktioniert”.
- 279
9
votes
Accepted
Techn. Übersetzung: to serve a document
Ein Webserver kann eine Datei bereitstellen oder ausliefern.
- 18.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Werden Regeln gebogen oder gebeugt?
Wie @tofro schon kommentiert hat, bedeutet biegen eine dauerhafte Veränderung (physikalisch wird der Fließpunkt des Materials überschritten, so dass es nicht mehr zurückfedert), während beugen etwas ...
- 320
9
votes
Accepted
What is the German equivalent of 干物女 (dried fish woman)?
This is a very pejorative use of imagery already at the Japanese source, it seems. As such it is quite specific to Japanese culture as well. A direct translation or one-word translation or even a very ...
- 7,237
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible