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"Challenge" to German native speakers... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4789 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 9 of 11 16 December 2013 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you're looking for a High German variant, I'd suggest: "Ja, verdammt!" This is quite a mild curse and not as vulgar as "Leck mich fett" or "Mah geh leck", which are all variations on the theme of "Leck mich am Arsch".
If it should have a regional touch, "Ei verbibbsch" would be quite nice, I think. It's known as a typical Saxon exclamation, so it might be similar to "Eh by gum", which is typical for Yorkshire. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4466 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 10 of 11 16 December 2013 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
First things first: "mah gehleck" wouldn't really fit the provided context, because you are talking about something/someone you know well. The Austrian phrase is rather used as a spontaneous outburst when you come across something special but unexpected. An explosion in front of you, a glimpse of a beautiful woman, a hard task, etc. Now to the linguistics: The "ma" in "Schau ma mal" is actually the dialect variant of "wir" after the verb in an inversion. "wir" = "mir" in Bavarian dialects, in the position after the verb it can be (and usually is) reduced to "ma", just like "wa" for "wir" in colloquial Standard German. The "mah" is more like an interjection, that's why I chose to write it with an "h" at the end (think of "ih", "ah", "eh", ...), there is no standard for writing Austrian dialects though (there is one for Western Middle Bavarian, but almost nobody knows this here in Austria, so we don't use it ... we use mostly Eastern Middle Bavarian by the way). It's used similarly to the Standard German "Mann!"/"Mann ey!" (with the "ey" it sounds more negative to me..this would then be rendered as "mah geh" in my dialect). "mah" is NOT the dialect variant of "der Mann" though. Thinking about it, the infamous "boa ey" (if you haven't seen it - watch "Voll normaaal!" with Tom Gerhardt) would fit even better as a colloquial German translation of this Austrian phrase then "Mann!", although "gehleck" can be used by pretty much anyone in informal situations, while I've heard "boa ey" only used by complete idiots (mainly teenagers). Edited by daegga on 16 December 2013 at 8:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4174 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 11 of 11 17 December 2013 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Absolutely love that! Montmorency, I understand that you are fearing negative connotations to "leck....". This is a beautiful example of how differently such things are perceived. While I would feel comfortable saying "Leck mich fett" in any informal situation, it is finally the recipient who will decide whether this is appropriate or not.
They indeed do. While they are not quite my cup of tea, I acknowledge that they have been tremendously popular in Cologne region for decades and, unless I am mistaken, are also known in the rest of Germany. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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