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Words that don’t exist in English...

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patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
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1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 9 of 26
14 September 2012 at 7:53pm | IP Logged 
I like the fact that German has separate words for good luck "Gluck" and bad luck "Pech". It's like they are two separate things, rather than part of continuum as in English.
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Peregrinus
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4296 days ago
149 posts - 273 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 10 of 26
14 September 2012 at 9:47pm | IP Logged 
patrickwilken wrote:
I like the fact that German has separate words for good luck "Gluck" and bad luck "Pech". It's like they are two separate things, rather than part of continuum as in English.



I think perhaps you are making an assumption here. Both those nouns and their adjectival/adverbial forms, can be modified by other adjectives, thus implying there is a continuum in German.

However while Glück and Pech's synonym Unglück, have derivatives glücklich/unglücklich, I am not sure whether one exists for Pech. Perhaps a native speaker can comment on this.
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Kartof
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4870 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 11 of 26
14 September 2012 at 10:08pm | IP Logged 
DaraghM wrote:

Un parking - a carpark

Same in Bulgarian. Strangely enough, I never realized until just now that I would never use the word "parking" like
that in English!
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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4648 days ago
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Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 12 of 26
14 September 2012 at 10:12pm | IP Logged 
Peregrinus wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:
I like the fact that German has separate words for good luck "Gluck" and bad luck "Pech". It's like they are two separate things, rather than part of continuum as in English.

I think perhaps you are making an assumption here. Both those nouns and their adjectival/adverbial forms, can be modified by other adjectives, thus implying there is a continuum in German.

Of course, both "Glück" and "Pech" can be modified by adjectives (großes Glück, wenig Glück, unverschämtes Glück, riesiges Pech, bisschen Pech...), so there is a continuum between both extreme points. But I think patrickwilken's point was rather that there are no seperate words for those "poles" in English. English only has the concept "luck" - either good or bad - while German has two opposite concepts: "Glück" and "Pech"/"Unglück".

Peregrinus wrote:
However while Glück and Pech's synonym Unglück, have derivatives glücklich/unglücklich, I am not sure whether one exists for Pech. Perhaps a native speaker can comment on this.

No, there is no adjective derived from "Pech", only some nouns like "Pechvogel".

Edited by Josquin on 14 September 2012 at 10:13pm
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daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
lang-8.com/553301
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Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian
Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic

 
 Message 13 of 26
14 September 2012 at 10:49pm | IP Logged 
Josquin wrote:
Peregrinus wrote:
patrickwilken wrote:
I like the fact that German has separate words for good luck "Gluck" and bad luck "Pech". It's like they are two separate things, rather than part of continuum as in English.

I think perhaps you are making an assumption here. Both those nouns and their adjectival/adverbial forms, can be modified by other adjectives, thus implying there is a continuum in German.

Of course, both "Glück" and "Pech" can be modified by adjectives (großes Glück, wenig Glück, unverschämtes Glück, riesiges Pech, bisschen Pech...), so there is a continuum between both extreme points. But I think patrickwilken's point was rather that there are no seperate words for those "poles" in English. English only has the concept "luck" - either good or bad - while German has two opposite concepts: "Glück" and "Pech"/"Unglück".

Peregrinus wrote:
However while Glück and Pech's synonym Unglück, have derivatives glücklich/unglücklich, I am not sure whether one exists for Pech. Perhaps a native speaker can comment on this.

No, there is no adjective derived from "Pech", only some nouns like "Pechvogel".


http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pechvogel
Seems like the original pair was "Glück/Unglück" and "Pech" just figurative speech for the latter. Thus no different concept than in English - glücklich vs. unglücklich = lucky vs. unlucky
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Peregrinus
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4296 days ago
149 posts - 273 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 14 of 26
14 September 2012 at 11:20pm | IP Logged 
Josquin wrote:

English only has the concept "luck" - either good or bad - while German has two opposite concepts: "Glück" and "Pech"/"Unglück".



If you read my first post in this thread, I speak to this issue, the idea of concepts which may take more words in one language than another.


English "good luck" = German "glück"
English "bad luck" = German "unglück"

The concepts and opposite poles of a spectrum are the same despite English not having a separate word for each.

It would be a separate matter whether native English and German speakers have different cultural concepts of luck apart from language that would indicate a more polarized view in one society, but I don't recall reading of anything like that (i.e. not a continuum).

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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4648 days ago
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 Message 15 of 26
14 September 2012 at 11:24pm | IP Logged 
daegga wrote:
Seems like the original pair was "Glück/Unglück" and "Pech" just figurative speech for the latter. Thus no different concept than in English - glücklich vs. unglücklich = lucky vs. unlucky

The article says the term was developed during the Middle Ages, that means it already existed in Middle High German. Nevertheless, "Unglück" is the opposite of "Glück", while "good luck" and "bad luck" are two forms of "luck", so it is a different concept. By the way, "glücklich" means "happy" and not "lucky".
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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4648 days ago
2266 posts - 3992 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 16 of 26
14 September 2012 at 11:29pm | IP Logged 
Peregrinus wrote:
The concepts and opposite poles of a spectrum are the same despite English not having a separate word for each.

My point was not that the notions of good luck and bad luck were different, but rather that the linguistic concepts, the ways of expressing the idea, were different.

Edited by Josquin on 14 September 2012 at 11:31pm


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