Guten Tag! Ich hoffe, es geht euch gut (Hello! I hope you are all well)! We recently talked about Glück (luck) on the blog. In case you missed those posts, they are here and here. Now we’re going to talk about its opposite, bad luck, which is a very interesting word in itself in German!

The word for luck in German is das Glück, and the word for bad luck is das Unglück – the ‘un-luck’. While this seems pretty straight-forward, it’s not as straight-forward as it seems, because there are actually TWO words for ‘bad luck’ in German, the other one being das Pech.

We will get into the differences between Unglück and Pech in a moment. First of all, we’ll look at the word Pech in more detail.

das Pech – bad luck

Image: Pixabay

To understand why Pech means bad luck, we have to look at the word’s meaning and its history. Pech is a sticky, tar-like substance known as pitch in English.

In medieval times, Pech was used to assist in the hunting of birds. It was used to coat tree branches, so that when birds landed on the branches, they became stuck, and hunters could catch them easily. So you could say it is bad luck – Pech – for the bird who lands on the Pech!

This is where the German ‘untranslatable word’ der Pechvogel – ‘the pitch bird’ – originates. A Pechvogel is someone who always seems to have bad luck.

das Pech or das Unglück?

Pech. Image by Sarah Kilian at Unsplash.com

So if they both mean ‘bad luck’, how do you know when to use das Pech, and when to use das Unglück? There is a subtle difference of meaning between the two.

Das Unglück is primarily used for more serious situations, like accidents, misfortunes and other disasters. Meanwhile, das Pech is primarily used for less serious situations, like if you miss the bus or spill your coffee.

Das Unglück – accident, misfortune, disaster, calamity
Das Pech – bad luck, hard luck, tough luck

So, for example, what happened at Chernobyl would be classed as Unglück.

But if you stepped in dog poo twice in one day, this would be classed as Pech.

Unglück. Image by Nick Agus Arya at Unsplash.com

I hope this has been helpful!