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Tag Archives: youth slang

A little Cringe – Germany’s Youth Word 2021 Posted by on Nov 22, 2021

Cringe Jugendwort 2021

A few weeks ago, the German Jugendwort des Jahres (Youth Word of the Year) was chosen. From a field with some strange contestants, one word clearly took the cake! What this word means and how it entered the German language, as well as the hilarious way the Tagesschau dealt with this news, let’s explore. A wide variety…

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Germany’s Youth Word 2020 Posted by on Jan 6, 2021

Guten Tag! Every year, the Langenscheidt dictionary selects a word it calls the Jugendwort des Jahres – Germany’s Youth Word of the Year. This is separate from the Wort des Jahres (Word of the Year), also picked by Langenscheidt. For the Jugendwort des Jahres, people have the opportunity to vote from a selection of shortlisted…

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Germany’s Youth Word of 2018 Posted by on Nov 21, 2018

Guten Tag! Every year, the Langenscheidt dictionary selects a word it calls the Jugendwort des Jahres – the Youth Word of the Year. People have the opportunity to vote from a selection of shortlisted teen slang, and then the winner is picked by a jury. The Jugendwort des Jahres for 2018 was revealed recently, so…

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Germany’s Youth Word of 2016 Posted by on Nov 30, 2016

Guten Tag! You may remember last year I wrote about the Wort des Jahres (Word of the Year) and the Unwort des Jahres (Un-word of the Year – an offensive/negative word of the year) for 2014. These are published towards the end of each year by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS) – the Association…

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Untranslatable German: Tote Hose Posted by on Jun 23, 2016

Guten Tag! It’s time for another untranslatable German word – but it’s a special one, because it’s technically a phrase that is used in place of a single word. Confused? Don’t be! It’s a funny one. Today’s phrase is ‘tote Hose’. What does tote Hose mean? In German, ‘tote Hose’ is used to describe something…

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Angela Merkel Inspires New German Word Posted by on Oct 10, 2015

Guten Tag! 🙂 I hope you’re all having a lovely Wochenende so far. Today’s topic is the ever-evolving German language. A few months ago I did a couple of blog posts on the phenomenon that is Denglisch (or ‘Denglish’, if you’re spelling it the English way). What is Denglisch, I hear you ask? It is…

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Jugendsprache – Teenage Slang Posted by on Sep 30, 2011

People define themselves via the language they use. When young people reach puberty they try to distance themselves linguistically from their parents and other adults. This results in Jugendsprache (teenage slang). Jugendsprache develops fast because when the words have established within a linguistic system and even adults use the new created words in their speech…

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