{"id":5968,"date":"2015-01-21T17:26:16","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T17:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=5968"},"modified":"2017-11-20T13:59:26","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T13:59:26","slug":"untranslatable-german-words-die-gesichtsbremse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/untranslatable-german-words-die-gesichtsbremse\/","title":{"rendered":"Untranslatable German Words: Die Gesichtsbremse"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a title=\"Flying by felixtsao, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/felixtsao\/4909753834\" aria-label=\"4909753834 28591d8765\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"  alt=\"Flying\" width=\"500\" height=\"275\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4077\/4909753834_28591d8765.jpg\"><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by felixtsao on flickr.com under CC BY 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I know you all love learning about German\u2019s \u2018untranslatable\u2019 words, so here\u2019s another \u2013 the first one of 2015, in fact! Today\u2019s untranslatable German word is <strong>Die Gesichtsbremse.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the literal translation of Gesichtsbremse?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The word is made up of Das Gesicht (face) and Die Bremse (brake). So, it literally means \u2018face brake\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What does Gesichtsbremse mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are two meanings for this word. The more common meaning is its literal meaning \u2013 a face that is used as a brake. When someone falls off their skateboard and lands face-first on the ground, that\u2019s a Gesichtsbremse \u2013 because their face is literally stopping them in motion. Here\u2019s a YouTube video of a Gesichtsbremse:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Gesichtsbremse, by justfunny.de\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Mo3iIGV8yew?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Then there is its other meaning \u2013 an insult. According to sprachnudel.de, <em>\u201eEine &#8220;Gesichtsbremse&#8221; ist eine Person mit einem h\u00e4\u00dflichem oder verunstalteten Gesicht, die man nicht gerne ansieht, weil man sich ekelt.\u201c \u2013 <\/em>\u201eA Gesichtsbremse is a person with an ugly or unfortunate face that is not pleasant to look at, because it is so revolting\u201c. Nice.<\/p>\n<p>A person with an ugly face is probably called a Gesichtsbremse because \u2013 according to the person making the insult! &#8211; their face looks as if it\u2019s been used as a brake.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How would you use it in a sentence?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meaning one (a face used as a brake): <strong>Das war eine klassische Gesichtsbremse<\/strong> \u2013 <em>That was a classic face-brake<\/em><br \/>\nMeaning two (someone with an ugly face): <strong>Schau dir diese Gesichtsbremse an<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Look at that person with their hideous face<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now, the Germans can be very<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/the-german-wimp-a-broad-definition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> inventive with their insults<\/a>, so it\u2019s not surprising that there are several other words in the German language with the same (second) meaning as Die Gesichtsbremse. My two personal favourites are:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Das Arschgesicht<\/strong> \u2013 (Arsch + Gesicht) &#8211; \u201cArse Face\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Der Spiegelt\u00f6ter<\/strong> \u2013 (Spiegel + T\u00f6ter) &#8211; \u201cMirror Murderer\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why not get creative and invent your own?!<\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nWhat is the nearest English equivalent to Gesichtsbremse?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m actually misleading you all slightly when I call this an untranslatable German word, as there <em>are<\/em> English equivalents. However, this word is unique in that it has two meanings, and no English word (that I can think of, anyway) has these two meanings. In that sense, it&#8217;s still pretty difficult to translate accurately.<\/p>\n<p>When used to mean \u2018braking with the face\u2019, something like \u2018face-plant\u2019 would be an appropriate translation of Gesichtsbremse. When used to describe someone with an ugly face, well\u2026 there are all manner of translations. Use your imagination!!<\/p>\n<p>That concludes this post. I hope you enjoyed it! Any questions, comments, corrections (!), suggestions&#8230; please do leave them! Language learning is best when it&#8217;s interactive!<\/p>\n<p>Bis sp\u00e4ter,<\/p>\n<p>Constanze x<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"193\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2015\/01\/4909753834_28591d8765-350x193.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2015\/01\/4909753834_28591d8765-350x193.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2015\/01\/4909753834_28591d8765.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>I know you all love learning about German\u2019s \u2018untranslatable\u2019 words, so here\u2019s another \u2013 the first one of 2015, in fact! Today\u2019s untranslatable German word is Die Gesichtsbremse. &nbsp; What is the literal translation of Gesichtsbremse? The word is made up of Das Gesicht (face) and Die Bremse (brake). So, it literally means \u2018face&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/untranslatable-german-words-die-gesichtsbremse\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":7465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[95131,337679,13],"class_list":["post-5968","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-german-language","tag-untranslatable-german","tag-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5968"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9174,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968\/revisions\/9174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}