{"id":7963,"date":"2017-02-09T20:02:54","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T20:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=7963"},"modified":"2017-02-09T20:02:54","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T20:02:54","slug":"untranslatable-german-words-wichteln","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/untranslatable-german-words-wichteln\/","title":{"rendered":"Untranslatable German Words: Wichteln"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the pre-Christmas time, many groups throughout Germany practice an old tradition:\u00a0Das<\/em>\u00a0Wichteln. <\/em>But what is that? Find out here, in another post in\u00a0the awesome series on\u00a0untranslatable words in German<\/a>\u00a0that Constanze started on this blog!<\/p>\n

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What does W<\/em>ichteln\u00a0<\/em>mean?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Wichteln\u00a0<\/em>is a tradition where all participants get a gift for someone else in the group. Mostly, the originality of the gift or the way it is presented counts more than the gift itself, which is often rather cheap. Often, a limit is set to how much a gift may cost. It is often also totally acceptable to wrap something second-hand. That is even a requirement in some cases, fully going by the principle “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”!<\/p>\n

There\u00a0are many varieties on\u00a0Wichteln<\/em>, such as\u00a0Schrottwichteln<\/em>, where a rule is that the gift should be especially worthless, as long as it is not trash.<\/p>\n

What is the literal translation of wichteln<\/i>?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The literal translation of\u00a0Wichteln<\/em>, considering that it comes from\u00a0Wichtel<\/em> (dwarf) would be “dwarfing<\/strong>“. The term was coined after a\u00a0Wichtel<\/em>, because they secretly do good things – just like\u00a0during\u00a0Wichteln<\/em>.<\/p>\n

How would you use the word wichteln\u00a0<\/em>in a sentence?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Depending on whether you use it as a verb or the noun, you can use\u00a0wichteln\u00a0<\/em>for example like this:<\/p>\n

“Wir werden n\u00e4chste Woche wichteln. Bist du dabei?”<\/em> (We will hold a Secret Santa next week. Are you in?)<\/p>\n

Das Wichteln war auch dieses Jahr wieder ein Riesenerfolg.\u00a0<\/em>(Also this year, Secret Santa was a huge success.)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the nearest English equivalent to wichteln<\/em>?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As you may have already noticed above, the English equivalent is\u00a0Secret Santa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Is there a word in your language that equates to\u00a0wichteln<\/em>? What do you think about this tradition? Do you participate in it? Let me know in the comments below!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

In the pre-Christmas time, many groups throughout Germany practice an old tradition:\u00a0Das\u00a0Wichteln. But what is that? Find out here, in another post in\u00a0the awesome series on\u00a0untranslatable words in German\u00a0that Constanze started on this blog! What does Wichteln\u00a0mean? Wichteln\u00a0is a tradition where all participants get a gift for someone else in the group. Mostly, the originality…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":8159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,7,8,913],"tags":[43,451644,358430,257573],"class_list":["post-7963","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-holidays","category-language","category-traditions","tag-christmas","tag-german-words","tag-traditions-2","tag-untranslatable-words"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t