{"id":9820,"date":"2018-04-18T20:26:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T20:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=9820"},"modified":"2018-04-18T20:26:21","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T20:26:21","slug":"german-car-related-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/german-car-related-words\/","title":{"rendered":"German Car-Related Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag!<\/strong> Germany is world-famous for its cars, so it\u2019s no wonder that there are several, quirky German words and phrases related to vehicles and driving in general. Today I\u2019d like to introduce you to a few of these words and phrases!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6571\"<\/a>

Foto by johnas on flickr.com under a CC license (CC by 2.0)<\/p><\/div>\n

The first word is das Elefantenrennen.<\/strong> This literally translates to \u2018elephant running\u2019 and describes the situation when a big lorry tries to overtake another big lorry on the motorway, thus blocking both lanes so faster vehicles can\u2019t overtake, and ultimately slowing down traffic. Do you know the feeling? The Germans find this so annoying that now, any Elefantenrennen that takes longer than 45 seconds is actually prohibited, and can land the overtaking driver a ticket!<\/p>\n

The second driving-related German word is die Familienkutsche.<\/strong> A Kutsche is traditionally a carriage, such as one that would have been pulled by horses in the past. But a Familienkutsche isn\u2019t some old-school method of transport \u2013 it\u2019s the word used to describe those big, family cars or people carriers used by parents with several children.<\/p>\n

Here is a phrase you can use. In English, if someone is a bit mad we say they \u2018have a screw loose\u2019.<\/i><\/strong> The German equivalent to this phrase is ein Rad abhaben<\/b> – \u2018to have a wheel loose\u2019! <\/i>As abhaben in a separable verb, you would form it in the present tense like so:<\/p>\n

Der hat <\/b>ein Rad ab<\/b>!
\nHe\u2019s mad\/he\u2019s got a screw loose!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are two more words I wrote about previously, which are: der Schilderwald<\/strong> (a \u2018forest of road signs\u2019) and das Rei\u00df<\/span><\/strong>verschlusssystem<\/strong> (a \u2018zip system\u2019). <\/span>You can read all about these words here!<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Germany has always been associated with its cars. These words and phrases show you how colourfully Germans describe certain driving-related situations, and how driving-related words are used in everyday life, too. <\/span>I hope you\u2019ve found it interesting. <\/span><\/p>\n

Bis bald!<\/span><\/p>\n

Related driving\/car vocabulary:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Traffic light \u2013 die Ampel<\/em>
\nMotorway \u2013 die Autobahn<\/em>
\nTraffic \u2013 der Verkehr<\/em>
\nAccident \u2013 der Unfall<\/em>
\n<\/span>Car \u2013 das Auto<\/em>
\nAccelerator \u2013 das Gaspedal<\/em>
\nBrake \u2013 die Bremse<\/em>
\nClutch \u2013 die Kupplung<\/em>
\nEngine \u2013 der Motor<\/em>
\nIndicator \u2013 der Blinker<\/em>
\nHazard lights \u2013 die Warnblinkanlage<\/em>
\nWindscreen wiper \u2013 der Scheibenwischer<\/em>
\nPetrol \u2013 das Benzin<\/em>
\nDriving license \u2013 der F\u00fchrerschein<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! Germany is world-famous for its cars, so it\u2019s no wonder that there are several, quirky German words and phrases related to vehicles and driving in general. Today I\u2019d like to introduce you to a few of these words and phrases! The first word is das Elefantenrennen. This literally translates to \u2018elephant running\u2019 and…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":9823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10381,1992,2080,95131,960,457016,2391,337679,257573,1401],"class_list":["post-9820","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-car","tag-cars","tag-driving","tag-german-language","tag-german-vocab","tag-german-vocabulary","tag-phrases","tag-untranslatable-german","tag-untranslatable-words","tag-words"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9820","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=9820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9822,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9820\/revisions\/9822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}