What is awesome in German?

"Tim Wescott" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:VfudnRLBqfijppXWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@web-ster.com...

Hello Tim,

I looked in a dictionary in the Internet and was surprised that the meaning of "awesome" in the US is very different from the meaning in England.

awesome in the US: fantastisch, großartig. stark, toll

awesome in England: ehrfürchtig, schrecklich

Best regards, Helmut Germany

ehrfürchtig

Maybe..

In the UK nowadays the expression 'awesome' is recognised by (some) adults as an imported, fashionable, over-used way of saying 'good'. The original meaning has probably been de-valued by the new wave.

Chris

But then the question would be "What is awesome in Germany?", not German?

This is not very often used.

In general it depends on the context. Anne-Sophie Mutter, Bach, Max Planck, Albert Einstein etc. is "großartig" and "fantastisch", Katerina Witt is "toll" (maybe "großartig", too, if you like figure skating) and the Cologne Cathedral can be "ehrfurchtgebietend".

qfijppXWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@web-ster.com...

Methinks that the German expression "spitze" probably conveys the idea that the word "awesome" does in North America, at the colloquial level.

Translated "spitze" means "point", eg. "die Spitze am Pfeil" means "the point on the arrow".

Colloquially both words, "spitze" in German and "awesome" in North America are used to describe the pinnacle of admiration.

Wolfgang

Thanks Helmut. The denotation of "Awesome" has retained it's original meaning, but really correct usage is fairly idiomatic -- hence, I needed someone more bilingual than me to help out.

Geil..

Supergeil

>

Brits say "brilliant" to mean "good", whereas we USers use it to mean "extremely intelligent or creative." Someone called one of my actions "brilliant", and I took it to be a great compliment, when it was actually a very mild one. I think.

John

>>

Or perhaps you swapped resistors again. ;-)

In its literal meaning, ehrfürchtig. (Akin to frightening. Awestruck is ehrfürcht.) In the kiddie slang meaning of "marvelous", I suppose wunderbar is best, although wundervoll, herrlich, and großartig also work.

Jerry

Pretty much. And also the words Frank mentioned. However, Americans visiting Germany will soon learn that younger people there use expressions such as "cool" instead of "wunderbar" :-)

From UK guys I mostly heard "smashing".

Let the Record show that "christofire" on or about Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:43:22 -0000 did write/type or cause to appear in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

>

And it started as a good English word, to describe something as inspiring Awe in a person. Such as an Awesome Church.

tschus pyotr

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

Let the Record show that Jerry Avins on or about Sat,

21 Nov 2009 16:36:37 -0500 did write/type or cause to appear >> Just got a text from my kid "What is awesome in German?"

'ausgeseit' was the hip term when I was in Germany. I thought it was a neologism from the American "out of sight, man!" till I saw it in one of the Real Papers.

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

I've heard that Ivan the Terrible could also be translated Ivan the Awesome.

Awesome is one of the definitions for grozniy in my Russian dictionary.

jsw

It could be Denglisch (Deutsch + Englisch), There is a surprising amount of it in the German-language edition of Daimler's house publication "HighTechReport".

Ausgezeichnet =3D Outstanding!

jsw

Apparently this was also the original meaning of "awful" -- that one sure has shifted meaning.

Terrible not as in "bad" but in "Dread and Terrible Lord" - you do not cross this person. One text I read had him as "John the Dread" - which would be a translation of his name.

Ivan Groznik, Tsar of all Russians.

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

Ja, was er sagte! I couldn't remember how to spell after all these years.

It makes it difficult to look things up, when I can't get the spelling correct.

tschus pyotr

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

I've waited until you got proper answers but the first thing that popped into my head was "Funkengrooven". ;)

Wes