5 German words with no English equivalent
Coffee Break German
Radio Lingua Network
4.7 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thomas introduces five beautifully untranslatable German words that capture feelings and experiences English needs a whole sentence to describe. From "Kopfkino" and "Fernweh" to the warm, hard-to-define "Geborgenheit", you'll discover what each word means, how to use it, and why German has words for ideas other languages don't. Which one is your favourite?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome by a new folge coffee break chairman. |
| 0:05.3 | As a language learner, I am sure you sometimes come across words either in your own language |
| 0:11.6 | or the one you are learning that just don't have a good translation. |
| 0:17.3 | Sure, you can describe the meaning with half a sentence, but it's not as to the point as you would like. |
| 0:24.6 | German, of course, has these words as well and some were even adopted into the English language, |
| 0:31.6 | like kindergarten or schadenfreude. |
| 0:34.6 | However, there are a lot more of these words |
| 0:38.5 | that you might actually suspect, |
| 0:40.3 | and today I want to show you my personal |
| 0:42.9 | top five untranslatable German words. |
| 0:51.3 | Up gets. |
| 0:53.2 | The first one is |
| 0:54.3 | Das Fingerspezengefeuil. |
| 0:58.4 | Das Fingerspezengeal. |
| 1:00.8 | It literally translates as |
| 1:02.5 | the fingertip feeling |
| 1:04.6 | and it is used to describe |
| 1:06.7 | someone's ability |
| 1:08.0 | to handle delicate situations |
| 1:10.3 | with care and intuition. |
| 1:13.1 | It's that fine sense of timing and also knowing exactly how to act or approach a problem. |
| 1:20.9 | It's like having a sick sense for that problem. |
... |
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