Mine is ‘lief’, which sounds nice and means something inbetween ‘sweet’, ‘nice’ or ‘cute’.

45 comments

  1. Mine is “kurwa”, because you can use it in so many different ways and you can build a lot of other vulgar words from it.

  2. I would say Malakas because it’s a very useful and beautiful word but

    I’ll go with **Philótimo**, It means the “love for honour” very loosely translated. It’s about doing the right thing even if it’s not expected or compulsory, especially helping others and putting in honest, hard work in whatever you’re doing

  3. I think mine is “dzidzia”. It’s a cute way to call a baby. I have been calling that my best friend’s dog. It’s sounds cute too.

    I also like “tej”. It’s a regional word from Poznań. It’s means something like “Oi”, to get attention of person spoken to.

  4. – Feuereifer

    – Feuertrunken

    – Blasiert

    – Fething

    – Schildbürgerstreich

    At least one, even a German needs to Google.

  5. By some studies it is ‘äiti’, mother. Personally I don’t disagree, can’t think of anything better right now. At least equal should be ‘isä’ (father), though.

  6. antisamoupravnosocijalističkoga it means anti-self-governing socialist and is the longest word in our language.

  7. Grondbeginsel(en) (guiding principle(s))

    I love the many weird and unique words in Dutch. I like this one because it composes of two words: grond (close to ground/floor) and beginsel (product of a started but not yet completed start). Both words apart from eachother are a kind of childishly simplistic to use but combined they have a very specific – jargon-like meaning. The elegance of this is that a toddler can kind of understand the word even though the actual meaning is way outside their vocabulary.

  9. Waldeinsamkeit

    As defined by the wonderful Christoph Waltz: “The experience of wandering around alome in the forest and being overcome with a sense of woodland solitude”

  10. Irish word for butterly is **féileacán** (pronounced **fail-UH-kawn**) which I think sounds nice.

    Also sounds nice in French (papillon), Italian (farfalla) and Spanish (mariposa).

  11. Pimpampel and Kéiseker are the two most Luxembourgish words I know. They mean Butterfly and Hedgehog respectively.

  12. “Freilich” (mean “of course”). It sounds so cute and as a child I thought it’s a Bavarian dialect word and not used in Standard German lol. Ever since I used it at least once in essays for school/uni.

  13. And in Flemish ‘lief’ is also used as a genderless term for boyfriend/girlfriend. It has a tone of sweetness (like darling) but is also used by others who are not in the relationship. ‘Will your ‘lief’ (your love, your darling) be joining us?’

    Which I always think is a very sweet way of talking about someone.

  14. I’ve never thought about a favorite word, but some words I really like are:

    * dulce – sweet
    * piersică – peach
    * albină – bee
    * fantomă – ghost
    * lună – moon

  15. I’ll go with Buntsprechthöhlenvermessungsapparat as a representative for every german word that’s made up by adding word after word after word.

    Edit: for everyone wondering, the word describes a tool used to measure the tree hole made or occupied by a great woodpecker.

  17. Schattig is pretty cute I think. Ofcourse only pronounced in Flemish, you gotta use the soft G. You dutchies kill that G sound

  18. I love the bavarian word “Gschwerl”. It’s an insult meaning “scum”, mostly directed at more than one person at a time.
    It just has such a mean sound to it so using it when in rage is really satisfying.

  19. My choice is “Fillarilla” which means on/by bicycle.
    I like the rhyme it makes because “filla” and “rilla” are so similar

  22. I like the word ØL which means beer. Nothing fancy, short and straight to the point.
    Ø is pronounced like the vowel in burn, turn etc.
    The word itself stems from the word ale.

  23. Baklja. It means “a torch” and it feels so satisfying just saying it out loud. At least for me.

  24. Hokedli. It’s a chair-table thingy

    But a thing that I love even more (even though it’s an expression, not a word) is árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép

  25. In Low German it’s a tie between the word for helicopter and squirrel:

    – Helicopter: *Windmölenfleeger* (windmill flyer) (pronounciation: vind möwlen flay ger)

    Ö is kind of pronounced like the e in “person” (British English).

    – Squirrel: *Katteker* (pronounciation: Cut taker)

    *Katt* means cat, *eker* could be oak related. Apparently unclear.

    In German it’s a tie between the word that describes the state of being totally alone and the word for peace of mind:

    – Totally alone: *mutterseelenallein (literally: mother soul alone)

    – Peace of mind: *Seelenfrieden* (literally: soul peace)

  26. “Fiets” is Dutch. It is our word for bicycle, it is uniquely Dutch and it isn’t even clear where it comes from. And it just sounds very, very Dutch. There is also the verb version “fietsen” which means riding a bicycle.

  27. The best Dutch word is: zompig.

    I will now proceed to hide in a bunker from the onslaught of dutch comments….

  28. Mine is “verpiss dich” which means “f:ck off” but it just sounds so much more b”tchy and aggressive and that’s why I love it

  29. Mine would be “hihhuli” which means “zealot”, because it sounds kinda funny to me, probably because it’s the only Finnish word with a geminate h.

  31. “Skladba” which means composition, and “prastar” which means “ancient”.

  33. My favourite word in Romanian is probably “dor”. It doesn’t have a direct correspondent in English, but it’s the feeling of missing something really dear to you.

  34. “Kissanristiäiset” which directly translates to “Cat’s christening.” It means that some event is stupid or pointless.

    For example you can use it when somebody tells you that he can’t hang out because he has something else to do like going to a chiropractor or something.

  35. I have a bunch of pretentious and some less pretentious ones:

    [**Weltschmerz**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz): my favorite word. It refers to the melancholy one feels that the real world can never match the world of one’s desire. All ideals of such a nature … be it grand philosophies, politics, justice, or just plain aesthetics … can never be more than just a faint shadow. And mostly, it’s not even that.

    **Fernweh**: “far-sickness”. If you feel like packing up and go to some faraway place of your desire. Also carries the connotation of wanting to reinvent your lifestyle. If you relocate via your company to a foreign subsidiary in your dream country/area but still work the same grind with the same free time … it’s not in the spirit of Fernweh. May be travel or permanent.

    [**Sehnsucht**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sehnsucht): intensely/melancholically yearning/desiring (immaterial things).

    **Zeitgeist**: you likely already know this one. I want to point out that “Geist” here itself is a great word: it translates to “spirit” but *also* includes all the connotations of English “ghost” and “spectre”, and it also translates to “mind” and “consciousness”. So you have additional double meanings to play with: e.g. you could talk about ideas and notions “haunting” an era, or ideas being “undead” or “returning from the afterlife” (these are not the first associations you get when you hear the word; it is used in German exactly like in English, but I mean essayistic/prosaic use).

    The less pretentious ones:

    [**Notgeil** — emergency horny](https://www.reddit.com/r/DoesNotTranslate/comments/npzvg2/german_notgeil_being_so_horny_its_an_emergency/?)

    [**Standgebläse** — a petite woman, but actually “standing blower”](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=standgebläse). Extremely vulgar. But it makes me chuckle because the word sounds like it’s some home appliance. It’s really hard to explain, but “Gebläse” uses a “Ge-” word construction that is only used for objects (as in, inanimate items) in a passive and bureaucratic sounding style; these are rarely used in colloquial language (the colloquial form uses the “Ge-” much less often but adds an “do-er” suffix, e.g. here it would be “Blaser”), and are never applied to humans. So there’s a double contrast that makes me lol.

  36. Pozítří in Czech. Means “the day after tomorrow”, or předevčírem, meaning “the day before yesterday”.

  38. **Lletraferit**: A person who loves the written word, be it writing or just reading.
    I like it because it’s very poetic, it literally means “wounded in/by the letters”. Also, I’ve never seen an equivalent in any other language.

  39. “jugar” (spanish) its just so innocent, whenever a youtuber says something along the lines of “¿quién quiere jugar conmigo?” I picture them as kids looking for friends… idk I really like it. It means to play btw

  40. Geschwurbel

    Speech that is incomprehensible, far-fetched or devoid of actual content.

  41. Val – Swedish word for whale, choice, election, option, selection. So many possible puns and jokes

  42. “epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänsäköhän” i couldnt translate it because it’s really hard to translate

  43. Fuck

    Infinitely versatile, can mean so much in different contexts, it carries power and emphasis shit. Known the world over, it’s a great fucking word

  44. My favorite word in Catalan is “aixafaguitarres”, which literally translated means guitar crusher, but its figurative meaning is party pooper or killjoy.

  45. I’m sorry,but the German is winning this game.

    Schildkrote (one of my favorites), meaning turtle.
    Breakdown: Schild – shield + krote – a frog. A frog with a shield = turtle

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