Schadenfreude

This is the word of the week. I really enjoy words and linguistics in general and I would like ‘word of the week’ to be a regular feature here.

The german langauge has some of the best words. Schadenfreude means “pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune”. I really want to learn lots of words from other languages that have no english counterpart.

Anyway, wikipedia can say it better.

7 Responses to “Schadenfreude”


  1. 1 Razor

    Ja, solche Worte sind nutzlich. Ich fand es interessant dass Americaner das Wort Gesundheit benutzen. Die Miesten haben keine ahnung mehr was es eignetlich bedeutet.

  2. 2 Tom

    Du hast falsch buchstabiert eigentlich und Meisten :P.

    Heh cool. A few cool words in there also. What’s so interesting about the usage of the word health in english? Or are you talking about the whole ‘Gesundheit’ after sneezing?

  3. 3 Tom

    Or should it be:

    Du hast falsch eigentlich und Meisten buchstabiert? Crazy structure.

  4. 4 Razor

    I’d guess:
    Du hast eigentlich und Meisten falsch buchstabiert.

    I was talking about the Gesundheit after sneezing thing, but I couldn’t remember what sneeze was in german so I didn’t say. But yeah, it’s been a while, my german’s not so hot any more :-(. How come you know german?

  5. 5 Tom

    I don’t know german at all really. What I know I’ve just picked up here and there… babelfish and german < -> english dictionaries are great! Niesen is sneeze btw… but I thought in Deutschland you do say Gesundheit after someone sneezes… anyway I really should get around to learning another language, I think it would be great.

  6. 6 jason

    What you need is this book: http://www.realgroovy.co.nz/books/isbn/0140515615

    It’s called ‘The Meaning of Tingo’, and is rather cool. I own it, if you’d like to borrow sometime.

  7. 7 Tom

    Looks like a great book, it’s been ordered and should be in my hands in about a week.

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