5 German words with no English equivalent

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Hallo und willkommen bei einer neuen Folge Coffee Break German. As a language learner, I am sure you sometimes come across words either in your own language or the one you are learning that just don't have a good translation. Sure, you can describe the meaning with half a sentence, but it's not as to the point as you would like.

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German, of course, has these words as well and some were even adopted into the English language like Kindergarten or Schadenfreude. However, there are a lot more of these words that you might actually suspect.

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And today I want to show you my personal top five untranslatable German words. Ab geht's! The first one is Das Fingerspitzengefühl. It literally translates as the fingertip feeling and it is used to describe someone's ability to handle delicate situations with care and intuition. It's that fine sense of timing and also knowing exactly how to act or approach a problem.

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It's like having a sixth sense for that problem. Fingerspitzengefühl. Here is how you would use it in a sentence. Ich glaube, mir fehlt das nötige Fingerspitzengefühl für diese Aufgabe. And this is a sentence you should absolutely remember and you can use for so many situations.

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Ich glaube, mir fehlt das nötige Fingerspitzengefühl für diese Aufgabe. I don't think I have the necessary, let's call it intuitive sensitivity for this task. You can use this to avoid having a difficult conversation with your boss or settling a dispute between friends, but also manually difficult tasks like fiddling a tiny string through a sawing needle.

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You can also use it to describe that someone is good at something. If you use it for somebody else, you could say, Diese Frau hat ein politisches Fingerspitzengefühl wie niemand sonst. Sie wird bestimmt die nächste Kanzlerin. So this woman has a political intuition and skill like no one else.

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She will surely become the next chancellor. Was für ein Wort. Ich liebe es. Fingerspitzengefühl. Okay, next one. Das Kopfkino. The head cinema or better the cinema in your head. Germans use this word to describe those vivid imaginative scenarios you play out in your head when you're thinking about something. Maybe when a certain word triggers a memory and it all plays out in your head.

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Or if you think about an upcoming holiday and you already see yourself on the beach with crystal clear water, a milkshake or other drink in your hand. See, the images you just had in your head, those were Kopfkino. You can use it for positive or for negative imaginations.

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Like, for example, in this sentence. Ich google keine Krankheiten, sonst geht sofort mein Kopfkino los. So I don't Google or look up illnesses. Otherwise, my imagination goes wild. Our third one is die Geborgenheit. So a sense of security and cozy and comfort. This word is really just beautiful because it combines all the elements of feeling safe, comfortable, emotionally secure, cozy.

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We could call it maybe emotional warmth, a feeling of being where you belong. It might be a place that gives you that feeling, or it might be a group of people. It's often used together with the word Gefühl, feeling. So, for example, you could say, Ich liebe das Gefühl von Geborgenheit.

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So I love the feeling of belonging, safety, comfort, emotional warmth that I have here. Our next word is all about going out there and seeing the world. But it's not Wanderlust, which is by now well known and used by many English speakers too. Our word today is Das Fernweh. And this one is best explained with the opposite. Because the German word for home ache is Heimweh. So homesickness.

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Heimweh. It's that feeling that you desire to be at home. And well, Fernweh, the away ache, is the exact opposite. It describes the desire to be away, to go travel, to see the world. This is often caused when seeing, for example, a picture or hearing stories from other countries or you just had a friend who traveled somewhere and you listen to what he experienced there.

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For example, you could say, Wenn ich diese Bilder von Japan sehe, packt mich schon wieder das Fernweh. So when I see those pictures of Japan, the desire to travel takes hold of me again. Mich packt das Fernweh. Okay, I saved the most beautiful word for the end, die Zweisamkeit. This one needs a little bit of context first.