Austrian for foreigners

I hope after todays posting you don’t say about it: “Des is Holler!”
“Holler” is “Hollunder” in Hochdeutsch and “elder” or “elderberry” in English; the scientific name for the plant is “Sambucus nigra” - Now, please don’t tell anybody, that I am not specific! :)
And here you have a pretty picture of an elderberry flower, once again powered by Wikipedia.

I have fond childhood memories collecting the flowers with my mummy and producing the syrup together afterwards. I like elderberry flower juice; and as I am not the only one liking it, there is commercial supply for the syrup these days as well:


In case the flowers are not cut off, the plant can build a fruit, which then looks like this:

The elderberry plant is a strong plant, it is close to impossible to kill it once it grows and it grows close to everywhere. Therefore, there are a lot of recipes. However, I have to admit, I don’…

Did you see the news? Austria won the Eurovision Song Contest. Find all details on the website of the BBC. Last time Austria won the Sing Contest was 38 years ago with this great song:



If you want to see past entries about this please go to that section of the blog.

Today we cut air. Say what?

How do you cut air? Generally it depends on the consistency. The consistency on the components. If there are a lot of things that attribute to bad air quality, the Austrian is quite quick to say “Die Luft is zum scheiden”.

But these things that attribute to bad air quality don’t need to be physical necessarily. They can also be verbally and/or nonverbally between two people. Then the outsider would say that “zwischen die zwa kaunst die Luft schneiden”. The saying is just that you can cut the air. It does not tell you how.

In German you would say something like “es herrscht dicke Luft” which translates to “there is thick air”. The meaning is the same. In Austria you would use that phrase if three or more people are involved in changing the consistency of air to be able to cut it.

Not only can you use that phrase in a figurative way, but also when actual physical things make the air so thick that you can cut it…

Another great phrase for "I don't care" in Austrian is "Des is ma Powidl". First, you need to learn whatPowidlis. Here you have an image ofPowidldatschgerln:

Sorry, if you are hungry now; I definitely am. Above seen delights are made out of tasty potato tough filled with jam from plums. I am sure they are calorie reduced. But then Garfield the comic cat stated that calories are there to be eaten and not to be counted… Now, we call jam in AustriaMarmelade, we don't care about the European Union telling us thatMarmelademust be made out of citrus fruits, we would rather exit the EU than renaming ourMarmeladeto the GermanKonfitüre. Also, we call our plumsZwetschgen. We would never even dream of calling themPflaumen, no matter how much pressure might come from Germany in the form of entertainment shows produced there. Austrians say to this kind of pressure - from the EU t…

Summer is coming - or at least so we hope - therefore ice cream needs to be eaten. The right way to eat ice cream is with friends, outside on a hot day, in a Stanitzel like this:


The great linguist Johann Siegmund Popowitsch  (sorry for the article in German, if you want to have details about him in English, please post exact questions below and I will answer them as good as I can) said that it originates from Slovenian: škarnicelj, Croatian: štanicl, respectively škarnicl Serbian: štanicla or Hungarian: stanicli. - I am sure he is right about this!

Stanitzel is a great example for the difference between Austrian German and German spoken in Germany. If you order a Stanitzel in Germany, nobody will understand you. You need to order a Tüte in Germany. However, if you order a Tüte in Austria, you might get into troubles with law enforcement, as you are ordering illegal drugs!

Homework: Look outside the window. If the sun is shining, me…

As promised before in this article, if you do your homework and post in the area provided below the posts, I will write an article about the phrase “I hob gern”. There were thousands of comments; thank you for doing your homework so proper!

As you know by now by reading this blog, Austrians are fun people. You can only be a fun person if you like what you are doing. Unfortunately, if you like to much what you are doing, you might overdo from time to time - and this is exactly what happens sometimes.

The phrase “I hob gern” means translates “I like”. A good utilization of the phrase is to tell a loved one “I hob’ Di gern” - “I like you”. As stated before, mostly used for love, but can also be used for a close friend or a family member.

Another very prominent application of this phrase is “Du kaunst mi gern hobn!” - literally translated to “You can like me!” - But in no way this is a request for love! It is merely a request to b…

Today's word is as great as the English “isn`t it”. Something that you can easily append to every sentence. However, as we are taking Austrian, so the word must be better, mustn’t it?

You can use Oida for everything and this repeatedly! A construct like “Oida, wos wüst Oida” is perfectly fine. Originally, Oida would translate to something like old man. However, in no way the person addressed needs to be old (I would even say the opposite is true) or male - remember we Austrians are politically very correct, especially colloquially. So words that imply that they are only male can be applied to females as well.

A fine piece of art was produced by the guys from Trackshittaz who made a great song with the mind enriching title “Oida Taunz!” Please have a look at it yourself here:



By the way, the Trackshittaz were Austria’s nomination for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 with the song "Woki mit deim Popo" (the title of the Song would translate to “Shake your booty”). This year…

Thanks for checking on today's smart entry!

We are talking about g’scheit, the short form of gescheit and according to dictionary the German word for smart or educated.

However (did you realize that however is one of the most used words in this blog?), you can use g’scheit for more. For example you can tell a child: “Sits g’scheit!” In no way you are telling the child to sit like Auguste Rodin'sThe Thinker (French: Le Penseur). Just in case your forgot what I am talking about, please find an image here:


No you are just telling the child to sit proper.

Or you can tell somebody: “Des hot g’scheit weh dau!” Again this was not something that hurt and made you smarter in any ways, it just really, really hurt!

As always, Austrians are positive, so they also say "Der is owa g'scheit deppat". They don't mean that somebody is stupid in a smart way, I think you can figure out yourself what is meant.


The Homework for today: use positive language. If I get enough entries…