The deep urge to travel, explore and keep moving, a restlessness that shows up even when life is comfortable.

A deep, weary sadness caused by the state of the world. Not quite depression, not quite despair, but the specific ache of someone who expected better from humanity.

A warm, cosy, welcoming atmosphere where everyone feels completely at ease. More than comfort, it is the specific feeling of being among good people in a good place.

As dense as a bale of straw. A vivid and unambiguous German insult for someone displaying spectacular levels of stupidity.

A deep, existential dread that goes beyond ordinary fear or worry. Not just nervousness, but a profound unease about existence itself.

An extraordinary sensitivity, delicacy and intuition when handling difficult situations. The ability to read a room and respond with perfect precision.

To make something worse while sincerely trying to improve it. The special suffering of well-intentioned interference that backfires completely.

The ‘spirit of the times’. The invisible mood, attitude and set of ideas that define a particular moment in history. Something everyone seems to feel at once, even if no one can quite say why.

The weight gained from emotional eating during periods of sadness or stress, named with the kind of blunt honesty German excels at.

From when medieval city gates shut at dark, leaving latecomers stranded outside. Today it's the rising anxiety that time is running out, on milestones, relationships, opportunities you fear you'll miss.

The celebration of reaching the halfway point of something long and difficult, whether it's the middle of the work week or the midpoint of a long project. You've made it to the peak, and it's all downhill from here.

Your ghostly double. The unsettling experience of encountering someone who looks exactly like you, or being mistaken for someone entirely different.

Broken, finished, completely done. Used for objects, machines, plans and people alike. When something is kaputt, there is no fixing it. Germans accept this with a shrug.

A word that sounds almost exactly like its English cousin, wonderful, but carries a charming, old-world theatricality, like something out of an old film rather than everyday conversation.

A place where small children learn and play together before school begins. The word was so perfect that the entire world adopted it.

The vivid, detailed scenes your mind plays out, full conversations and outcomes that haven't happened and probably never will, but feel entirely real while you're lost in them.

The guilty pleasure of enjoying someone else’s misfortune. Not proud of it, but everyone’s felt it.

The perfect comeback that strikes you only after you've left, halfway down the stairs. Borrowed from the French l'esprit de l'escalier (the wit of the staircase), but given its own German word.

Home alone with no parents or authority figures present. The glorious freedom of having the house entirely to yourself and no one to answer to.

A peace offering brought home to an angry partner, usually flowers, chocolate or wine. The dragon must be appeased.

A tune that burrows into your head and refuses to leave, regardless of how much you would like it to.

The comfort-seeking voice inside you that would rather do absolutely nothing at all, the one everyone fights and almost everyone loses to sometimes. Germans just gave it a name.

The traditional German cold dinner of bread, cheese, cold meats and pickles. Simple, satisfying and taken very seriously.

A longing to be somewhere far away. The opposite of homesickness, this is the ache of someone who feels most at home when they are elsewhere.

The peaceful, restorative solitude of being alone in a forest, a feeling German Romantic poets prized centuries ago. Not loneliness in the sad sense, but a deliberate, blissful escape into quiet.

The snack packed for a school break, usually a sandwich wrapped in paper and eaten in the playground. A deeply nostalgic German institution.