TheGermanlanguage has a poetical way of describe unique emotions and phenomenon that often lack a direct English rendering . Schadenfreudeis the best - known example , a word that means " deriving pleasure from another person ’s nuisance or failure , " but there areplenty of other German gems , includingfernweh , ( literally " distance botheration " ) , a feeling of wanting to get away from where you are andkummerspeck , ( " heartbreak Baron Verulam " ) , the weight put on by emotional gula .
Here ’s another fun and timely German word that catch the languorous laziness of former summer : sommerloch(pronounced " summer - curl " ) . flat translate as " summertime hole,“sommerlochis used in Germany to describe the irksome season of late July through August when everyone in Germany goes on vacation to run away the heat , many shop are closed , and the newsworthiness media has nothing to report on except bagatelle stories . ( Sommerloch is also thename of a German village . In this case , lochdoesn’t hateful " hole " as much as " gap , " denote to the town ’s scenic location in the Nahe River Valley . )
" A great example ofsommerlochthis year would be the medium frenzy in Germany around wild animals , " email Taylor Hermerding , a Berlin - found editor in chief in didactics atBabbel , the speech communication get word app . " Recentsommerlochstories include a bluff fox in Berlin who has turned intoa bit of a horseshoe stealer , or a unfounded wild boar at the celebrated Teufelssee nudist car park whichstole an unsuspecting man ’s laptop . "
AKA ‘Sour Cucumber Time’
Germans actually have more than one news for the some six calendar week of later summertime when the whole country seems to take a collective nap . Predatingsommerlochis the mouthfulsauregurkenzeit , which literally stand for " morose cucumber sentence . " According to one account , the musical phrase come from eighteenth - century Yiddish proverbs referring to time when solid food is scarce and the only matter left in the pantry is pickles .
" Interestingly , many other state refer to cucumbers when talking about the slow season of summer , " says Hermerding . " Dutch , Norwegian , Icelandic , Czech , Polish and Magyar people all reference ' cucumber time ' or ' cucumber vine season ' when discussing the sulky news agenda of the summer months . "
Hermerding says that the cucumber connection may also have 18th - C root , when previous summer was the time when Berlin shops stocked up ongurken(German for cuke ) harvested from the local Spree Forest .
