- Forum >
- Topic: German >
- "Der Sommer ist extrem heiß."
27 Comments
688
Connotation: "warm" is not the same as "hot". To illustrate:
cold == kalt
cool == kühl
mild == mild
warm == warm
hot == heiß
And in trying to develop this answer I learned this, which has marvelous opportunities for misunderstandings: schwül means muggy, sticky, oppressive, or sultry, primarily in a meteorological sense. Without the umlauted "u", schwul means homosexual, swishy, gay, or queer.
Pre-18th century, there was no schwül, and in Low German schwul had only the meteorological sense. So, keep that in mind next time you're reading ein deutsches Büch from before 1700 or so.
Okay, thanks.
Truth be told I expected something like this but I am a bit coloured by similarities with my native tongue (in which, albeit an more exact solution exists, I would always equate hot with warm).
The additional info was interesting as well.
- 688
Sure thing. It's all relative anyway. I grew up in Florida and so am happiest when the room is about 80 to 84 (Fahrenheit) and don't consider that even warm. All my [yankee] coworkers think that's very hot (sweltering even) and prefer 72˚-76˚ max (22-24˚C).
Heh, Phoenix, AZ hits over 110 in the shade most years. Inside it can reach well over 80, even with the AC blasting all day. It's about as chilly here as a blast furnace.
- 596
Here in Brazil we reach 118ºF with 98% humidity easily on summer, now we are in midst autumn, 5PM and it is 77ºF with 68%. To most of us (not me, im from the south which is "cold") this is the weather where you get your sweatshirts out of the closet.
I live in Phoenix, AZ right now, and right now it's freaking hell. lol 108 degrees F or 42 degrees C and it only gets hotter :(
Leonardo, Brazil has got two seasons (monsoon and dry), not 4 seasons (autumn, winter, spring, summer)
Sage advice! Next time I'm reading a 16th century German classic I'll be prepared, thank you and here's a lingot!
I have to be the one to ask: does heiss have the same slang meaning as "hot" in english, e.g. you're hot == you're attractive.
- 1970
Yes it does, although I'm pretty sure the English "hot" is a lot more common than its German equivalent. Many younger people use "geil" instead (especially "geil aussehen" = "to look hot"), but if I had to choose between the two, I'd choose "heiß" over "geil" any day, it's much safer and much less controversial ("geil" was originally purely sexual -very sexual- but has since come to also mean "hot", "awesome" and pretty much anything positive in youth language. It's used to describe people, activities, things,... I've even heard it used to describe food. On the plus side, it will make you sound like a teenage native speaker immediately, on the downside, you might offend some people).
Does it have something to do with our previously learned word in the sentance 'Ich heiße karl'?
- 1970
They do look similar, but no, there's no connection. Though in spoken German, "ich heiße" is often shortened to "ich heiß" :) (many people leave out the -e on verbs in the first person singular. Ich heiß, ich geh, ich mach, ich find... it's just so much more convenient, and saying the -e feels weird)
I am not sure if it refers to summers in general (as in "the SEASON summer is extremely hot") or if it is referring to a specially hot season ("THIS summer is extremely hot"). How would I know the difference? (since apparently I must always use the preposition when talking about dates and seasons). Danke!
- 688
I think if one wanted to specify THIS summer is [whatever], one would use "Dieser Sommer ist . . . . ".
Take a look at what sakasiru says in this discussion.
I think you might be looking too much into this. It was simply just stating the the summer is hot. The summer, as in the season, not the 11 months that follow the Phoenix winter. lol
I'd say that 32 °C is already pretty hot for Germany.
But I'm in the north; in the far south-west (near the border with France and Switzerland), it's often warmer than in the rest of the country. I don't know how hot it can get there.
