Ever had one of those moments at work… …when something suddenly stops working?
A file won’t open. A screen goes black. A device makes a strange noise.
You already know what that means. It’s not coming back.
In German, there’s a perfect way to say:
It’s gone. It’s ruined. It’s beyond repair.
Flöten gehen (Literally: to go pipe)
die Flöte is the flute, and flöten is to pipe.
But the expression does not come from music.
In older German, Flöte also meant a pipe, a channel, or a drain. Something water flows through.
Now imagine this.
Something falls into the water. It gets carried away by the current. It disappears into a pipe.
Once it’s gone, there’s no way to get it back.
And that’s exactly what we mean by this expression.
When we say in German:
- Das ist flöten gegangen.
We mean:
- It’s gone for good.
- It’s lost.
- It’s gone down the drain.
- It’s gone for a burton.
Got it!?
So here’s your action step:
Imagine you step into the office of your German-speaking colleague Karl-Winfried.
You see him doing some weird tests on his new Apple Watch to see how resistant it is.
Take a look over his shoulder and, once you see the result of his weird test, tell him:
- Ich glaube, die Uhr ist flöten gegangen! (I think, the watch has gone down the drain!)
And this is what it sounds like:
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