Let’s have some fun with this weird German language!
In this series of posts, I’ll show you how to make your German-speaking colleagues laugh, with ONE simple sentence.
dem Braten nicht trauen
(the roast not to trust)
Imagine you’re preparing a roast in your oven (in deinem Ofen).
Once the timer rings, you open the oven and start smelling your tasty roast (deinen leckeren Braten).
Wow, it smells so good, you can’t even wait to put out the roast for dinner (zum Abendessen).
But once you open the oven completely …
OMG, the roast is completely burned (ist komplett verbrannt).
So, though your roast smelled so good a few seconds ago, and everything seemed fine, those clues were actually not trustworthy (waren eigentlich nicht vertrauenswürdig).
And that’s exactly what we mean with this German expression.
So, when we say in German:
- Ich traue dem Braten nicht!
We mean:
- I don’t trust this!
- I think something fishy is going on!
Got it?!
So here’s your action step:
Imagine (Stell dir vor) your German-speaking colleague Rüdiger comes to you and he goes:
„Our Boss wants to speak with us.
He says he has some great news (tolle Neuigkeiten) for us.
We‘ll work on a new project that is a perfect fit for us (das sehr gut zu uns passt).
He says that we‘ll love this new project (dieses neue Projekt).“
The first thought (Der erste Gedanke) that comes to your mind is:
„Mmm, last time (das letzte Mal) he said he had a great project for us we worked for several weeks for 12 hours a day.“
So, take a suspicious look (einen verdächtigen Blick) at Rüdiger and say to him:
- Ich traue dem Braten nicht! (I think something fishy is going on!)
And this is what it sounds like:
Then, tell me in the comments below how he reacted :-)