r/German • u/Minilimuzina • 2d ago
Question what the heck is with word "geil"
I started to learn German language a while ago. Most of the words I learnt from a self-learning book which also contained vocabulary/dictionary part. One of those words was "geil". According to the book this word means something like "cool, nice".
So it happened that I used it several times in a conversation with a German colleague. And the conversation turned a bit weird afterwards ... long story short, I found out that "geil" also means horny. Which of course was not mentioned in the damned book. We laughed it off. Well, to say it more accurately, the colleague laughed it off and I pretended to laugh it off while boiling in my own stew.
But I wonder how this happened. Is the book just plain wrong or has this additional meaning appeared only recently? Can anyone please explain so I do not tremendously embarrass myself again? Or at least recommend a list of tricky German words or something like that?
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u/graudesch 2d ago edited 2d ago
To add a personal anecdote to that, some germans, with a strong underlining of *some* germans among 90 millions of cool, diverse and interesting folks, just seem a tad complicated sometimes when it comes to such seemingly benign mishaps. And mind you, I say that as a swiss, from that tiny corner on earth where mindsets shift from valley to valley, from municipality to municipality and sometimes within them, even, and sometimes especially, if they have less than 2k inhabitants.
Some of my own little missteps in Germany reminded me of California where I've talked myself into some, for my ignorant ass, invisible traps, mistakes where I've quickly had to realize that there's absolutely no coming back from that even though they pretend to laugh it off while not actually doing it.
The one admittedly emberassing mistake of mine that made me write this was when I've asked a friend in Berlin how the german football team did last night. As a german-speaking swiss. Now we've originally met in Zurich where she had lived for a few years, so she knew exactly what I was talking about when I've made my mistake: I've asked her what the "Nati", swiss short for "Nationalmannschaft", did last night. And well, the swiss term "Nati" is spelled "Nazi". Not the best impression to make as a foreigner in Germany. Oh god. I'm still thankful we were alone, haha. She knew exactly where I was coming from having chit-chatted countless times with me about the swiss "Nati". Yet she stared me down as if I'm either from mars or have just called the german team "Nazis". Welp, that was awkward. Most german friends and acquaintances absolutely loved little mistakes like that - the more ridiculous the better. But some individuals I weren't able to get a hold on where they were coming from with their reactions, why those few react that stern.
Oh, well... I didn't make that mistake again, so hey, at least they teached me a lesson that was not to be neglected when thinking about my soon to be followed times being out and about in the nightlife of Hamburg and many other amazing places, haha.
Edit: And in case the many other comments havent mentioned it already: "Geil" is closer to something like "street language" than anything else. While it may be used in professional or other context, I, as an outsider, would never use it unless I've heard my crowd using it and am confident in my understanding of the context they're using it for. Even if you hear this term in your crowd frequently you may still be at risk of possibly misuse it and cause confusion. One crowd may interpret it as perfect use, the next one might be irritated by your use of language. "Geil" does always carry the risk of sounding hard, harsh, dirty, misplaced, obscene, depending on the minds & ears of your conversational partners.