you guys think writers are good with words, but our entire search histories are just âwhatâs the word for trying to make someone believe somethingâ and âsynonym for ___â
Followed up by the enormous frustration of looking up a word in English just to find that the exact meaning that you want only exists in your native tongue
@silvergreyleafâ Is there a difference between Sehnsucht and Wehmut though? I quite vividly remember my german teacher being adamant about them being 100% interchangeable. And she, as a german teacher, must clearly be an expert on this, donât you think?
gods, this is hard, but there definitely is a difference
Iâd say think Sehnsucht is more focused on the future (you liked x thing and long/yearn for it in the faint hope you might experience it again) while Wehmut is more about looking at something in the past melancholically and wistfully (you loved x thing and are pretty sure youâll never experience anything like it again)
Perfectly said, @itsforthebrave, thank you! A simple, but important difference, isnât it?
Now please imagine for a moment about 20 students trying to explain exactly that difference to their teacher. For one and half hours. Can you imagine our frustration? Our reaction in days to come if anybody dared mention Sehnsucht and Wehmut? You see, our explanations were lost on her. The break bell saved us (and her actually; I for one was about ready to physically throw something at her head) from further pointless discussion.
Now, fast forward to some time later, another discussion about the difference between two seemingly synonymous words. Sehnsucht and Wehmut were long laid to rest, a topic far too delicate to be touched again. AufwĂ€rts and hinauf was the new pair. This time the class split into two groups: those seeing a difference (like my teacher) and those who didnât (including me). Maybe there is a difference (do please enlighten me), but I dare say itâs far more subtle than the one between Sehnsucht and Wehmut.
To this day I wonder how someone, especially a german teacher, cannot grasp the difference between Sehnsucht and Wehmut, but on the other hand spend an hour trying to convince me and some of my classmates that aufwÀrts and hinauf most certainly do not mean the exact same thing.
Funnily enough I feel like the difference between aufwÀrts und hinauf is much easier to describe than in the case Sehnsucht vs Wehmut, perhaps because it's a much more tangible concept @commanderofbooze .
I feel like aufwÀrts describes a pretty plain, aimless upwards movement. Anything can move aufwÀrts, even abstract concepts, as long as the thing is in the process of changing its physical or metaphorical location to something higher.
Hinauf on the other hand implies more purpose in my opinion. The upwards movement here has an aim, whether or not it's achievable or abstract, but there's somewhere to go.
Der Luftballon flog aufwÀrts in den Himmel. [The balloon flew up towards (/into) the sky]
This is an awkward sentence and probably not entirely grammatically correct to be fair, but it illustrates my point quite well. The sky in this case isn't an aim but a direction where the balloon is flying. There is no real aim to the movement, it'll always move aufwÀrts in the direction of the sky, until it'll inevitably fall down again. [Der Luftballon flog weiter aufwÀrts.]
Der Luftballon flog hinauf in den Himmel. [The balloon flew up into the sky.]
Here the sky is the aim, although it isn't an actual physical place you could reach. But at some point it'll have reached the sky and then it'll move within its reached aim. [Der Luftballon flog höher hinauf in den Himmel.]
You know what, the more I write, the more I understand how you could spend so much time arguing about these words.
I'm not entirely sure whether or not I made a point, but if I did I hope you understood what I was trying to say :)
