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GERMAN WORD OF THE DAY

Austrian German phrase of the day: Des is mir Blunzn

This is an important phrase to express your opinion (or lack of it) in Austria.

Published: 9 October 2023 16:42 CEST

Austrian German phrase of the day: Des is mir Blunzn

Photo: Francesco Ungaro / Unsplash + Nicolas Raymond / flickr

Why do I need to know ‘des is mir Blunzn’?

Because sausage idioms are essential in German-speaking countries and this is a particularly helpful piece of Austrian slang.

What does it mean?

Blunzn is the Austrian word for blood sausage (which, by the way, is Blutwurst in high German). And ‘des is mir’ is Austrian dialect for ‘that is to me’. The phrase Des is mir Blunzn (sometimes written like ‘des is ma Blunzn’) literally means ‘that is blood sausage to me’.

Although it should be noted that Blunzn is an ingredient in lots of Austrian dishes, and often thrown into a pan and chopped up and fried with Erdäpfeln (the Austrian German word for potatoes), the phrase in this context doesn’t have anything to do with blood sausage.

Des is mir Blunzn means ‘I don’t care’. You can use it to express indifference to something. If you’ve learned German in a classroom you probably know its cousin: Das ist mir egal. It’s also similar to another German popular idiom – Das ist mir Wurst (literally “that is sausage to me).

READ ALSO: German phrase of the day – Das ist mir egal

The word (die) Blunzn can also be used as a derogatory term to describe a woman who’s acting unwisely.

Although this word never has a particularly positive connotation, it is used in a variety of ways. Depending on the tone of the speaker, it can be used in a loving and jokey manner.

Use it like this:

Wer wird heute das Fußballspiel gewinnen? Das weiß ich nicht. Des is mir Blunzn.

Who will win the football game today? I don’t know and couldn’t care less.

Des is mir Blunzn, in welche Bar wir gehen.

I really don’t care which bar we go to.

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Ask a German: Do you ever forget the gender of words?

For lots of non-natives, speaking German is a bit like a lottery: when you are not 100 percent sure about the article of a German word, you take a guess. And you have a one in three chance of getting it right.

But knowing whether a singular noun is der (masculine), die (feminine) or das (neutral) is key to developing your language skills in order to construct fuller sentences. Think of it like the foundations: you need to learn the gender of the word as well as the word itself so you can build the rest of your German language house.

But do native German speakers always know whether a word is der, die or das?

Berlin-based German teacher Seraphine Peries told The Local that although German speakers tend to know intuitively what the article of most nouns are because they learn them while growing up, they “definitely” have doubts.

“German native speakers make a lot of mistakes when it comes to certain words,” said Peries. “For example, the word ‘Email’ is feminine in German: die Email. But the further you go south of Germany, they use the neutral form: das Email. So there’s a bit of a discussion about that, it’s a regional thing.”

Peries said there are lots of debates on the gender of English words that been transported into German, as well as newer words.

She also said product names provoke discussion. One of the most famous is Nutella.

“A lot of people say die Nutella because it’s like the Italian ella, but others say der Nutella because they think of the German word der Aufstrich, which means ‘spread’. And then there are people who say das Nutella because it’s a foreign word so they say it must be das.”

Although the makers of Nutella have never revealed the gender of the word so perhaps everyone is right in this case.

And then there are the words that change their meaning depending on the article that definitely confuse natives (as well as foreigners, no doubt).

“A few words in German are known as Genuswechsel (gender change),” said Peries. “These are words that change their meaning when they change gender.”

Peries highlighted the word der Verdienst, which means earnings or income, and das Verdienst, which means merit or credit.

So you could say:

Der Verdienst für die Stelle war zu niedrig.

The income for the job was too low

OR

Es ist das Verdienst der Eltern, dass das Kind so gut erzogen ist.

It is to the credit of the parents that the child is so well brought up.

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