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LEARNING GERMAN

German word of the day: Das Zeug

Being one of the most universal words in the German language, Zeug makes for a very useful word of the day.

Published: 17 October 2023 16:39 CEST

German word of the day: Das Zeug

Photo: Francesco Ungaro / Unsplash + Nicolas Raymond / flickr

The German language sure loves its Zeug. It doesn’t matter if it’s used as a single word or in combination with other words – Zeug is the way to go. Its translation is not that exciting, though; it literally means “stuff.”

The word Zeug comes from the Old High German word (gi)ziuch, which is related to the word ziehen (“to pull”) and means something like “the instrument to pull/do stuff with.”

Throughout its history, Zeug has had many different meanings and uses. An old one is directly connected to its meaning as the thing to pull things – it was the harness of a horse. Other meanings vary from fabric to rigging to tools.

Nowadays, Zeug has two common uses, one of them being in a derogatory way. “Was liegt denn hier für Zeug rum?” (“What’s this stuff laying around here?”) is something a mother might ask her child that hadn’t cleaned the room in a while. The other common meaning is in combination with other words. Basically everything can be Zeug, so let me give some examples:

Flugzeug, literally “fly thing”, means “aeroplane.”

Spielzeug, literally “play stuff”, means “toys.”

Fahrzeug, literally “drive thing,” means “vehicle.”

Werkzeug, literally “work stuff,” means “tools.“

If that might confuse you, look at the old meaning. Zeug is an instrument to do stuff with. Hence, a Fahrzeug is a thing to drive with. A Spielzeug is stuff to play with. It might sound complicated, but is actually rather simple.

Examples:

Kann ich noch mal vorbei kommen? Ich glaube, ich habe mein Zeug bei dir vergessen.

Can I come over real quick? I think I might have forgotten some stuff at your place.

Ich werde mich ins Zeug legen.

I’ll do my very best.

Kannst du dein Zeug bitte wegräumen?

Could you please put your stuff away?

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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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