Alongside the more formal words you often learn in language classes, there are a great many German phrases and words that can add more colour and personality to your speech. Quatschen is one them, and it’s the perfect way to talk about an everyday occurrence with a bit more style and humour.

What does it mean?

If you’ve been studying German a little while already, you may have heard the word Quatsch, used to mean ‘nonsense’ or ‘rubbish’. Quatschen makes a verb out of this funny put-down and describes the act of talking nonsense, or chatting about nothing in particular.

In English, quatschen could be aptly translated as “yabbering away”, “blathering”, “having a natter” or the rather poetic “shooting the breeze”. 

In other words, quatschen can be used in most occasions when you’ve had a long, friendly chat with someone, particularly if there was no particular goal to the conversation other than having fun and getting along.

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Much like Quatsch, quatschen is a colloquial word, so be sure to only use it in relatively informal settings and to describe informal situations. If you’ve had a discussion with a client at work, for example, ‘ein Gespräch führen’ (to have a conversation) would be much more appropriate than quatschen. 

Use it like this:

Wir haben so lange gequatscht, dass ich die Zeit vergessen habe.

We chatted for so long that I lost track of time.

Mein Freund und ich können stundenlang miteinander quatschen.

My friend and I can shoot the breeze with each other for hours.