It’s not a coincidence that one of the first phrases we learn in any language is, “How are you?”.
Asking about other people’s thoughts and feelings is a great conversation opener – and in Germany, you often get more than a cursory answer to the everyday question, “Wie geht’s dir?”.
For exactly that reason, it’s a good idea to build up your vocabulary for talking about what’s going on inside your mind.
Today’s casual phrase can help you do that, while gaining some extra street cred for knowing the relevant slang.
What does it mean?
Gut drauf sein (pronounced like this) means, quite simply, to be in a good mood or in high spirits.
You may recognise drauf as an abbreviation of darauf – meaning “on it” – so the phrase could be translated literally as being good up on it, or well up on it.
Of course, this doesn’t make much literal sense, but street slang often has more of an intuitive feeling to it. Being “on it”, in other words, is another way of referring to your mental state without using words like Stimmung or Laune (mood).
READ ALSO: German word of the day – Stimmung
Less commonly, you might also use gut drauf to describe being on the ball or on your A-Game: that is, alert and focused on whatever it is you have to accomplish that day.
Naturally, we also have our off days on occasion, and for these you’ll need the opposite phrase: schlecht drauf, which means to be in a bad mood.
Feeling a bit strange? Then komisch drauf is the phrase for you.
Use it like this:
Gestern war Jessica ungewöhnlich gut drauf, Hast du eine Ahnung, warum?
Jessica was in an usually good mood yesterday. Do you have any idea why?
Wenn die Sonne scheint, bin ich immer gut drauf.
I’m always in a good mood when the sun is shining.
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