It could also just be English if you only speak English.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I don’t speak German, but I picked up a few phrases for work. They have a few idioms that I think of sometimes:

    “Ich glaub, ich spinne” which means I think I’m crazy, but literally translates to “I think, I spider.” It’s a great visual metaphor, being overwhelmed by the threads going everywhere that you imagine you’re a spider spinning a web, and also you’ve entirely forgotten grammar.

    “Bahnhof verstehen” or “Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof” means “I understand only the train station.” It’s something you say when you don’t understand anything, you’re completely lost, and you don’t give a shit becaue you just want to get the fuck home.

    I might be off on those translations or the subtext, but that’s how I understood it.

    • Deestan@lemmy.world
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      14 minutes ago

      Not fluent at all, but I always parsed “Ich glaub, ich spinne” as “I feel like my head is spinning”

    • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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      52 minutes ago

      and also you’ve entirely forgotten grammar.

      That’s a misinterpretation. The German “spinne” is a proper verb in that sentence, like “to spin” in English.

      • Oisteink@feddit.nl
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        27 minutes ago

        So it can be what a spider does, but also what political doctors do, and the latter is the context here?