MetaChat - What do German speakers say to mean "of course"?

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09 April 2006

What do German speakers say to mean "of course"? Babelfish would have me believe it's "selbstverständlich", but I'm skeptical.

post by: agropyron at: 14:31 | 15 comments

Natürlich?

posted by scody 09 April | 14:34

they say "agropyron".

posted by Lipstick Thespian 09 April | 14:41

Oooh, I like that word, scody.

Lipstick: I hear the saying in Sanskrit is 'Ayer Vook'.

posted by agropyron 09 April | 14:50

Yeah, natürlich.

posted by crunch 09 April | 14:54

Thirding natürlich.

posted by occhiblu 09 April | 15:06

In southern Germany, I heard "doch" used this way a lot. But yeah, natürlich.

posted by cali 09 April | 15:42

My brother lived in Hamburg for a bit, and he told me that in the local dialect natürlich is pronounced almost exactly like English naturally. There were other uncanny similarities too. All of which probably illustrates something very interesting about Low German and English.

posted by nomis 09 April | 17:27

"Doch" is the "positive" response to a negative response: "no, really, what I said is true".

"Natürlich" is correct.

posted by AlexReynolds 09 April | 17:33

Thanks for the answers everyone.

So what does "selbstverständlich" mean?

posted by agropyron 09 April | 18:22

Isn't that obvious?

posted by nomis 09 April | 18:52

"Self-evident" is the way I'd translate "selbstverständlich." But yeah, my German teachers would generally say "Ja, natürlich" when one might say "Yeah, of course" auf Englisch.

posted by ubersturm 09 April | 19:30

Na, klar.

posted by nyterrant 09 April | 20:24

(doch is more like "yeah, right", oder?)

posted by nyterrant 09 April | 20:25

I thought "doch" was used to respond positively to questions like "hast du mich nicht gesehen?" to which "ja" would be potentially confusing (yes, you didn't see me, or yes, you did?).

posted by kenko 09 April | 20:38

You guys are right on about the correct useage of "doch", I meant to say "sicher". Doh!

posted by cali 09 April | 22:01

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