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illustration Sprachgefühl

Sprachgefühl

[SHPRAK-ɡə-fool]

Part of speech: noun

Origin: German, unknown

1.

the essential character of a language

2.

Intuitive feeling for the natural idiom of a language.

Examples of Sprachgefühl in a sentence

"All the flashcards in the world won’t teach you the Sprachgefühl of a new language."

"He had to study French for ten years to begin to grasp its Sprachgefühl."

About Sprachgefühl

This word originated in German from a combination of the words “Sprache” (speech, a language) + “Gefühl” (feeling).

Did you Know?

Sprachgefühl is one of the ways experienced wordsmiths instinctively know that something sounds off. Experience working with words, as well as familiarity with the language as a whole, allows a writer to intuit that a certain pause might require a comma, or when the order in a list might need to be rearranged.

illustration Sprachgefühl

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