In this episode Kirsten explains the German expression Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten, its history and how you can use it in a conversation.The post Sprichwörtlich Deutsch Episode 7 – Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten appeared first on Fair Languages.
In this episode Kirsten explains the German expression Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten, its history and how you can use it in a conversation. The post Sprichwörtlich Deutsch Episode 7– Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten appeared first on Fair Languages.
Welcome to Sprichwörtlich Deutsch, the podcast about German proverbs, idioms and expressions. My name is Kirsten Winkler, and I am your host.
Today’s expression is
Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten.
Let’s break this expression down in parts and have a look at the individual words. Kind, das Kind is a (young) child or kid. It’s always a bit mind-boggling why a child is neuter in German, but as you know genders can sometimes be a bit tricky. Bade is an antiquated and literary version of Bad, das Bad = bath, and lastly, ausschütten is our verb here which means to throw out, ausschütten.
If we put all the words together, we come up with the expression: throw the baby out with the bathwater
As you can see, unlike some of our previous expressions
Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten.
translates almost exactly into English and is being used in several other languages, e.g. in French we say
Jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain.
The expression is an old one, first examples of Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten can be dated back to the 16th century, the time of Luther and the reformation in Germany.
It’s easy to visualize this expression as it lives of the strong contrast of something very precious, the child / the baby, and something that has become worthless which is represented through the bathwater. Of course, nobody wants the precious baby to get lost with the bathwater!
Though being fairly old, the expression is still rather popular. Today, you will mostly find it in newspapers and magazines that attract a more sophisticated audience. You might occasionally hear it in modern politics or even in work context.
A related expression is
Wie ein Elefant im Porzellanladen
which I explained in episode 1 of Sprichwörtlich Deutsch!
And that’s it for today’s episode of Sprichwörtlich Deutsch. Hope you join me next time and don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast either on iTunes or via FairLanguages.com
Music: Chillin’ With Jeris” by copperhead (feat. Jeris)
The post Sprichwörtlich Deutsch Episode 7 – Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten appeared first on Fair Languages.