Why do I need to know schräg?
Schräg (pronounced like this) is a great example of a word with a literal and a more colloquial meaning, and you're likely to hear it anywhere from descriptions of furniture to a criticism of someone's behaviour.
What does it mean?
In a literal sense, schräg is an adjective that's used to describe something that's oriented diagonally, slightly askew or at an angle. It stems from the medieval German word for wooden table legs that cross over one another, and a now non-existent verb - schregeln - which meant 'to join crosswise'.
If you're buying some trendy mid-century modern furniture, you'll often notice that the legs will be schräg. Alternatively, you might have to get a custom-built wardrobe put in an attic room with a Dachschräge - or sloping roof. If a shelf you put up is schräg, you're going to want to fix that immediately, because whatever you put on it may well just slide off again.
As you may have noticed, this meaning of schräg is very similar to another German word: schief. And just like schief - which literally means crooked or tilted but can also mean wrong - schräg has another set of negative meanings.
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Most commonly, schräg will be used in a colloquial context to describe something that seems a bit odd or unusual - and not in a good way. If someone's behaviour deviates from the norm, they could well be described as schräg, which implies they are also behaving in a way that's unacceptable or unreasonable.
For example, the person who turns up in scruffy clothes an hour late to a date could be said to have acted schräg. Or someone who talks about inappropriate topics during a work meeting - or even a job interview.
In other words, schräg is all about straying from straight-and-narrow social norms - and in Germany, that's not always seen as a good thing.
Use it like this:
Nachdem er das Bild aufgehängt hat, merkte er, dass es schräg war.
After he hung up the picture, he realised it was at an angle.
Warum verhältst du dich immer so schräg, wenn meine Freunde dabei sind?
Why do you always act so weird when my friends are around?
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