Watgelift?

Learning Luxembourgish can be tricky. But you want to get it right. Right? When you are learning Luxembourgish, a lot of effort is put in picking up vocabulary, spelling, reading and understanding.

In the classroom, be it online or in a school, someone is at hand to listen, to support you and shape your learning.

But how can you make sure you understand what’s going on once you go out and begin to practice your Luxembourgish? Often as we begin to practice our new-found language skills,

We realize that the way words sound in conversation can be very different from how we learned originally.

Accents, speed, slang and idiomatic variances can mean we feel very lost – almost as if the other person isn’t speaking Luxembourgish at all.

Learn now which words to use when you’re not quite sure what someone is telling you:

Formal:

These short phrases are polite ways to communicate that you didn’t hear or don’t understand something in Luxembourgish:

• Watgelift? – Sorry… what did you say?
• or you can simply say: Pardon?

Longer formal sentences:

These sentences will help you when you don’t understand something even though you have heard it.

• Pardon, kënnt Dir méi lues schwätzen? – Excuse me, can you (formal) speak more slowly?
• Pardon, kënnt Dir dat widderhuelen, wgl?* – Excuse me, can you (formal) repeat that please?

*Useful sentence to ask the examiner in the oral part of the Sproochentest!

Informal:

These are more common, casual, conversational ways to ask someone to repeat themselves, or communicate your lack of understanding. Some are more informal than others.

• Glift? – Short & spoken form of “watgelift”

or a little more informal:

• Nach eng Kéier? – Again? (one more time?)
• Wat hues du gesot? – What did you say?
• Wat? – sometimes this can seem aggressive, be careful!
• Hmm? – a sound used when you are a bit more absent-minded or maybe not listening so hard.

Idioms

Idioms are sayings particular to their language of origin. 

• Ech soen dir geschwë watgelift! – is used when you are fed up of the behaviour of a person and you want them to stop, otherwise you’ll get angry very soon.
• Mäi Papp kennt kee Pardon! – My father takes firm measures regardless the opinion of others.
• Dat ass chineesesch fir mech. – lit: that’s Chinese for me. = I don’t understand a clue.