German feelings vocabulary
These are the German words about feelings that come up most often in real speech, ranked by how often they appear in film and TV subtitles. Start with the first ones, such as Glück (happiness), Gefühl (feeling), Lust (delight), because you will run into them on almost any page about the subject, and the rarer words make more sense once those are familiar.
Words in this list: 30
| # | Word | Pronunciation | Translation | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Glück | /ɡlʏk/ | happiness | A1 |
| 2 | Gefühl | /ɡəˈfyːl/ | feeling | A2 |
| 3 | Lust | /lʊst/ | delight | A2 |
| 4 | Freude | /ˈfʁɔɪ̯.də/ | joy | A2 |
| 5 | Verlangen | /fɛɐ̯ˈlaŋən/ | lust | B1 |
| 6 | Panik | /ˈpaːnɪk/ | panic | B1 |
| 7 | Alarm | /aˈlaʁm/ | alarm | B1 |
| 8 | Wut | /vuːt/ | fury | B1 |
| 9 | Besitz | /bəˈzɪt͡s/ | belonging | B1 |
| 10 | Hass | /has/ | hatred | B2 |
| 11 | Schock | /ʃɔk/ | shock | B2 |
| 12 | Not | /noːt/ | distress | B2 |
| 13 | Mitleid | /ˈmɪtˌlaɪ̯t/ | compassion | B2 |
| 14 | Leidenschaft | /ˈlaɪ̯dn̩ʃaft/ | passion | B2 |
| 15 | Appetit | /apeˈtiːt/ | appetite | B2 |
| 16 | Humor | /huˈmoːɐ̯/ | humour | B2 |
| 17 | Laune | /ˈlaʊ̯.nə/ | mood | B2 |
| 18 | Furcht | /fʊʁçt/ | fear | B2 |
| 19 | Aufregung | /ˈaʊ̯fˌʁeːɡʊŋ/ | excitement | B2 |
| 20 | Zorn | /t͡sɔrn/ | anger | B2 |
| 21 | Trauer | /ˈtʁaʊ̯ɐ/ | mourning | B2 |
| 22 | Trost | /tʁoːst/ | consolation | B2 |
| 23 | Vergebung | /fɛɐ̯ˈɡeːbʊŋ/ | forgiveness | B2 |
| 24 | Eifersucht | /ˈʔaɪ̯.fɐ.zʊxt/ | jealousy | C1 |
| 25 | Folter | /ˈfɔltɐ/ | torture | C1 |
| 26 | Zuneigung | /ˈʦuːˌnaɪ̯ɡʊŋ/ | affection | C1 |
| 27 | Dankbarkeit | /ˈdaŋk.baːɐ̯.kaɪ̯t/ | gratitude | C1 |
| 28 | Sehnsucht | /ˈzeːnˌzʊxt/ | yearning | C1 |
| 29 | Reue | /ˈʁɔɪ̯ə/ | remorse | C1 |
| 30 | Enttäuschung | /ɛntˈtɔɪ̯ʃʊŋ/ | disappointment | C1 |
How to make these words stick
A list helps you see what matters, but a word only stays after you have met it several times in real sentences and pulled it out of memory yourself. That is how NativeLingo works: it swaps a few of these words into the pages you already read, at your level and in the right form, and then a short daily review asks you to type them back.
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Sources: translations and pronunciation from Wiktionary (wikdict, CC BY-SA 3.0) and ipa-dict (MIT), frequency from OpenSubtitles (FrequencyWords).