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.
