When you check a dictionary to see what the German noun ‘Freude’ means, you’ll get several translations, like joy, delight, pleasure, happiness, enjoyment, … and more.
But did you know that added to another noun, we can have 24 different types of ‘Freude’?
Let’s have a look at them. As they all end in ‘Freude’, they are all feminine nouns, so I haven’t bothered with writing the article ‘die’ every time.
- Arbeitsfreude – joy of working
- Daseinsfreude – joy of being/ joie de vivre
- Einsatzfreude – enthusiasm (for action)
- Entdeckerfreude – joy of discovery
- Entscheidungsfreude – decisiveness
- Erzählfreude -joy of storytelling
- Experiementierfreude – joy of experimenting
- Festfreude – joy of celebration/ festive joy
- Gaumenfreude -culinary delight
- Herzensfreude – joy of the heart
- Kontaktfreude – sociability/ outgoingness
- Lebensfreude – joie de vivre
- Leistungsfreude – performance pleasure
- Neujahrsfreude – New Year’s joy/ New Year’s cheer
- Riesenfreude – huge joy
- Risikofreude – risk appetite
- Schadenfreude – gloating/ malicious joy from observing someone else’s misfortune/ schadenfreude
- Schaffensfreude – joy of creating
- Siegesfreude – joy of victory
- Sinnesfreude – sensual pleasure
- Spielfreude – joy of playing
- Vorfreude – anticipation
- Weihnachtsfreude – joy of Christmas
- Wiedersehensfreude – joy of reunion
So much joy! 😉
I have shared this list with you because
Geteilte Freude ist doppelte Freude.
A joy shared is a joy doubled.
And I hope you are so happy about this list that you can say
Damit hast du mir eine Riesenfreude gemacht!
You just made my day!
I have, haven’t I? 😀
Which is your favourite type of joy?
PS. If you’d like to know more about gender of nouns, especially compound nouns like those in the list, check out my online course German gender #1 – German nouns and der, die & das For 10% off use the coupon code BLOGPOST
Sehr gut, danke.
Das freut mich!