Jugendsprache, Umgangssprache, Schreibsprache — three registers
Jugendsprache (youth language / teen slang) and Umgangssprache (everyday colloquial speech) sit far below the formal Schreibsprache you learned in Lesson 46. Krass!, Voll geil!, Das ist mega! in a Bewerbung will sink your application; Mit freundlichen Grüßen to your best friend's birthday text sounds like an alien. The skill at C1 is calibrating: recognize slang fully (so you understand TikTok, podcasts, casual movies, and friends' messages), use the safe middle slang yourself with peers (cool, geil, krass, voll, mega, chillen, abhängen), avoid the bleeding-edge teen slang (it shifts every two years and using it as an outsider sounds forced), and never mix slang into formal contexts. Texting abbreviations (lg, mfg, vlg, hdl, kp, lol) belong only in chats with friends and very informal coworker emails. This lesson maps the territory: which words travel safely, which sound dated, which betray non-native speakers when used wrong.
The big three intensifiers — krass, geil, mega
krass literally means 'extreme', and as slang covers 'wow, intense, awesome, terrible' — context decides. Das ist krass! = That's wild! / That's intense! / That's awful! Works for both positive and negative. krasse Party = an awesome party. krasser Unfall = a brutal accident. Universal across young and middle-aged speakers. geil literally means 'horny / lustful', and that older sense survives — but as slang for two generations now, geil = great, awesome, cool. Voll geil! = totally awesome. Geile Musik! = great music. Older speakers may find geil vulgar; safe with friends, sketchy with grandparents. mega = mega, used as adjective AND adverb prefix. Mega cool!, Das war mega!, mega gut. Slightly newer than geil; came in via 1990s teen slang and stayed. Stack them: mega krass! = unbelievably intense. Avoid all three in formal writing or emails to your professor.
voll and ur — colloquial intensifiers
voll as an adverb = 'totally / really'. Standard meaning is 'full', but colloquially: voll cool = totally cool; voll lecker = really delicious; voll der Quatsch = total nonsense. Used by everyone in casual speech, including adults; not specifically teen. Voll + der/die/das + noun is a common slang construction: voll der Tag = what a day, voll die Sache = quite the thing. ur- as an Austrian intensifier: urcool = super cool; urkrass = totally wild. Limited to Austria and parts of Bavaria. richtig as intensifier: richtig gut = really good; standard register, works in any speech but odd in very formal writing. mega can stand in for voll in newer speech: mega cool ≈ voll cool.
Verbs of hanging out and chilling
chillen = to chill / relax. Borrowed from English in the 1990s; thoroughly nativized: ich chille, du chillst, er chillt. Past: gechillt. Wir chillen heute Abend bei mir. = We're chilling at my place tonight. Casual but widespread; even adults use it. abhängen = to hang out (literally 'hang down'). Wir hängen am Wochenende ab. = We're hanging out at the weekend. Slangy but established. rumhängen = to hang around. abhängen has a positive valence; rumhängen can be slightly negative ('lounging around doing nothing'). Bock haben (auf etwas) = to feel like / be up for. Hast du Bock auf Kino? = You up for the movies? null Bock = no interest at all. Bock literally means 'billy-goat' but in slang means 'desire / mood'. Universal teen and adult colloquial. abnerden = to nerd out (newer); zocken = to game / play video games. Wir zocken heute Abend. = We're gaming tonight.
Negative slang — Mist, krass, kacke
Mist! = Damn! / Crap! Mild expletive, safe in most casual contexts but not formal. Literally 'manure'. So ein Mist! = What a mess! Scheiße = Shit. Common but vulgar; OK with close friends, not with strangers, never in writing to authorities. The Germans curse with Scheiße more frequently and casually than English speakers say 'shit', so don't be shocked. Diminutive Scheiß- prefixes nouns: Scheißwetter = lousy weather; Scheißauto = damn car. Kacke = a softer, almost childish 'crap'. Verdammt! = Damn! (less vulgar than Scheiße). Mensch! = Man! / Geez! (mild). Krass as 'awful' (above) covers negative use too. kacke and Mist are safest in mixed company. Younger speakers have imported English fuck, shit, wtf as occasional swears — use sparingly.
Anglicisms and pseudo-English in youth speech
Young Germans pepper their speech with English borrowings, often modified: chillen (to chill), shoppen (to shop), gamen / zocken (to play games), liken (to like, on social media), adden (to add as friend), swipen (to swipe), posten (to post), streamen, downloaden (vs. native herunterladen), uploaden, screenshotten. All conjugate as weak German verbs: ich like, du likest, gelikt (or ge-like-t). Adjectives travel in too: lit (excellent), sus (suspicious), cringe (used as adj. and noun: das ist cringe, Cringe!), vibe (as noun: gute Vibes), crush (mein Crush). Be careful: lol in spoken German sounds dated to 2010s; Bro is in but Brah sounds American-imported. lit is fading. cringe is solid. The safest anglicism vocabulary: chillen, cool, mega, OK, Vibe, Update, Selfie. Skip the trendiest items unless you're confident you've heard them used recently.
Texting abbreviations — chat and SMS
Keep these for chats and SMS, never for formal email. (1) lg = liebe Grüße (warm regards). Casual closing in chats and informal emails to friends/colleagues you know well. (2) mfg = mit freundlichen Grüßen (formal closing, but written mfg ironically downgrades it to casual). Mostly seen in colleagues' messages to each other. Don't use mfg in a real cover letter — write Mit freundlichen Grüßen in full. (3) vlg = viele liebe Grüße (many warm regards), even warmer than lg. (4) hdl = hab dich lieb (love you, in a friendly/familial sense). To family or close friends; wrong with romantic partners (ich liebe dich is the romantic 'I love you'; hab dich lieb is platonic). (5) hdgdl = hab dich ganz doll lieb (love you tons). (6) kp / kA = keine Ahnung (no idea). (7) vllt = vielleicht (maybe). (8) gn8 = gute Nacht (good night). (9) wmd = was machst du? (what're you doing?). (10) bb = bis bald (see you soon). Plus the universal English-borrowed lol, omg, btw, idk, nvm, irl, brb. Capitalization rule: lowercase in casual chats — lg not LG — though both occur.
Where slang DOES belong
(1) Friends and family, all ages — slang and Umgangssprache are the default; using formal German with close friends sounds cold. (2) Casual coworker chat — once you're past Sie/du with a colleague, slang creeps in: das war krass, chillen wir mal, lg at the end of a Slack message. (3) Social media — Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X — slang dense, abbreviations everywhere. (4) Casual emails to people you know well: 'Hi Anna, krass dass du das geschafft hast! lg, Tom.' (5) Speaking with strangers your age in casual settings (bar, party, hostel) — slang OK once they signal they're using it. (6) Comedy, podcasts, casual TV — entire register lives there. The rule: match the slang level you're hearing from your interlocutor, with one notch less aggressive if you're not sure.
Where slang does NOT belong
(1) Job applications, cover letters, CVs — full formal register. Never krass, geil, lg, mfg. (2) Emails to professors, doctors, officials, bank, landlord — formal. Sehr geehrte/r + Mit freundlichen Grüßen. (3) Letters to authorities (Behörden) — pure Hochdeutsch, often Nominalstil. (4) Speaking with elderly strangers, in shops, at the doctor — neutral standard German. (5) Academic writing — no slang, no abbreviations, no lol. (6) Speaking with strangers significantly older or in clearly formal roles — until they signal otherwise, stay neutral. The danger of mixing: a mfg at the end of a Bewerbung is read as careless or sarcastic; a krass in an email to your landlord reads as immature; hdl to a romantic partner reads as 'I want to keep this casual / friend-zone'. Calibration matters.
Quick decoder
(1) krass / geil / mega / voll = casual intensifiers — all mean 'awesome / really'. Drop in casual speech, never in formal writing. (2) chillen / abhängen = to hang out / chill. Universal casual. (3) Bock haben = to feel like. Hast du Bock? = You up for it? (4) Mist! / Scheiße! = casual to vulgar swears; calibrate to company. (5) Texting abbreviations (lg, vlg, hdl, kp, vllt) belong in chats — never in formal email or letter. (6) mfg in casual chat ≠ Mit freundlichen Grüßen in a Bewerbung — write the latter out in full. (7) hdl ≠ ich liebe dich: platonic vs. romantic. (8) Match your interlocutor's register and dial back one notch if uncertain. (9) Bleeding-edge teen slang (lit, sus, cringe) ages fast — recognize it, but don't perform it as an outsider. (10) Slang travels in casual emails to known coworkers; never to strangers.
