Drunk and dirty
A friend of mine befriended a woman on his trip to Germany. One evening he had a couple of drinks before seeing her and felt it only fair to warn her that he wasn't sober. Sadly, the precise vocabulary failed him. Seizing upon a familiar-sounding phrase, he proceeded to tell her repeatedly what sounded - to his ears - like "I am not sober": Ich bin nicht sauber. Only later he realised his mistake. What he really said was "I'm not clean". Astonishingly, she was undeterred.
Editor's note: A helpful phrase would have been Ich bin nicht ²Ôü³¦³ó³Ù±ð°ù²Ô, I'm not sober.
Sent by: Desmond
Comments
@ Schnee: the editor is right with sober = ²Ôü³¦³ó³Ù±ð°ù²Ô. Alternatives: beschwipst (more for the ladies), angeschiggert or angetrunken, einen weg haben. Besoffen, betrunken or blau sein presume a much higher consumption of alcohol. As the English equivalents :-).
Er ist nicht (ganz) sauber means as much as 'he isn't quite right in his head', which might have seemed attractive to that adventurous girl. Another term for being drunk would be Ich bin schon (ziemlich) blau. So 'being blue' is not quite the same thing in German, blau, blue, is another word for besoffen, drunk. Yet another term is Ich bin schon (ziemlich) dicht, with dicht, tight, meaning 'intoxicated'.
Janet: you *could* say that, but it would be closer to 'I'm plastered' than 'I'm drunk'. If you wanted a neutral term, you could say: Ich bin betrunken.
Another phrase which may have been appropriate is Ich bin beschwipst, I'm tipsy.
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