Talk:fremdschämen

Conjugation
-sche, you wrote "comment out conjugation till I figure out how to show reflexivity", but it's not just that. The two cites show the verb can be conjugated either separably (Ich schäme mich fremd) or inseparably (Ich fremdschäme mich). I'd be interested to see a usage note explaining how common each of the two conjugations is, if you have any information or native-speaker intuitions on that. —Angr 18:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the entry will need two conjugation tables. (Or should we design/have we got a conjugation table for verbs that sometimes separate and sometimes don't? This is hardly the only one.) As for which conjugation is better: the term is something of a neologism (though it meets our CFI), so it's hard to say, but the separable conjugation does sound weird to me, and poking around Google, the inseparable conjugation does seem to be more common. - -sche (discuss) 18:41, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
 * OK. Whenever my native-speaker ex sees someone being embarrassing on TV he says "ich habe so ein Fremdschamgefühl" rather than using "fremdschämen" as a verb. —Angr 19:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
 * To clarify, I've never used the noun or the verb myself. (If I see someone embarrassing themselves, I usually just cringe silently.) If I hear someone else say "ich schäme mich fremd", it sounds weirder to me than "ich fremdschäme mich so", although TBH they both sound weird. Nounal formulations like your ex's are the least weird. - -sche (discuss) 21:01, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I think he does use the infinitive as a gerund though, as in ein Gefühl von Fremdschämen. I'm really not sure now. (He says it out loud rather than cringing silently because he wants to explain why he's changing the channel!) What about staubsaugen? Do you say ich staubsauge or ich sauge Staub? The latter sounds okay to me because it's parallel to things like ich fahre Rad. I once made a German friend laugh by asking, "Sittest du heute abend Baby?" —Angr 21:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
 * To me ich fremdschäme mich sounds okay. There is a certain awkwardness about it, but it's fine. Ich schäme mich fremd is attested in the quote, but sounds quite wrong to me. Actually I might almost understand that as: "I'm so ashamed that I'm getting estranged from myself." -- I would also say ich staubsauge, but I've heard ich sauge Staub and it sounds okay.Kolmiel (talk) 15:21, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

separable variant
Is it worth including the separable variant? This can be done now in one conjugation table. dewikt lists the separable variant first although I see a discussion above where it sounds weird to native speakers. Benwing2 (talk) 05:36, 5 March 2022 (UTC)


 * In my opinion the separable conjugation sounds weird but it is attested so I went ahead and included it. &mdash; Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 08:13, 5 March 2022 (UTC)