What Were Those Quotation Marks Called in German?

You know that moment—you’re chatting with a colleague or a family member, and you need to use the German word for “quotation marks” (which we also affectionately call “inverted commas,” by the way). 

But your brain does a little somersault, and suddenly, the word vanishes. Poof! Gone. It happens. Nearly. Every. Single. Time.

Now, I consider myself a creative soul. So, in my linguistic panic, I come up with the words “Gänsefüßchen” or “Tüddelchen.” Maybe it’s because I adore both words that my brain never remembers the proper term?

But here’s the twist: Have you noticed that English quotation marks look a little different to German ones?

In German, the opening ones hang out at the bottom of a word, phrase or sentence—like a cute little 99—while the closing ones perch at the top, resembling a tiny 66.

In English, however, both the opening and closing quotation marks perch at the top. The first set looks like a mini 66, and the second set is like a petite 99. Fancy, right?

Interestingly, a lot of people I chat with seem totally unaware of the English terms for these punctuation marks. So, if you want to dazzle your English-speaking friends, casually drop “quotation marks” or “inverted commas” into the conversation. And watch their eyes light up like a Christmas tree.

As a trained private bilingual secretary, all those little punctuation marks were always very important to me. How do you feel about them?