German slang: everyday words and every Jugendwort since 2008
German slang changes fast, and textbooks rarely keep up. One simple way to follow it is the Jugendwort des Jahres (youth word of the year), which the dictionary publisher Langenscheidt, today PONS Langenscheidt, has chosen every year since 2008, with one gap in 2019. This page explains the slang words you will hear all the time from young people in Germany, the 2026 winner and its rivals, and every Jugendwort since 2008 with its meaning.
The page is updated when the new top 10 comes out at the end of July and when the winner is announced in October.
Everyday slang you will hear all the time
Most of these words never won the Jugendwort contest, but they are common in casual spoken German and on social media. Some have been around for decades.
| Word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Alter! | dude!, or a cry of surprise or annoyance | Alter, wie spät ist es? |
| Digga | mate, bro (from Dicker) | Digga, wo bist du? |
| krass | extreme, wow; positive or negative | Das ist ja krass! |
| geil | great, awesome (very informal) | Der Film war echt geil. |
| mega, voll | very, totally | Das war mega lustig. Ich bin voll müde. |
| echt | really | Echt? Das wusste ich nicht. |
| chillen | to relax, to hang out | Wir chillen heute im Park. |
| keinen Bock haben | not to feel like doing something | Ich hab keinen Bock auf Hausaufgaben. |
| Was geht? | What's up? | Na, was geht? |
| zocken | to play video games | Er zockt die ganze Nacht. |
| pennen | to sleep | Ich geh jetzt pennen. |
| Kohle | money | Ich hab keine Kohle mehr. |
| quatschen | to chat | Wir haben stundenlang gequatscht. |
| Läuft! | things are going well, also ironic | Neuer Job? Läuft bei dir! |
Careful with geil
geil is a normal word for great among young people, but its original meaning is sexual, and many people still hear that meaning. With strangers, older people, teachers or at work, super or toll is the safer choice.
The examples also show a feature of casual speech: the -e at the end of the first person often disappears. Ich habe becomes ich hab, ich gehe becomes ich geh. In writing, use the full form.
Jugendwort 2026: Ragebait
The 2026 winner was announced on 10 October 2026 at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Ragebait won the final vote with 36.5 percent, ahead of Peak with 33.8 percent and Crashout with 29.7 percent. All three finalists come from English. Langenscheidt describes ragebait as content designed to provoke strong reactions, above all anger, so that people comment on it and share it.
Das Video ist doch nur Ragebait.That video is just ragebait.
Kommentier das nicht, das ist Ragebait!Don't comment on it, it's ragebait!
Das Konzert war echt Peak.The concert was really peak.
Wenn mein Akku ausgeht, gehe ich Crashout.If my battery dies, I'm going to lose it.
Peak means the best, the high point of something. Crashout means losing control and overreacting to something small.
The 2026 top 10
Langenscheidt published the top 10 in alphabetical order on 28 July 2026. Anyone can take part in the vote, but only the votes of young people count in the official result, and most participants are between 11 and 20.
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 67 | read six seven; no fixed meaning, an inside joke said with a shrug |
| Crashout | losing control, overreacting (third place) |
| Digga | mate, bro |
| Du bist gut genug | you are good enough, spread by a viral song |
| Gute Käse | very good; literally good cheese, ungrammatical on purpose |
| Macker | guy, crush or boyfriend; an old word that came back |
| Peak | the best, the high point (second place) |
| Ragebait | content made to cause anger (winner) |
| Schere | literally scissors; means my bad, sorry, from gaming |
| Süper | the Turkish word for super |
Süper was the only Turkish word in the 2026 list. It spread through videos of a Berlin ultramarathon runner of Turkish descent who answered Wie geht's dir? with Süper! after his races.
Gute Käse and correct German
The correct form is guter Käse. Käse is masculine (der Käse), and without an article the adjective takes the ending -er. The joke works because the mistake is obvious to native speakers. The rules are on the page about adjective endings.
Every Jugendwort since 2008
| Year | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Ragebait | content designed to make people angry |
| 2025 | das crazy | short for das ist crazy; shows shock or surprise |
| 2024 | Aura | charisma, the impression someone makes, often used jokingly |
| 2023 | goofy | silly, clumsy |
| 2022 | smash | from the online game smash or pass: you would date or hook up with someone |
| 2021 | cringe | embarrassing, awkward |
| 2020 | lost | clueless, not knowing what is going on |
| 2019 | none | no word was chosen |
| 2018 | Ehrenmann, Ehrenfrau | a decent person, someone who does you a favour |
| 2017 | I bims | ich bin's in deliberately broken internet German |
| 2016 | fly sein | to be cool, stylish |
| 2015 | Smombie | smartphone zombie, someone who only looks at their phone |
| 2014 | Läuft bei dir | things are going well for you; also ironic |
| 2013 | Babo | boss, leader; made popular by the rapper Haftbefehl |
| 2012 | YOLO | you only live once |
| 2011 | Swag | cool, confident style |
| 2010 | Niveaulimbo | standards sinking lower and lower |
| 2009 | hartzen | to be unemployed and hang around; criticised as unfair |
| 2008 | Gammelfleischparty | a party for people over 30; literally rotten meat party |
Until 2019 a jury chose the winner. In 2019 there was no Jugendwort: PONS had just bought Langenscheidt, and the dictionary that goes with the contest was not ready. Since 2020 the winner has been decided by an online vote.
Do young Germans really say these words?
Not always. Critics, among them a researcher at the German Youth Institute, see the contest mainly as marketing for Langenscheidt's youth slang dictionary. In 2015 journalists could find hardly any use of Smombie before the contest, and most teenagers had never heard it. The Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache called the contest a nice idea but also a game with language, and doubted that young people really use the nominated words.
For learners, the list is most useful for understanding, not as a list of words to start using. Many winners come from English and social media, so English speakers recognise them quickly. Using them naturally is harder: slang marks you as part of a group, and the same word can sound fresh from a fifteen year old and odd from anyone else.
German grammar still applies
Borrowed words get German grammar. English verbs take German endings and a German past participle: ich chille, wir haben gechillt, er zockt, sie haben gezockt. The Perfekt page explains how the participle is formed.
Adjectives like cringe, lost and goofy are mostly used after sein, where German adjectives never take an ending anyway: Das ist so cringe. Ich bin komplett lost.
das crazy works the other way. It drops the verb on purpose. In standard German the sentence is Das ist crazy, or in plain German Das ist verrückt.
Wir haben gestern nur gechillt.We just hung out yesterday.
Das ist so cringe.That's so embarrassing.
Ich bin komplett lost.I have no idea what's going on.
Er hat richtig Aura.He's got real presence.
When slang fits and when it does not
Slang is fine with friends, classmates and people your own age, and in messages to them. It sounds out of place in an email to a colleague, at a government office, in a job interview or in an exam. A good guide is the choice between du and Sie: where people say Sie to each other, slang rarely fits. More on that in du or Sie.
If the aim is to sound natural rather than young, small words like doch, mal and halt do more than slang. They are used by every age group and in almost every conversation; see German modal particles. The dialogues on this site, such as Die neuen Nachbarn, show them in everyday situations.
Other German words of the year
Two other lists come out every year. In December the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS) chooses a Wort des Jahres, a word that sums up the year in politics and society. For 2025 it was KI-Ära (the AI era), announced on 5 December 2025. In January a jury in Darmstadt names an Unwort des Jahres, a word it considers misleading or hurtful.
Written by: Fatih Ün, German teacher · Last updated: