The German word for "binge drinking"

does anyone know the german word/phrase for binge drinking? or is it just a particularly britisch topic at the moment?

saufen

Or in my case "Taktischer Saufen".

taktischer saufen - i like that. anyone heard of 'ein Saufgelage'? i want something i could use in a formal situation - for a presentation really

übermässig alkohol konsumieren. but check my spalink

Yes, it IS a British thing! Don't know any other nationality with folks who go to the pub just to drink. An Argentinian friend of mine thinks us Brits must be loco just drinking. He says they only drink with meals, and all of my German friends (75+) seem to be virtual tea totallers!

what do those other nationalities do when they go to pubs then? Don't owners ask them to leave if they're not consuming anything?

And yes, a Saufgelage is fine, but it's rather slangy. What's the sentence?

Saufgelage sounds awfully medieval... that's what they did back then... but it doesn't work as a "formal" expression...

My gf can help you out (she's german and I have yet to meet anyone with as good a knowledge of both languages as her)...she just needs a context you're planning on using it in. It would definately not work if you're giving a presentation on binge drinking for a University presentation, for instance...

BTW: most american college kids binge drink all the freaking time. ...I still don't understand drinking an alcoholic beverage with a meal. Right afterwards, sure... ...I go to a bar, I wanna get drunk, dammit, haha

...no money for it though, so it rarely happens.

she says "Saufgelage" is only a group thing too...where binge drinking can be a one-man event

I wish it were just a British thing. Unfortunately binge drinking has spread across US "college" campuses like wildfire in the past few years. My sister goes to one of these schools - she didn't realize what it was like until she started studying there.

Of course US college students can't go into the pub, because the drinking age is 21. Obviously they have other ways of getting alcohol - most of them have fake IDs, I guess. However, at her school (University of California, Santa Barbara) the students all live in a sort of student ghetto and they simply party there 24/7.

The guy who made the "documentary" "Super-Size Me" is supposedly now making a documentary about binge drinking - and he's filming on the UCSB campus.

I think they use "zechen" for that.
Zechen means to booze it up.

Then you should meet me (sorry I'm not well known for my modesty)

There's no word that really describes binge drinking as we know it (by the way it's an Irish thing too), das Besäufnis would be the correct word for it, but I think it lacks intensitiy...

Saufgelage is basically what we call a piss-up (at least we call it that in Ireland)

Just write "binge drinking" in english, like that in quotes, and then put a german explanation in parentheses. English words in speech marks with german explanations in parentheses after them look exceedingly professional, and come across well in all situations and levels of formality.

you never been to Scandinavia then? How many other nationalities do you 'know' to be able to make such a definite statement?

are they all Muslim Germans or something? I have NEVER met an absolute tea total German. Here in Bayern Weißbier is considered a foodstuff, so i suppose if you discount Weißbier many are.

US college kids can't go to the pub? the first couple years, yes...but the last couple they can...and since most go to college for 5-6 years (as classes get harder and harder to fight your way into because there's 500 people trying to get one class that's required...with a limit of 30)

Well obviously when they get over the age of 75 they are gonna back off a bit! I suggest getting some younger friends.

I know back in the UK if I am out drinking I have to make sure that I DONT eat 'cos it makes the drinking more difficult. First couple of beers knocks off any eating pangs until they return at around 2am etc.

I think the idea of binge drinking is not common here (well, don't know about the very young ones, but in my age group (30) at least).
I'd say the difference is: here, people go to a pub to chat, drink something and have fun. Whereas bing drinking is: I go to a pub in order to get drunk.
So I'd keep the english word in parentheses and explain what it is, because the whole concepot needs to be explained.

Definitely not just a British thing. Agreeing with Ibherwick and boomtown rat, and being a US college student, I can tell you that we drink a lot. I have a bunch of friends here who are from Sweden and Finland, and they drink a lot, too. I'm not sure how you could possibly say it's just a British thing. Every college in the US (ok, well, besides Brigham Young) drinks. And it wasn't just the last few years. My father went to UMass when it was getting its nickname, ZooMass. I'm not 21 yet, so back home I'm not able to drink at a bar, but there are plenty of ways to get booze: Fake IDs, friends who are 21 or have fake IDs, and, most of all at a lot of colleges, fraternities.

@NOFXMike: That could be the case at some larger schools, but I've heard very few complaints about getting into required classes both at my own school and from friends from home who go to many different colleges. Most of us, though, do go to small or medium sized schools (besides UMass), so perhaps this is a lot more common at larger schools?

@BostenSportsFan: Well, I went to Winona State University...~6,000 students
It's also true at the U of M (main campus as well as Duluth)...Iowa State...University of IL...the list goes on...

Now, if you take an odd major, maybe it's no problem...but with most majors it is.

(and of course I'm not saying we don't start binge drinking til we're legal, fuck no...we usually start the last couple years of HS (at the nearest college town))

But the british and irish are not drinking that piss water you american college kids call beer

and the binge drinking is not limited to college kids living it up away from their parents. go into any town centre pub in Britain these days and you will see hordes of people drinking till they are unconscious.

The German is actually "Kampftrinken" and is considered quite a problem (as a quick Google will show).

Yeah, that's probably the most appropiate translation

However, it's the same average percentage...
Bud is 5%...now look at Augustiner or whatever it is you drink here...
and in college I drank Natural Ice or Colt 45 ...so either 5.9% or 8%
tastes like ass, but if you're binge drinking on a budget...

I really miss college...$3 all-you-can-drink...which also included Schell's dark, which is closest to an alt beer from Duesseldorf, imo. Made in New Ulm, MN...great brewery, they make all the german varieties...and aren't that small.

I was 20 when I graduated from college...

(but I had a fake ID!)

Ah the good old days, ... Everything get lost nowadays.

Nobody but me remember a movie called "Animal House"? So much for binge drinking being "new".

Anyway, "Binge-Trinken" gibt's auch. I think "Kampftrinken" implies a contest, whereas binge drinking is, as stated above, something you can do yourself -- and you're not competing as to who can get drunkest, are you? You're just trying to get massively pissed yourself, right?

http://www.mariaebene.at/admin/web/portal...=39&textID=2180
Yeah it's Austrian, same situation though.

They definitely do this here, it´s called "Der Stiefel":

Thankyou everyone! I have a uni oral exam on friday and need to talk about it for that so having such a choice of words is great, can now impress the lecturers with my wide vocabulary...then as soon as its over, go on a massive saufgelage, hooray!

Kampftrinken might actually work...doesn't imply a contest like Gen suggests. ...Just means you're out and heavily drinking...binge drinking or so ;-)

How anyone can use the adjectives 'German' and 'teetotal' in the same sentence is beyond me. Germany, well Bavaria to be precise, is the first place I've been to where it's socially acceptable to drink beer at 8am. Not a bad place really.

PP

Its also the first place I've been to where they serve beer at the office canteen. And I've seen on occasion my colleagues whip out their beer glasses from their desk just before noon; a team down the hall has lost a bet at the office and brings in a pot of Weisswurst and cases of beer... and a couple of hours later, everyone gets back to work.

Do they do that in the UK? (serious question)

...kai

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...d=1770&ct=5

sad story!

Koma-Saufen/Komasaufen
Edit: Koma-Trinken as well

Bingo!
i dont wanna embed .. coz it might highjack this thread. so.. thr you go..

You have the most unique set of German friends I have ever heard of. I must admit I usually don't drink either, however if the beer is not to my liking in a pub I may resort to drinking alcohol in the form of a gin and tonic, but besides that I don't drink alcohol, I play it safe and stick to beer.


Dude, these day the stiefel is a symbol of restraint and the consumption of them remains at two or below at stammtisches, that is unless of coarse STB isn't their to catch our wild spending and then we go nuts.

Maybe it's an Anglophone phenomenon. Anybody seen the tragic cases of Industrie-clad drunken lot down at Federation Square in Melbourne on a weekend? Not a pretty sight...

You've clearly never been to the Czech Republic.

I agree with zee, Komasaufen is as close as it gets.
I recommend a book my brother gave me for Christmas, "Alcoholica Esoterica". It is an extremely well-written and informative treatise on not only the history of alcohol itself but also its use and abuse through the ages. And believe me, the Brits and their affiliates have been serious drinkers ever since the Roman invasion, according to the author.

@ Owain: You haven't met my younger brother yet? This is the guy who drinks a Maß of Spezi at the Wiesn.

it happens all the time link

It came to light that the guy from Stoke drank a cocktail through the nostrils of a pig’s head <insert vomit smiley>

A good expression I've seen a few times now is "trinken bis der Artzt kommt". Sadly that didn't happen for the British guy.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/artikel/370/105265/

Funny that in Britain 24 hour licensing was introduced in order to make people have a more 'continental' approach to drinking. Hasn't quite worked I don't think. You need to change people's attitudes and not the licensing.

I think it's strange that some people don't drink anything throughout the week and then go wild at the weekend. Why can you not just drink a glass of wine or beer with your dinner and then put the bottle back for the next day.

Also as long as people still think 'a good night out' is only good when they can't remember any of it due to 'Komasaufen', things won't change.

According to a programme that I watched on telly the other night drinking more than four pints as a man or more than three pints as a woman is considered to be binge drinking. Cheers!

Even though I adore Bavarian beer and constant access to inexpensive but good-quality wine, I've found I drink LESS here than I did in the States. I drink more often, but far less any given evening.

States: Happy Hour with co-workers/classmates or go out weekend nights. Get drunk several times a month.
Here: Drink small glass of wine (125 mL) or beer (200-300 mL) with dinner pretty much every night outside of Lent. Very rarely get drunk.

Now, that might have as much to do with the fact that I'm in my late 20's now and was in my early 20's then, but I think the drinking culture is a bit saner over here. No one is offended if you drink a small amount at mealtime, but drunkenness is considered more embarrassing among 20-somethings.

And for the record, my German boyfriend, a slightly religious 30-something from up north, has been a lifelong tee-totaller. When he was 15 and 16, he saw a relative slowly die from complications related to alcoholism, and decided it just wasn't worth it to find out if he was an alcoholic himself. He watches me drink without worry now (he was annoying about it at first), but has no desire to try it himself. And at this point in his life, I wouldn't encourage him to, either.

Quartalsaufen is another expression used for binge drinking. Or just Besäufnis.

One more reason not to watch TV. They seem to have forgotten about weight.

There's no such phenomenon here because, well, pubs weren't forced to close at an unreasonably early hour because the country refused to rescind an unnecessary wartime law meant to keep the punters sober during the day.

Germany does have a corollary, however, and it's even worse: Sitzfleisch. Groups of Germans will order a single drink (generally the cheapest thing possible, with at least one group member who only wants tap water with refills every 20 minutes) and sit at a table designed to seat three times that many people and will sit there for the next three to five hours nursing their drinks. Only a couple weeks ago one such group of three sat at the 12-person table at 9:30p.m., had the one round, and had to be directly told to get the fuck out at quarter to 2 so we could catch our S-Bahn.

woof.

Because alcohol is a drug, people don't always drink because they particularly like it but rather to acheive the desired effect: drunkness. Same reason people smoke pot or snort cocain, they enjoy it.

I'm not really one to get fall down drunk but I like a little buzz, it gets people to open up in ways they don't normally dare, it stimulates conversation and it makes boring people more interesting.

MEMO: Germans do binge drink.

Case in point, today was my boyfriend's mechanics exam at the TU...so he and about 15 other Germans are now headed to a mate's place to drink "until we pass out".

Lucky bastards.

This calls for a picture: not aimed at you ER obviously!

I'd go for 'Komasaufen'.