Someone is "easy on the eyes"

Is there a German equivalent to

"easy on the eyes"

thanks.

Does it mean nice to look at? If so, germans would probably say: someone is "nett anzuschaun"

Augenschmaus

Augenpulver hehe

Easy on the Eyes..

-A Compliment.
-Phrase meaning someone or something is good to look at it.
-Not painful to look at because its some-what decent looking and figuratively won't "blind" you if you see it.
-When used towards a person, can be applied to either male or female.

sounds a little oldfashioned. Means a feast for the eyes. That is to my understanding "exceptionally beautiful". Whereas "easy on the eyes" sounds more like "not completely ugly" to me.

"easy on the eyes" is also a bit old fashioned. perhaps 1950s or 60s.

is "Augenschmaus" old (as in 50s 60s) or old as in 18th century?

Hammer geil?

Nah - that's OTT.

Really? I was wondering why going up to girls in bars and saying "du bist echt hammer geil!" wasn't working...

Still better than calling them a "rattenscharfes Luder"

In Baden-Württemberg, that would be "Er/Sie sieht nicht schlecht aus."
For the rest of Germany, I don't know.

I can see that, though I think "easy on the eyes" is usually used as an understatement. If somebody said, "she's easy on the eyes" I'd assume that she was pretty darn good-looking.

So if I told a pretty american or british girl that she is "easy on the eyes", she would take it as a compliment?


Im not sure about the origins of the word. For me (as a german) it sounds like a clumsy (or maybe ironic) attempt to being poetic. Did a little googling on "Augenschmaus". Seems still to get used, but not so much in relation with a real person. I think at any given time you would probably have recieved weird looks, if calling someone an "Augenschmaus".

Anyway, I´d still go with "Er/Sie ist nett anzuschaun".

I just learned the term Augenschmaus on Friday, actually. It was used by a 29 year old German male in reference to a very attractive woman. I'm not sure that that's representative of its proper use though!

That German male was Bavarian, I assume?

From the Duden:

Au|gen|schmaus, der (scherzh.): besonders erfreulicher Anblick: das bunte Fastnachtstreiben war ein rechter A.

btw "(scherzh.)" means jokingly, playful

Freising:

not sure about British girls .. but yes, if you said it to an American woman it would be taken as a compliment. The proper usage would be something like this:

"now *you* are easy on the eyes"

it's a classy, somewhat old school compliment

You'd use it more when talking about someone. If you said it directly to someone, it could be taken as 'you're OK, but nothing special'. When used about someone, it's a low-key way of saying they're attractive.

@Ruby:
in that case "nett anzuschaun" is maybe a little to weak. A german girl might not grasp or enjoy the understatement.

I think it's used more to describe a person than as an actual compliment to somebody. And to be honest, I wouldn't find it a particularly "classy" one.

Edit: As STB wrote above.

It is often tricky to determine which compliments, pick up lines etc. one would find "classy".
It's a mix of so many factors - taste, background, age etc. etc.

Correct.

That's exactly why I didn't state categorically that "it's a classy (...) compliment" but said how I felt about it.

Maybe you could say "er/sie ist ein Hingucker"? (he/she is a "looker")

One of the German native speakers on TT will hopefully be able to confirm whether you could say this.