{"id":93349,"date":"2023-06-16T15:12:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T19:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/learn\/german-memes\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T04:57:31","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T09:57:31","slug":"german-memes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/german\/german-memes\/","title":{"rendered":"German Memes: 6 Best Places to Find Them Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learning and understanding humor<\/a> is one of the hardest parts of learning a new language and culture. German memes are a great way to find your German funny bone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trouble is, they can be a little hard to find.<\/p>\n

Hab keine Angst!<\/em> I\u2019ve tracked down some great resources to get your meme fix\u2026 in Deutsch.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

[fluentu-toc]\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Where to Find German Memes<\/h2>\n

Deutsche Memes <\/em>(German Memes)<\/a><\/h3>\n

This Facebook page and Instagram account<\/a> is seemingly no longer updated, but they are treasure troves of German memes. Run by the user Unh\u00f6flich<\/em> (rude), these memes take images from pop culture and beyond and relate them to everyday experiences. The results are hilarious!<\/p>\n

Example\u00a0meme from this resource:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"german<\/a><\/p>\n

Taken from\u00a0Deutsche Memes’<\/em> Instagram account, the above meme depicts Lindsay Lohan distraught on the phone. In the late 2010s, Lindsay Lohan was known for her public breakdowns that effectively destroyed her once successful acting and singing career.<\/p>\n

The German writing overhead says,\u00a0“Wenn deine Eltern dich zwingen, deine eigenen Arzttermine und ‘Erwachsenen-Anrufe’ zu machen” <\/em>(When your parents force you to make your own doctor’s appointments and “adult calls”).<\/p>\n

Pure gold!<\/p>\n

German Memes on Pinterest<\/a><\/h3>\n

I would argue Pinterest is your best bet for finding German memes, since it’s a huge collection of categorized memes that you can search for by keyword. I searched for “German memes” and dozens of options came up, including the linked example\u00a0below.<\/p>\n

Example\u00a0meme from this resource:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"german<\/a><\/p>\n

One funny\u00a0example<\/a> includes a frog lying on its back looking cozy, using lily pads\u00a0and surrounding foliage like a lounge chair. The meme says,\u00a0“Mir reicht, wenn ich wei\u00df, dass ich k\u00f6nnte, wenn ich wollte,”<\/em> which translates to “It’s enough for me when I know that I could if I wanted to.”<\/p>\n

Another translation for Mir reicht (es) <\/em>is “I’ve had enough,” which still works well in the statement, but it’s important to hone in on the context to not only make the statement funnier, but to understand it better. This is a wonderful example of the German subjunctive mood<\/a>, focusing on the past tense.<\/p>\n

r\/ich_iel<\/em> on Reddit<\/a><\/h3>\n

r\/ich_iel<\/em> is a subreddit that posts many memes in German. In fact, it’s the German version of the r\/me_irl subreddit<\/a>. As with all subreddits on Reddit, you can sort the posts by “Hot” (posts that are getting lots of interactions), “New” (the newest posts) or “Top” (posts that have the most upvotes).<\/p>\n

The memes are posted by the subreddit’s moderators and also by other subreddit members. That means that there is a constant stream of memes being added pretty much daily. It also means that you can create and post your own memes if you’d like.<\/p>\n

Example\u00a0meme from this resource:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"german<\/a><\/p>\n

The above meme is meant to be read from the top down. In the first section, there is a traffic sign and a sentence describing what this sign is supposed to mean: “Immer diese komischen Schilder am Stra\u00dfenrand ‘Vorsicht Kinder!'”\u00a0<\/em>(Always these funny signs on the roadside saying “Caution, children!”)<\/p>\n

The next image shows a vespa and says,\u00a0“Als ob ich vor denen Angst habe!”\u00a0<\/em>(As if I’m afraid of them!) This meme is presumably a commentary on vespa riders and how they supposedly don’t follow traffic rules in Germany.<\/p>\n

Memes uff Schw\u00e4bisch<\/a><\/em><\/h3>\n

A Facebook group serves as a solid way to see an ongoing collection of posts, and this one focuses on students and younger people in the Schw\u00e4bisch<\/em> town in Germany. Keep in mind that many of them are a little vulgar.<\/p>\n

Schw\u00e4bisch<\/em> is also considered a dialect of High German<\/a>, so the memes might be a little tricky to decipher, but they provide a nice look into a whole different way to speak German.<\/p>\n

Example\u00a0meme from this resource:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"german<\/a><\/p>\n

Dogs make memes more interesting, so one meme stands out on this site<\/a>,\u00a0which everyone can relate to. It shows a dog looking as if he’s sitting and using a computer.<\/p>\n

The dog says, “Windows 10? I benutz emmer no XP,”<\/em> which has a rough translation to “Windows 10? I’m still using XP.” In terms of cultural significance, the meme shows that Germans are rather tech and business oriented, bashing companies like Microsoft and Apple.<\/p>\n

A Google Images Meme Search<\/a><\/h3>\n

Another unlimited meme searcher, the German Google Image Search, brings up plenty of memes based on categories if you click on the titles at the top of your search. Just a quick search revealed that they have categories for Spongebob, Merkel and other funny memes.<\/p>\n

Example\u00a0meme from this resource:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"spongebob<\/a><\/p>\n

Some statements don’t sound too funny until you put them on SpongeBob’s face (or Spongebob <\/em>Schwammkopf<\/em>, <\/em>as he’s known in the German-speaking world). In this meme from Google Images<\/a>, we see Spongebob in bed dramatically clutching his foghorn alarm, utter anguish in his eyes. The captions reads: “Dieser Moment, wenn dein Wecker klingelt, w\u00e4hrend du einen sch\u00f6nen Traum hattest.”<\/em> (The moment when your alarm goes off while you were having a nice dream.) Some quotidian struggles are clearly universal, it seems.<\/p>\n

Google Images works well for beginners and intermediate learners, seeing as how the caption in this meme gives a good example of how verbs behave in sentences. Here we see how a word like w\u00e4hrend<\/em> can be used as a subordinating conjunction, which means it pushes the verb hattest <\/em>to the end of the clause.<\/p>\n

Memes auf Deutsch <\/em>(Memes in German)<\/a><\/h3>\n

This Facebook page seems to be active recently, so here’s hoping that new memes are added soon! In case they aren’t, this page is still a pretty big archive of memes in German.<\/p>\n

Run by administrator Sei Peruanisch\u00a0<\/em>(Be Peruvian), these memes draw on pop culture icons such as Spongebob SquarePants, the Simpsons and Mr. Bean. They also have an international flavor, sometimes commenting on Peruvian and other cultures.<\/p>\n

Example\u00a0meme from this resource:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"german<\/a><\/p>\n

The above meme shows a baby with her eyes closed and her hands in the air. The German reads,\u00a0“Wenn du betrunken im Club bist und dein Song kommt”\u00a0<\/em>(When you’re drunk in the club and your song comes on).<\/p>\n

While this meme is hilarious in German, its content also mirrors memes in other languages such as English. In fact, that’s the great thing about learning with German memes: sometimes you may already know their structure or what the words are supposed to say. This makes understanding them easier!<\/p>\n

Since memes are a huge part of German pop culture, you can understand them better by consuming other authentic German media too, like\u00a0TV shows<\/a> (especially comedies), German music<\/a> and even the news<\/a> (political cartoons can be a great place to start).\u00a0<\/p>\n

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