Does anyone speak German?

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I am travelling to Austria to do a short internship, it is the first time I have done something like this and have the feeling it may be useful to come out with my issues at somepoint, or at least I would like to know what words to use.

I understand that most people understand a good amount of English, but words that describe learning/menta/neurological idiosyncrasies are surely fairly specialist and I am thinking people would not understand if I use terms like Aspergers.

So can any of you give me a little vocabulary to describe the following. I will not necessarily be talking about any of these, would just like to know the relevant terms.

Autism / Aspergers

ADD / ADHD

Narcolepsy

Visual Stress / Meares Irlen Syndrome ( which makes it extremely difficult for me to read more than a couple paragraphs of text at a time )

Delayed Thought Processing

Dyspraxia

Hand Tremors

Motion Sickness

Generally speaking, medical names are the same or almost the same, should not be an issue. And I think that Aspergers was named after the Austrian dr Asperger, so.... You know... Same...
Otherwise, you can always google these things, they are not hard to find.

I know German but not the words to describe what you want. Autism would still be Autism I believe as it is a name of a disorder. Hans Asperger was also Austrian so there would be no change there. Meares Irlen Syndrome should be called the same thing. Hope that helped a little.

Try asking on a German-language board. Or use Google Translate. Can't be hard.

That said, the Austrians have an Alemannic dialect which is not simple High German.

Apparently "motion sickness" is Reisekrankheit in German.

"Delayed thought processing" is Verzögert dachte Verarbeitung.

Let me try:

Autism / Aspergers = Autismus / Asperger(-syndrom).
ADD / ADHD = "Aufmerksamkeitsdefizitstörung /Hyperaktivitätsstörung (ADHS)", "Aufmerksamkeitsdefizitsyndrom /Hyperaktivitätssyndrom" or simply "Hyperkinetische Störung (HKS)". You can use ADHS or HKS as well.

Narcolepsy = "Narkolepsie","Schlafkrankheit", "Schlummersucht" or "Sidd'sches Syndrom".

I believe, you can just say "Meares Irlen Syndrom", for visual stress, but I'm not 100% sure people will know what it is.

Delayed thought processing = "Denkstörung" ("thought disorder") or "Verzögert dachte Verarbeitung".
Dyspraxia = "Dyspraxie".
Hand Tremors = "Hand Tremor" (or "Hand zittern", though the first one should be more correct).

Motion Sickness = "Reisekrankheit", "Bewegungskrankheit" or "Kinetose". There's also words for seasickness and etc., but the above should describe it like when driving a car.


I hope I could help you .

Since two guys said that, I assume it's from google translate (it's quite wrong though). I don't know if there is an official term for it (not even sure I understand what it means), but a better translation would be "verzögerte Gedankenverarbeitung" (which sounds a bit technical and weird) or maybe just "langsamer Denkprozess" (more natural, could imagine saying that in a conversation). It really depends whether you're looking for medical terms or something you would use in conversation. E.g. "Tremor" is the medical term in german as well, but unless you're a medical professional, you'd say "ich habe zittrige Hände" (or something like that). Motion sickness might be "Reisekrankheit", but you'd probably just say "mir ist übel" (you wouldn't say "ich habe Reisekrankheit").

I think the general idea is that the OP wants to be understood, not to speak as though he is fluent in Hochdeutsch, because he ain't.

Last edited by Tequila on 02 Jul 2013, 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In that case, he should probably avoid using words like "tremor" and "dyspraxia" because many people will have no idea what he's talking about. Instead explain how it affects what he can or can't do. All of this depends on the company as well, to be honest, e.g. if they're aware of those issues in general or if he's trying to pass as NT.

Thanks for the replies.

Like I said, I am not planning to say anything unless I really have to.