Fremdscham (German)

Embarrassment felt on behalf of someone else (often someone so ignorant to what they have done that they don’t know that they should be embarrassed for themselves); vicarious embarrassment.

Word donated by Glenn

  • Posted by Jan

    Nice one! “die Fremdscham” is the noun describing the phenomenon, and “das Fremdschämen” describes the process of being ashamed for sb., and there is also “sich fremdschämen”, a reflexive verb, which perfectly conveys that the shame felt falls back on oneself and is felt for the other person by the guy who is shamed for the other one….

  • Posted by Glenn Jericho

    Jan-

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in the reflexive before, although it would have been a more precise phrase to have used in the context I was first exposed to the word. Very interesting!

    Do you know if it’s a divisible verb? Not being a native speaker, both “Ich schäme mich fremd” and “Ich fremdschäme mich” sound slightly ridiculous to me ;)

  • Posted by Mariana

    In spanish, we say “pena ajena”

  • Posted by Mirthe

    In Dutch, we call it ‘plaatsvervangende schaamte’.

  • Posted by SD

    Glenn, it is indeed a divisible verb:
    “Ich schäme mich fremd”
    But I think at least the verb can be translated in an understandable way – English speakers would certainly understand “I am ashamed for someone else.”

  • Posted by Archlurps

    Funny how the best known German untranslatable word (to English) is Schadenfreude, and here we have another actually useful psychology-related untranslatable German word.

    There is a Finnish equivalent to this too, by the way, “myötähäpeä”. Seems to be a translation from the German, though, as it’s a compound word that literally means something like “sympathetic shame”.

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