Word of the Day 6 - washing-up

Hi everyone ,

after we've discussed "tough stuff"  in the morning, today's German word of the day won't be much easier or softer.. :) cause this time we will look at the meaning of the word:

der Abwasch (pron.: up_vush)

Der Abwasch,or more precisely tackling den Abwasch is something only a few people seem to enjoy.  It has caused many many fights in households all around the world and even the introduction of the dishwasher could not settle the ever simmering conflict. Sure, people don’t need to do the dishes with their own hands anymore but the dishwasher needs to be loaded and unloaded…

The word Abwasch is the corresponding noun to the verb abwaschen, which  contains the basic verb waschen. Waschen means to wash and you do it to whatever is dirty – cars, dogs, yourself, parts of yourself, dishes, clothes and also to your pile of drug money so waschen also means to launder.
Waschen is one of the verbs with the upwards change so it is

• Ich wasche meine Haare. 
  
  
• Du wäschst deine Hände.
• Er wäscht sein Drogengeld.

The ge-form is gewaschen and  it goes with to have. The real past form would be wusch but it would be really odd if a mom asked her child upon serving the diner:

• Wuschest du dir die Hände?
• Hast du dir die Hände gewaschen?

The second one is the way people talk, but go ahead and try the first one with your German friends. You will sure get some laughs.

Waschen does not come with too many different prefixes. There is  wegwaschen, auswaschen, mitwaschen, reinwaschen, durchwaschen,  weißwaschen, verwaschen and … abwaschen. You think that is already a lot? Well take a look at how many there are for gehen if you have a week off.

The preposition ab usually means something like off of something so abwaschen can be used whenever you wash something of some surface as for example of a plate, a wall or a face.

• Die Mutter wäscht dem Kind das Gesicht.
• Die Mutter wäscht dem Kind den Schmutz vom Gesicht ab.

In the first sentence, the mom is washing or cleaning the kids face while in the second sentence she removes the dirt off the kid’s face.

The main meaning of abwaschen is to do the dishes and it stands alone so the sentence:

• Ich muss abwaschen.
  

is perfectly clear… you have to do the dishes. Now what exactly is der Abwasch? It is not the process of doing the dishes as this would be das Abwaschen. According to Pons and leo Der Abwasch translates to the washing-up. Me personally I perceive it more like the pile of dirty dishes than the action of cleaning them. You might find a sentence like this in a book.

• In der Küche stand der Abwasch von einer Woche.

That means that the dirty dishes  of one whole week were sitting in the kitchen.
Now if there is Abwasch in the kitchen, what exactly do we do with it in German?
We DO it. So we don’t say clean, wash or handle, we say machen. If your Abwasch is really big you could also ‘take care of it’.

• Keine Angst, ich kümmere mich um den Abwasch.

That would maybe make you sound more heroic but the most common phrasing works with machen.

• Mein Freund macht nie den Abwasch. = Mein Freund wäscht nie ab.
• Ich muss noch den Abwasch machen. = Ich muss noch abwaschen.

The grammar of Abwasch is really simple as there is no plural. Your Abwasch just becomes bigger if you add more but its always one and it is always definite.Abwasch doesn’t get any extra letters in case 3 and 4 and for the gernder… well of course it is masculine. Because it is us men who have been doing it for centur…. ok I guess I should stop here.

Now if you really hate doing dishes and you want to know how the machine is called that takes care of the Abwasch for you… it is die Geschirrspülmaschine. Too long?? Well then grab a sponge and the detergent and do it the old fashioned way :).

That's it for now, stay tuned, stay positive, do the washing up and don't forget to have fun, 

Take care,
Bryvus