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Bold Realizations!: Fräulein, please

Prior to, oh, this week, I thought that if you wanted to call someone “girl” (e.g. “GIRL” or “…girl”) in German, you’d say Fräulein. And this was really exciting for me, you know? To have the capacity to say “girl” in German (I know, you guys—I’m dreaming big).

It turns out, however, that “Fräulein” is an outdated, old fashioned word that means not “girl” or “GIRL,” but “young, unmarried woman.” Sort of like “mademoiselle” in French, I guess. Or like “барышня” (barishnya) in Russian, which means “young, unmarried woman,” but which nobody uses anymore. Except that French has ”fille” and Russian has “девушка” (dyevushka). What does German have? “Mädchen?” That means maiden. Which, you know, is fine. But I don’t want to say maiden. I just want to supportively call other girls “GIRL” auf Deutsch.

The German language has a word for everything. I can’t believe they’d fail me now, girl. I just can’t.