/aʊ̯f deːm ʃlaʊ̯x ˈʃteːən/ lit. ‘stand on the hose’
German idiom, colloquial. To be stuck and unable to work something out.
Draft Not yet checked by a native German speaker.
How do people use Auf dem Schlauch stehen
?
Colloquial and friendly, often said about yourself to admit you’re not getting something: “Ich stehe gerade total auf dem Schlauch.” It’s for a momentary blank, a joke or a hint you don’t get, more than a hard problem you work at for days. In the south, Austria and Switzerland the perfect is often “ich bin auf dem Schlauch gestanden”; further north it’s “ich habe ... gestanden”.
Also said auf der Leitung stehen
Auf dem Schlauch stehen
in real sentences
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Manchmal stehe ich auf dem Schlauch.
Sometimes I’m just slow on the uptake.
Tatoeba, sentence by tarsier, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Auf dem Schlauch stehen
come from?
Neither German nor English Wiktionary gives an origin or date. The picture most people read into it is a garden hose: stand on it and the water stops, just as your thoughts stop flowing, but that’s an interpretation rather than a documented history. Austrian “auf der Leitung stehen” (stand on the line) uses the same idea with a pipe or cable.
Mistakes learners make with Auf dem Schlauch stehen
Saying “auf den Schlauch” (accusative): you’re standing still on it, so it’s dative, “auf dem Schlauch”. With “treten” (step onto) you’d use the accusative, but that’s a different, literal sentence.
Other German idioms like Auf dem Schlauch stehen
Spot a mistake in Auf dem Schlauch stehen
?
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