Schadenfreude

Learned something new today:

Strangely enough I learned a new English word from my new Swiss friends. They recently attended English school and find the English language to be quite confusing at times. They asked me if I had ever heard the word schadenfreude. I had not.

Schadenfreude – a feeling of pleasure that you get when something bad happens to someone else.

Schadenfreude is a German word that was never translated into English as we do not use this word in our vocabulary. They find this to be very strange and wonder if perhaps the Germans experience schadenfreude more often than the English.

Stevo says “He feels schadenfreude daily” but I don’t believe him as the Swiss are the sweetest people I have ever met. : )

I tried my best to think of an English word that describes schadenfreude but the closest I could come to is gloat, which is not quite the same.

Gloat – to show in an annoying way that you are proud of your own success or happy about someone else’s failure.

If any one out there know of an English word that more closely describes schadenfreude, please let us know.