Durchleuchten — to illuminate through, to x-ray something.
Auf Herz und Nieren prüfen — to examine heart and kidneys, from the biblical phrase, meaning to test exhaustively.
Unter die Lupe nehmen — to take under the magnifying glass.
Abklopfen — to knock against, the way you test a wall for cavities behind it.
Four ordinary German expressions for examination, and every one of them is physical.
Emotionale Erpressung. Emotional blackmail. A German term applied to a negotiator who invokes the relationship, the history, or personal difficulty in order to move a position. The word names it as coercion rather than as persuasion.
The service path. The German term for the prescribed sequence through which a matter travels upward. Going around it — am Dienstweg vorbei — is itself a breach, separate from whatever the underlying complaint was.
To be vom Fach. Of the subject.
Said of someone who genuinely knows the field, as distinct from someone who has an opinion about it. Er ist vom Fach ends an argument.
There is no comfortable English equivalent. “He knows his stuff” is about the person. Vom Fach is about belonging to a body of knowledge.
Belonging-to-the-company. A single German noun for length of service, and it carries legal weight in notice periods, redundancy selection, severance calculations and pension entitlements. The word is not about time elapsed. It is about belonging, and the law treats the belonging as something that accrues.
The German phrase is die Entscheidungsgrundlage — the basis for the decision. It is spoken of as a thing that either exists or does not. Uns fehlt noch die Entscheidungsgrundlage — we still lack the basis for the decision — halts a German meeting, and nobody treats it as obstruction.
That’s Mike’s project. She owns the redesign. He built that. Her numbers. American workplace speech attaches work to a named person as a matter of routine, in praise and in criticism alike. The attribution is automatic, and it runs both ways.
Sparen means both to save money and to economise on anything. German appliances have Sparprogramme, cars have Spritsparen, buildings have Energiesparen. One verb covers thrift and efficiency, and Germans use it for both without noticing the join.
Buffer time. German project planning builds slack into the schedule itself, allocated to specific stages and carried in the plan. It is not contingency held to one side. It is time that was planned, for events that were not.
Der Wissensträger — the knowledge carrier. A German term for the person in whom a body of expertise sits.
Wissen ist Macht — knowledge is power, said in German with no irony and no particular objection.
The team’s knowledge is spoken of as something held, carried and accumulated, rather than as something that circulates.