Bedenkzeit. Time to think it over. A German negotiating and mediating convention: a party may ask for it, and asking is not read as weakness or delay. The request is granted as a matter of course, and often proposed by the mediator.
words
The skilled worker
Skilled worker — a formal status, not a description. It follows completion of the dual training and the chamber examination, and it appears on pay scales and job adverts as a qualification. German has a word that distinguishes a worker who has been certified in a trade from one who has not, and the distinction has consequences.
At eye level
At eye level. The German phrase for a relationship between parties of equal standing, and the standard description of how a negotiation ought to be conducted. It is a physical claim about posture. Neither party is looking up or down.
24/7 support
American companies advertise round-the-clock availability as a product feature, with the hours stated on the packaging and in the comparison table. Responsiveness is specified in the same place as the technical figures.
Judgment call
An American phrase for a decision that the rules do not settle, and it is used without apology. That was a judgment call is offered as a complete explanation, and in American usage it usually is one.
The prescribed periods
Fristen. German procedure runs on prescribed periods — to respond, to object, to appeal — and they are counted in weeks. The clock is generous and it is strict. Nobody is asked to reply immediately, and nobody is permitted to reply late.
The vocabulary of the boundary
Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps — duty is duty and schnapps is schnapps. Two things, not to be mixed.
Nach Feierabend — after the working day, used as a time of day in its own right.
Urlaubsanspruch — holiday claim. Not an allowance or an entitlement in the soft sense. A claim, in the legal meaning, enforceable.
Abschalten — to switch off. What a German is expected to do at the end of the day, and the metaphor is electrical.
Don’t get personal
Don’t get personal. Said when a discussion has left the matter and started to be about the people in the room.
It is not a plea for politeness. In German usage it is a correction — you have stopped talking about the problem, and you need to go back.
The matter-book
German splits books into Belletristik and Sachbuch. Fine writing, and matter-book.
English calls the second category non-fiction — defined by what it is not. German names it for what it contains.
Due care
Sorgfalt — care, diligence. German liability turns on whether the required care was exercised in the conduct of the work. A person who followed proper procedure and still caused harm stands differently in German law from one who caused none but skipped it.