What does the word “ja” mean in the sentence “Ich komme ja schon?” How can “halt” and “eigentlich” be translated into other languages? Modal particles make the German language sound more authentic and its speakers seem polite or impolite.

Generations of German teachers and German scholars have been saying “Eigentlich kann eigentlich immer gestrichen werden” (Actually, the word actually can always be left out). “Eigentlich”, “ja”, “denn”, “doch” and “wohl” have long been considered superfluous and unattractive fillers. They were categorised as “little words”, a subcategory of the lexical category of particles, and research paid little attention to them until 1969 when Harald Weydt published a first academic study entitled Abtönungspartikel on the significance and function of such words, thereby prompting a real “particle boom” in the research.

Weydt observed that a ja, denn or doch quite considerably determines whether we perceive a sentence to be friendly or unfriendly, polite or impolite, because it underlines the speaker’s intention in a statement. If you want to get to know someone you do not know at a party, you could ask them “Wie heisst du denn?” (What’s your name, then?). Without the “denn” the question “Wie heisst du?” (What’s your name) might be perceived as more unfriendly in its directness and might be associated with a police interrogation. Conversely, the little word denn can also emphasize unfriendliness too, and a reproach, as in the sentence “Was hast DU denn wieder gemacht?” (What have you been up to again then?). Experiments showed that six to eight-year-old children are already able to recognise this difference and that dialogues without particles are felt to be unauthentic, un-German or wooden.

“Sentences are easily understood without particles. But the particles give them a certain tone, a shade of meaning – they take on a more subtle meaning,” says Harald Weydt, who is meanwhile a retired linguistics professor, in explanation of why as a doctoral student, he decided on the term “Abtönungspartikel”, which is now the generally established term in linguistics alongside the term “Modalpartikel”. According to Weydt, such words are quite out of place in mathematics books or legal texts, which are about facts and objective presentations. However, wherever there are lively dialogues, wherever intentions are presented and the aim is to persuade other people, modal particles are part of the German language.

Modal particles are also to be found in other languages, for example Scandinavian languages, Dutch, Ancient Greek, Guaraní and in the language of the White Mountain Apaches. However, because they are less common in these languages and in many other languages they do not exist at all, Weydt refers to modal particles as a typically German phenomenon.

That does not mean that German is more polite than other language, however, since modal particles are only one way of giving linguistic expression to politeness. For example “Könntest du mir bitte das Salz geben?” (Could you please pass the salt?) sounds more polite than “Gib mir das Salz!” (Pass me the salt!) even without a modal particle because it uses the magic word bitte, the subjunctive and the question form. English and French also use such strategies to express politeness with “Could you please” or “S’il vous plaît”, while Japanese, for example, has special verb forms to express politeness.

Anyone wanting to translate sentences like “Das habe ich doch gleich gesagt!” (I told you so) or “Was ist denn das?” (What’s that?) into another language, usually looks in vain for a literal equivalent. “We should not ask what means can be used to translate German modal particles into French or Spanish,” says Weydt. “We do not translate particles, just as we do not translate genitives. We translate texts!” For this reason, Weydt does not believe that translators can draw any benefit from linguistic research on particles – in contrast to people wishing to learn German as a foreign language and the teachers who help them to do so.

While words such as “grün” (green), “laufen” (walk), or “Pferd” (horse) have a direct equivalent in non-verbal reality, modal particles only develop their meaning within the sentence. As a linguistics scholar, Weydt sees a fascinating challenge in researching them even today. Although their lack of a direct equivalent in non-verbal reality also makes it more difficult for non-native speakers to learn them, he encourages teachers of German as a foreign language to make them the subject of instruction. Texts containing modal particles should be used with beginners. Later, a good textbook should be used to deal with them. If you take a systematic approach to their use, modal particles are not that hard to learn. And the benefit is not to be underestimated. If you use modal particles, you no longer speak in a strange, “un-German” and stilted way. Native speakers appreciate that, even if they cannot explain the meaning of modal particles themselves.