For anyone curious, Guten Gesundheit roughly translates to 'good health' from what I remember.
Guten means 'good' and is implied to be dropped with this expression, so saying Gesundheit is telling the person 'health', essentially wishing them well.
From a quick search this actually isn't the expression used in Germany, it's a New World quirk of borrowed words and expressions, likely tied to various German immigrants and cross cultural evolution of language.
Thanks for the confirmation! I took two years of German twenty five years ago (yeesh lol) and barely remember much.
But growing up Gesundheit was the common expression for sneezing; my parents used it, much more so father. I think it's partly regional (US Midwest) but my dad's side of the family is descended from German immigrants who came over in, I think, the mid or early 1800s.
There were a lot of German settlers across the US at various points so I chalk it up up the melting pot that is US culture vernacular.
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u/Dry-Donut3811 6h ago
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that word spelled out, so I legit had no clue what I was reading.