tja.
well, hmm
Meaning & usage
well, hmm
Was schlägst du vor? — Tja, ich schlage vor, dass wir ins Kino gehen.
Used to express acceptance of one's misfortune; oh well, welp
Tja! Das war wohl nichts...
Used as an unsympathetic response to someone else's misfortune, implying it was predictable or is otherwise simply to be accepted; tough luck
Tja, wenn er will, dass ich mich darum kümmere, dann hätte er sich rechtzeitig bei mir melden müssen.
Tja, dann hat sie eben Pech gehabt.
Where this word comes from
Probably from an onomatopoeia for clicking one’s tongue, which is used with the same meaning. Perhaps also a variant of ja (“yes”). Similar expressions are found in nearby Germanic languages and in Finnish, suggesting an areal feature.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.