2023-05-17 15:30:14
Why do I need to know air upward?
Because this commonly used saying is always helpful in situations when you’re being evaluated, or want to critique someone else’s performance. It can also be a relatively gentle way of offering criticism to a friend or family member.
What does it mean?
Quite literally, the phrase air upward means “air up above”, but it can be best translated with the English phrase, “room for improvement” or “room to manoeuvre”.
The image of having air above you kind of functions in the opposite way to the proverbial glass ceiling: it means there’s nothing stopping you for upping your game and plenty of potential (or room) for growth.
In that sense, even though “room for improvement” may mean you’re not quite hitting the mark just yet, the phrase air upward frames it in a fairly positive way, as an opportunity to do even better.
Incidentally, air upward is just one of many popular German phrases that use air as a helpful analogy. If you want to tell someone “the coast is clear”, in Germany you’d say the air is clear (literally: the air is pure). Or if a friend seems to be making up facts and figures to try and win a debate yet again, you can ask them sarcastically if these “facts” are “aus der Luft gegriffen” (plucked out of thin air).
READ ALSO: German word of the day: Der Luftmensch
Use it like this:
Good performance, but I think there is still room for improvement.
Good effort, but I think there’s still room for improvement.
We are proud of what we have created, but we recognize that there is still room for improvement.
We are proud of what we have created, but we recognise that there is still room for improvement.
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