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this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2025
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Doch, from German and its main use is expresseing a positive statement in opposition to a prior negative one. For pronunciation, use Wiktionary.
So if you say: "you can't win the game by cheating" and I say "Doch!" I express "yes I can!". But neatly in one single word with one syllable, which is why it's often used by children as single counter to something their parents say.
I mean technically this exists to an extent in English. "You can't touch this!" - "I can too." (Every word is stressed). Or endless sandbox arguments along the lines of "Not!" - "Too!" - "Not!" - "Too!" - "Not!" - you get the idea. It's more pronounced as a concept in Germanic languages that haven't strayed as far away as English has but they still have it.
I wonder about this sometimes because you can append "huh" to an English affirmative to make it into that meaning, as in "yes-huh". The questions I've been asking myself is whether such a phrase is one word or two. Is it the same word as "yes"? But even still, it's not allowed to be used by anyone wishing to appear mature or professional, so it doesn't exist in every lect of English, which I suppose makes it less of an "English" word as such.
Swedish has the word "jo" which means the same as "doch" here, but it's different in that it doesn't also mean "but". I feel like it's most often followed up by a clarification of the supposed truth rather than left as a single word. Picturing it by itself has me feeling frustrated like the speaker is only answering as shortly as possible and otherwise ignoring me.
Interesting, thanks for your perspective!
I would say if you only say Doch! as answer in German, it's more kind of a stubborn, planting your feet in the ground, "come at me" response instead of ignoring.