Asiatischer Vater beim strengen Elterngespräch

What does “durchfallen” mean in German?

Durchfallen means to fail an exam — but the literal picture is “to fall through,” like slipping through the cracks of a floor. German builds the idea right into the verb: you didn’t just fail, you fell through the system’s net. (For repeating a school year there’s a separate word, sitzenbleiben.) The past participle durchgefallen works the same way, and neither form takes a direct object — you fall through bei the test, not the test.

In the clip a teacher delivers the news directly: “Jun wird auf jeden Fall durchfallen” — Jun will definitely fail. The stakes are made concrete by the grades: only fünfen (5s) and sechsen (6s), Germany’s two failing marks on the 1–6 school scale where 1 is the best. The metaphor extends naturally into everyday speech: a film that bombs can also durchfallen, and a political candidate who loses badly is said to be durchgefallen beim Publikum — fallen through with the audience.