Crochet Terms in US, UK, Danish and German

By Birgit Tüchsen on November 13, 2011

Crochet Terms in US, UK, Danish and German

Unfortunately crochet terms are not universal, so US crochet patterns and UK/Australia patterns use different names for the same stitches. This is very confusing for a beginning crocheter, who wants to read patterns from English sources. Not only are the terms different, but in some cases the same crochet term represents a different stitch in US/UK terminology. The term single crochet only appears in the US version. By that you can tell, which one of the two crochet lingos your patterns is written in.

I am a visual crocheter and prefer reading charts to written only patterns.  But many US patterns don’t come with crochet charts, so being able to read a pattern is of course very useful.

Since I also buy Danish crochet books and sometimes German ones when travelling, I made a chart about the most common crochet terms in those 4 languages.  I hope this will also be a help for others, who switch between these different languages.

Each crochet symbol is followed by the appropriate term in the conversion chart below.

These charts shows abbreviations used in English – US and UK, Danish and German.

crochets symbols 4 languages

4 languages abbreviations

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69 Responses to Crochet Terms in US, UK, Danish and German

  1. Tracy says:
    May 20, 2013 at 19:18

    Hi I’m wondering if you can do a chart like this for Russian crochet abbreviations?
    Thank you

    Reply

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  4. anette clausen says:
    April 9, 2013 at 14:29

    Have seen your chochet symbols, but I’m missing the following: Double crochet with a triangel at the bottom and a double crochet with a circle at the bottom. Can you tell me what it is in Danish?

    Thanks in advance,

    Anette Clausen

    Reply
    • Birgit Tüchsen says:
      April 9, 2013 at 15:08

      Hi Anette,
      The double crochet with a circle beneath could be 2 things:
      Either it is a front post double crochet, that means it is actually a half circle beneath the double crochet. This is called Reliefstangmasker in Danish. A front post double crochet would be explained as: Reliefstangmaske hæklet forfra ned om stangmaske fra forrige række. Back post double crochet would be: Reliefsstangmaske hæklet bagfra om stangmaske fra foregående række.
      Or it is just a double crochet crocheted into a chain in the row beneath.

      I have trouble visualizing a double crochet with a triangle beneath. Could you refer to a photo on the web?

      Håber det hjælper dig videre :-)

      Reply
      • anette clausen says:
        April 10, 2013 at 11:27

        Hej Birgit,

        Jeg er inde på flg. hjemmeside: http://www.mypicot.com/beta/crochet_patterns_simple_textured.html .

        Det er det sidste mønster 0021 jeg prøver at lave. Alle masker er beskrevet på engelsk, men da jeg ikke er en haj til hækling forstår jeg ikke meningen.

        mvh Anette

        Reply
        • Birgit Tüchsen says:
          April 10, 2013 at 14:44

          Hi Anette,
          Jeg har set på forklaringen af disse hæklesymboler og det ser ud til, at stangmasken med cirklen nedenunder er en reliefstangmaske i forreste maskeled, det man også vil kalde en front post double crochet.
          På nedenstående video viser hun hvordan man hækler disse 3 gange. Disse 3 masker viser hun i starten af videoen.
          Trekanten under stangmasken er en reliefstangmaske i bagerste maskeled, – også kaldt en back post double crochet på amerikansk. (Englænderne og tidligere engelske kolonier har andre navne igen, hvilket kan gøre engelsk hækling ret forvirrende).
          I slutningen af videoen viser hun 3 gange hvordan man laver denne slags masker.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYJs42RUfuc

          Så skulle du være kørende ;-)

          Birgit

          Reply
  5. Karen says:
    March 28, 2013 at 02:40

    Thanks for the charts! They really help a lot! However, I still have trouble understanding this:
    “6 luft maschen anschlagen, zum ring schliessen. 4 luft maschen, * 1 staebchen in den ring, 1 luft masche * , noch 10 mal wieder holen, mit einer kett masche zum ring schliessen.”

    It looks nothing like the picture when I do it…could you please help me?

    Thanks!

    Reply
  6. Elmarie says:
    March 15, 2013 at 21:09

    Hallo Brigit. Thanks for charing the tranlations. It is wonderful. Can you perhaps help. I found this patern on Pinterest but have no idea how to begin it.
    “Ruchenteil: Fur den 1. Trager 9 Lm anschlagen und 5 R nach de hakelschrift arbeiten. Fur den 2. Trager 6 R nach den hakelschrift arbeiten und am Ende der 6 R fur den Ausschhitt 23 Lm kakeln und beim 1. Trager die 6 R erganzen (siehe hakelschrift) Nun uber all M die 1. 6. R nach der hakelschrift arbeiten.”
    Does this make any sense to you. Can you very much please help. I love the top but am battling to figure it out.

    Thanks A million
    Elmarie

    Reply

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  8. Nancy says:
    January 17, 2013 at 20:36

    Thank you for the US to German translations. In a German pattern there are also the terms 2 oder and 1 fM um die 2 Lm-Bogen der Vorrunden. I appreciate your help. I had purchased the pattern in Germany thinking my German friend in the US could translate, but the terms made no sense to her because she doesn’t chochet . Thank you for your assistance. Nancy

    Reply
    • bynumber19 says:
      January 20, 2013 at 00:13

      Hi Nancy,
      I think you would translate it to:
      2 oder = 2 or
      1 Festmasche um die 2 Luftmaschen Bogen der Vorrunden= 1 single crochet in the 2 chain spaces of the previous rows.

      Reply

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  10. Annie says:
    November 29, 2012 at 12:00

    Hi Birgit, Thanks for sharing the crochet terms, esp when I am looking at one crochet cowl pattern I like but it’s written in Danish and have no idea what’s going on. LOL. Although I hv just one bit to solve, could you help me on this, pls pls pls. “sidste rk (danner to rk m.hhv. 14 og 15 lm buer)” I use the google translate and this is what I get “last row (forming two rows m.hhv. 14 and 15 ch arches)”, but what is m.hhv? Thank you in advance.

    Reply
    • bynumber19 says:
      November 29, 2012 at 18:35

      Hi Annie,
      “sidste række (danner 2 rækker med henholdsvis 14 og 15 luftmaske buer)”
      should tranlate to this
      last row (makes 2 rows with respectively 14 and 15 chain chains/chain spaces)
      Hope this helps :-)

      Reply
  11. Susan says:
    November 26, 2012 at 12:09

    Thank you for sharing this. I’m going to link to it, from my blog, I find it really useful.

    Reply

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  13. Ruth says:
    August 9, 2012 at 16:00

    This is awesome. thank you very much!!! I’ll be pinning this!

    Reply
  14. Ruth says:
    August 9, 2012 at 15:58

    This is amazing! Thank you!!!

    Reply

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  28. Janet says:
    May 13, 2012 at 15:48

    Thank you for sharing, I`ll borrow it and link back to you, ok?

    Reply
  29. Onintze says:
    April 11, 2012 at 23:33

    I find it so usefull!! thanks! but, would you like if I help you adding more languages? I could translate them into Spanish from Spain and Spanish from South America (it’s different too) and maybe, I could make an effort to translate them into french too.

    In my blog I have some information about hooks’ sizes. If you want, you can see it here: http://manualidadesmasfacil.blogspot.com.es/p/equivalencias-numericas-de-ganchillos.html

    Reply
    • http://bynumber19.com/ says:
      April 12, 2012 at 17:40

      Hi Onintze,

      Thanks for your generous offer, but I think I only want to share things on my blog that I can master. Often people ask for more advice and I would be totally lost with the French and Spanish. Interesting to know though, that there are differences in Spanish versus South American crochet. Sounds just as confusing as the US/UK differences…
      Had a peak at your blog – lovely tutorials:-)

      Reply
    • Anonymous says:
      September 7, 2012 at 17:30

      Hello! I agree the post is very usefull. Speaking about translation… I can add Russian. If it is interesting pls send me a message anovikova1988@gmail.com. Goodbye!

      Reply

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  35. Pam says:
    January 12, 2012 at 19:46

    Can you tell me where I can purchase Colinette Giotto yarn in the US? I can only find it online.
    Can I substitute other yarn for the Colinette Giotto?

    Reply
  36. suki says:
    December 18, 2011 at 22:03

    Oh this is brilliant!
    A while back I worked through a German pattern…..trying to figure out the crochet terms.
    This will hopefully open up a few more patterns to me.
    Thanks do much!

    Reply

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  40. Teje says:
    November 16, 2011 at 23:37

    Thank you! This is very helpful info! Often I have tried to crochet just by the photo because couldn’t read exactly the pattern.
    x Teje

    Reply

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