eine Fahrkarte drücken vs "eine Fahrkarte ausdrücken"?

Question

A few days ago I bought on the internet a train ticket. The process is as following: you order and pay on the website and you receive an order number, then you must go to a physical ticket counter at a railway station with your order number, and they will print your actual paper ticket. I did so, and had the following conversation with the person at the counter: Ich habe eine Fahrkarte im Internet eingekauft, und ich habe die Bestellnummer. And it looked more or less like the other person could follow me. I continued: Können Sie sie bitte drücken? At this point the employee looked completely lost. I don't know if it was because my pronunciation was bad, or because my sentence did not make sense. After a few seconds she corrected me, with something that *probably* was: Oh... ausdrücken ? I confirmed and the transaction went on smoothly. So I am puzzled and have a few questions. Was my sentence correct? Are there regional variants? (This happened in Switzerland, but the employee looked young and educated, so I'd assume she had no problems at all in understanding proper Hochdeutsch). Do you think the initial lack of comprehension was due to my pronunciation or to grammar/vocabulary? What is the difference between drücken and ausdrücken? I thought the former would be appropriate, because within computer programs the act of printing a document is called drücken.

Answer 1

Hi, "drucken" is to print. "ausdrucken" is to print out.

"Drücken" is to hug or to squeeze. "Ausdrücken" is to squeeze out (e.g. juice) or also to express.

So you see, your mistake was simply that you used an Umlaut instead of the letter u. ;)