| The German Word of the Day brings you useful German Words and helps you to build your vocabulary. We will look at its origins, “dos and don’ts “, similar words, lots of examples and of course… the meaning.The pronunciation advice is based on how you would have to write it in English to get the correct sound… ok..it is based on how I think one would write it. It is by no means exact but it I am sure a German would understand it as the word. I do not use the IPA-Alphabet because only few people are familiar with it and it looks weird and confusing when you are not used to it. You can also enter the word in the Leo.org online dictionary. They offer an audio sample too…. and so do most other dictionaries :)So here are the words so far… if you have a word that you think deserves a long, drawn out and boring explanation then just leave a comment… but I make no promises. |
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Hey Emanuel, any chance you could a word of the day on Sachen some time?
I’ll look into it, just gotta wait till I “feel” it :)
I am seeing a german joke that shows usually 4 frames with pictures and subtitles. Schlecht fur die knocken, Schlecht furs Fahrrad.Schlecht furs die image, The last frame usually says Doch Leider Heil. I know Schlecht is bad for the subject. But at the end it seems to say Nevertheless we Heil, Kyle,Steil, or something that rhymes with it. Can you help me understand these jokes?
Thanks,
Linguist student
Hi Karl,
so I looked it up online and it seems to be a song by the band Deichkind (which I think sucks) … the song is called “leider geil”… geil literally means horny but it is used as cool or fly quite a lot. It is on the edge between slang and common. It has made its way into the claim of a major eletronic retailer (Saturn – “Geiz is geil” -”stinginess rocks”) … so Deichkind lists lots of things that are bad for something and yet… basically fun.
here is the link to the lyrics:
http://www.songtextemania.com/leider_geil_songtext_deichkind.html
I do not know whether it was them to come up with this contradiction… I doubt it actually…. but yeah… I think that’s the joke… like
Driving an SUV, bad for global temperature. However, it’s fun.
Are there any that say “Leider geil?” then it would sound like this awesome Deichkind song…
I don’t know… I didn’t know the expression before Karl brought it up and I think I would not have understood it unless context had been string enough… anyway… Deichkind is kind of successful especially amongst young people… they won the Jägermeister Rock league once I think and they know which buttons to push to create a catchy tune/phrase that has a good chance to be picked up into “school yard talk”… so people who know the song might use it in daily life and friends of theirs will probably understand even without knowing the song… that is IF the phrase was invented by Deichkind in the first place…
Anyway… long story short… I don’t think it’s mainstream enough yet, and people will very likely miss the joke
zugeben, aufgeben, angeben please :)
oh angeben is my favorite :)…. I’ll put it on the list
If you could explain the differences between deshalb/deswegen/daher that would be awesome. I asked one of my German friends yesterday, and she replied with “There are not the same…but it is difficult to explain.”
Good question… so deshalb and deswegen are definitely the same pretty much… if someone perceives a difference… well than that is correct too but to me they are the same and many web sources about this indicate that they are … as far as daher is concerned it is indeed a little different. Yet it can be/is used synonymously in MANY occasions. Some regions might favor daher and others won’t ever use it. I don’t really use it for example. What makes daher special is its locational undertone… it is built with the pointer da and the word her, that indicates an origin. “Woher kommst du?”, “Wo hast du deine Hose her?”… daher is appropriate whenever you want to say “from there” be it literally or abstract… so daher is maybe a bit more “from that perspective” or coming from there”. Deshalb and deswegen don’t have this undertone of location/origin, although the des is technically the da pointer too, just in a different dress. I think I’ll make daher a WotD but I hope this helps a bit… oh… apparently there is a rule that requires you to use daher in certain constructions but except for linguists I don’t think many people are aware of it and it is a new rule too so no need to know it :)
I look forward to the “daher” WotD. I really dig your “molecular” explanatory approach!
How about “unheimlich”? I kinda struggled when I tried to explain it to some friends in the U.S.
This is probably very basic but what is the difference between auf, in and an?
Hi Shane, yes this is basic in that you need it basically every day… the problem with German prepositions is that they mostly have 2 to 4 possible English counterparts which might contradict one another… the general idea, the main gist of the three is this:
in – inside
auf – on top of, for and unfortunately also open
an – at, on
Note that these are not ALL possible translations… or they are if you will but in German we say “A letter at god.” instead of “to god” … so you can either say that an means to at times or you can say… whatever to means in German… I don’t need it in that situation because Germans say “an” whatever that means :)… either way… in and auf would make less sense than “at” does, so just get the notion of prepositions and when in doubt go for the least weird one… hope that helped a bit. I could add that you gotta get used to it and stuff but I think you know that :)
Maybe you could do one on the particles (or adverbs, whatever you would call it) da and wo… like how they modify prepositions, like dabei, davon, wozu, etc. Do they go in the normal spot of a preposition? I understand the basic concept of these but find it hard when using them in speech!! I don’t like them.
Ha, that is funny… I have started writing an article about damit, davon daraus etc. a few days ago… I had lots of work but I am positive that I will get to finish within the next few days… I can see that you don’t like them, because they are a new concept (at least in one way they are used) but they save you the trouble of thinking of case and gender and once you are used to it, they can be a nice tool to put emphasis in your sentences :)
Ha, anything that saves you from thinking about case and gender can’t be all bad… in fact, in could be amazing!
Hey Emanuel,
Great blog! All your posts are really entertaining and educational (Wow! Who knew that was possible?) :)
Macht’s gut!
- Michael
Hi Emmanuel, thanks so much for your cracking blog. What a great job! Funny and informative educashun for all.
You have done doch as a wotd. What about its counterpart Eben?
thanks, Tony
Hi Tony, thanks for your feedback… I really appreciate that :).
I have been pondering “eben” for a while now and it is on my to do list. It is a hard one to grasp however. I kind of have issues to find a common denominator. But I’ll go for it soon. Anyway, it is not the counterpart of “doch”… at least not, if by counterpart you mean some sort of opposite… they are kind of on the same side (as far as the modal particle meaning is concerned)… but I don’t want to spoil it yet :)
Thanks Em,
I’m basically self-taught, but learnt a while ago that whilst doch is a positive answer to a negative question, eben is a positive answer to a positive question. Does it really get more complicated?
oh I see… well, kind of… actually, “eben” is an affirmative re-enforcing statement if someone states or claims something that you consider correct… something like “exactly”… only less exact. It can NOT be used as a kind of “yes” and often “genau” is the better choice.
And other than that there are the meanings: even, straight, just now, and another flavoring power that is kind of giving in into a initially unwanted compromise without having been entirely against it (that would be doch) … so I guess there is more to it :)
Hi Emmanuel,
Your posts really clarify things that learners of the language find confusing. Could you please explain the many uses of ‘werden’? Also the so called particles – doch, mal, etc. That would be real helpful.
Hi Geethika,
thank for your nice feedback, which is really motivating to hear.
Werden is a good idea and I will do it soon, I think. As for doch, I have done it already… you can find it under “small but useful”. I am definitely planning to do all particles… they are just some tough words and I… well… let’s say I have some respect for the :)… so I have to think about them thoroughly before I write something… anyway… I’ll do ‘em :)
Vielen Dank :-)
What confuse me all the time is some words like ‘eigentlich, endlich’ . May be you can have a look on it :)
Hello, Emanuel
I’ve been following your blog for the last three months, and I would like to thank you for being so precise in your explanations.
I would like to make a request for you, it’s about the verb bleiben. I always confuse bleiben with liegen (by the way, the explanation of liegen that you did was pretty good) and I can’t find a good place where I can find how to differenciate them.
Therefore, I would appreciate if you get some free time to talk about “bleiben”.
Vielen Dank :)
Thanks for the compliment. That is really nice to hear :).
As for bleiben … it is quite straightforward to the English to stay. Does that help? What’s you mothertongue?
Hello, again
My mother tongue is Portuguese. I’ve created a thread in the wordreference forum asking for an explanation about this subject, if you would like to see it in order to understand better my problem, this is the link: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2471976
As you can see, the people who posted just said that it was wrong, but didn’t explain me why. It’s completely clear to me that I should (must) use liegen, but I don’t understand why I can’t use bleiben too. In short, I don’t know how to use bleiben…
Thank you :)
Hi Filipe, so I looked at the thread and some of the examples are not so bad I have to say.
You are right that you can use “bleiben” as well… but it doesn’t mean the same:
- Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch – means that the book IS on the table (answers to the question “where is the book”)
- Das Buch bleibt auf dem Tisch – means that the book will remain on the table so it will not/should not be taken away (answers to the question “What will happen to the book? or Can I take the book and put it on a shelf?”
I think your confusion comes from “ficar” which can mean both “to stay” and to “be located”.
Well stay and bleiben are more narrow in meaning than ficar.
The “opposite” of “bleiben” is “go somewhere else/be taken somewhere else”.
The opposite of “ficar-sein (location)” is “to be somewhere else” or simply “not to be there”.
Das Hotel liegt (ist) am Strand – das Hotel liegt (ist) nicht am Strand sondern in den Bergen.
Das Hotel bleibt (will be at the beach for some time) am Strand – das Hotel ist jetzt noch am Strand, aber wir machen es kaputt und bauen es woanders hin.
Does that help??? :)
can you explain everything regarding adjectives !! i have been facing many problems in this particular topic.there are some subdivisions under adjectives , like , adjective ending of the nouns without articles , and then there is, adjectives as nouns !! i was doing some exercises on these topics !! but have encountered many doubts !! so could you please explain with the help of sentences on how to apply the rules especially for genetive and dative ??
I would like a lesson on the various ways to say “it” in a sentence once we have established what It is. Also the several choices for the word “stop” I know them when I read them, but never seem to know which one one is best when I’m on my own.
Thanks
Wow… “it”. I don’t know if I could put that into a concise and non-boring article… I mean it quite the same as in English, only it is used in some different expressions and things you call “it” in English will be “er” or “sie” in German. I know this probably doesn’t answer your questions so if you have any specific problem I’d be happy to try to explain those… but it in general … hmmmm :)
As for “to stop” – I have written an article on aufhören which is one possible translation of to stop. In there you can find some info about the other translations and the differences between all of them, but you may want to also check this out:
http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/4226/of-starting-and-stopping
It is a discussion board with a rather high quality I have to say. I have written an answer for that question there which focuses a bit more on the differences between “aufhören”, “anhalten”, “einstellen” and “stoppen” and I think you will find what you want to know there :)
Could you do a word of the day post about the word “denn?” I thought it just meant because/for, but I’ve been seeing it in some readings where it seems to be used more like a particle (like doch) so I’ve been having a hard time translating its exact meaning in some sentences. Your explanations have helped me quite a bit so I figured I’d throw out a request.
Good word. I kind of tend to forget denns particle power… which is by far not as extensive as schon or eben (oh god, freaking eben), but it is used a lot… so thank you for that :)
I have alot of ideas for German words of the day :) but I will just give a small list (source- Very eager German student)
der Arzt- The doctor
das Kind- The child
die Freunde- The friends
das Volk- The people (citizens), Singular
die Menschen- people
die Frau- The woman
Es geht mir schlecht- I am very bad
Es geht mir nicht so gut- I am bad
Sehr gut- Very well
Ich wohne in- I live in
Es geht mir okay- I am okay
Woher kommen sie?- Where are you from?
Wie Heiben sie?- What is your name?
Danke- Thank you
Tschau- Ciao
Tschub- Bye
Bis bald- See you soon
Ich komme aus- I am from
Auf Wiedersehen- Good-bye (formal)
Bis spater- See you later
Guten Morgen- Good morning
Guten Tag- Good afternoon, Good day
Guten abend- Good evening
Und du?- And you?
Ich Heibe- My name is
Hallo- Hi (used any time of the day to say a casual “hi”)
Es freut mich!- Nice to meet you!
wow so many :)… one little mistake:
the verb is heißen or if your keyboard doesn’t have “ß” then type “ss”… so it is
Wie heissen sie?
Ich heisse…
could you do “schon”? “ich bin schon wieder zu spät” “es ist schon 22 Uhr” “sie ist schon nett” “ich bin ganz sicher schon mal hier gewesen” “schon allein deswegen bin ich dagegen” “findest du ihn süß? -schon” “er hat den pokal schon drei mal gewonnen” “nicht den hier und schon gar nicht den dort” “was hat sie schon damit erreicht” “was kann der denn schon?” “hast du schon deine hausaufgaben gemacht?” i’m native german, but still i like your blog and i think this needs some clarification for our foreign friends :)
Yep, schon is definitely schon on the list. I just didn’t dare so far. But I think I’ll be ready soon. Thanks for your examples… I will have a look at them to see whether I thought of every meaning :)
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE teach us how to use “tun” and “machen.” Thank you!
Oh that :)… I will do it soon, promise
I just have to say, I really appreciate all the work you put into this site. Your post on the “da-words” is the only reason why I no longer get into the fetal position and start crying whenever I come across them.
I realize it’s asking a lot, but I would really love to see a post on ‘lassen’. It’s one verb that trips me up almost every time. It just seems to have too many uses.
Hi Tofer,
thanks, that is great to hear, because I honestly think German is not that difficult or at least it is explainable for the most part but what to me is clear might be confusing to others. So… cool you got the da-words straight. As for lassen, it is definitely on my list (which doesn’t exist) but seriously… I have it in mind and I will do it at some point :)
Hi! I’m British and just finished doing my A1.1 integration course in Hamburg, which is great! I’m now into my 2nd week of A1.2 and the grammar doesn’t seem to be too bad to understand…aside from the obvious der, die und das that we don’t have in English!
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how great I think your blog is and how incredibly helpful it is going to be to me as I continue on with my German journey to C2! I really hope you find the time to continue sharing with us your wealth of knowledge and you have such a talent of being able to make the most confusing things just click and fall into place!
Thank you!!
This is a great blog. Keep it up.
Thank you for the help. I look forward to reviewing your past posts to catch up while waiting on the new ones.
Great blog. I have been studying german for a few years and have really not understood the proper use of “als” as a conjunction. I wasn’t sure that I would find anything on line, but then I read your Word of the Day blog on this term and it made a great deal of sense. Thank you. I will be returning often to your site.
Cool I could help clear that up… it is odd. You’re definitely not the only one who had had problems with als although the rule is actually pretty simple… at least I think so… but textbooks really fail at explaining very often because they treat their readers like children that can’t comprehend logically structured info… I am beginning to rant about textbooks, must stop immediately or else this will be pages long :)
Hi! Thanks Emanuel for this wonderful blog for non-German German speakers. I found this a couple of days ago and now constantly following it so that I don’t miss anything . Again Vielen Dank :)
I recently came across these similar words for “to feel or sense” in German which are giving me hard time during uses which are : empfinden, fühlen, spüren. Online dictionaries aren’t much help, so I had to turn up to you ;) Could you please do it in your “Word Of The Day” section sometime or may be help me somehow. Thanks in advance :)
Hey Mayank, I have the feeling (haha) that someone has asked for that before in a comment so by popular demand I think I have to do it… but I have to think about it for a while so I can give you somewhat of a structure… :)
Hey Mayank…. I just remembered that a similar question has been addressed on a fairly nice discussion board… here is the link:
http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/5350/the-difference-between-spuren-and-fuhlen
Hey !
It helps somewhat for the first two but not deep enough with the distinctions like you provide. But thanks :)
Hi! Maybe you could explain the difference between strong ending for adjectives and a weak ending? Because no freaking website in the world can seem to explain it. :|
Or maybe just give an example of a sentence using an adjective with a strong ending. Because i can’t tell the difference.
so I promised a link and here it is
http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Adjektiv/Deklinationstyp/Schwach.html
I hope this is helpful :)
Hey, this weak strong concept is utterly and entirely useles. NO German (save for linguists) has EVER heard about that, it doesn’t help, you don’t need it to get the endings correct and sounds sooooooo confusing and important when it is not. I hate it and I will not talk about it here :)
I will continue my series on adjective endings soon and I strongly suggest you just go with the advice there (part 1 is already on the page)…
However, I will post 2 links next week, which might help you… I don’t exactly know them so I will look for them when I have time :)
This probably isn’t worth its own post so I’ll just ask it here (although things never end up being as simple as I envision them). In my lessons I’ve come to the following two sentences:
Das Auto fährt auf das Tunnel zu.
Die Kinder rennen auf das Meer zu.
I’ve tried to look up what exactly is being conveyed by the auf…zu construction. It almost looks like “into” but I’m used to seeing simply “in” for that. Any help is appreciated.
Good question… this double preposition is confusing I bet… I never noticed it.
So auf etwas zu means a movement of the own body directly toward something…
Ich renne/fahre/gehe/komme auf dich zu.
I cannot geben a plate auf dich zu because the plate is not moving itself.
In an abstract sense it also means to approach someone in some way with a specific subject in mind… like
Wegen der Bücher komme ich nochmal auf dich zu.
As for the books, I will get at you at some point.
Hope that clears it up… if not, feel free to ask more :)
Hopefully the answer to this question is simple and doesn’t need its own post. In my lessons I’ve now come to the following two sentences:
Das Auto fährt auf einen Tunnel zu.
Die Kinder rennen auf das Meer zu.
I can’t seem to find any rules for this auf…zu construction. It seems like its trying to convey “into” but I’m used to seeing simply “in.” Any help would be much appreciated.
What is the difference between denn and weil?
Oh damn… I have actually written about denn already but I forgot to include it in the lists above… so thank god you asked….
here is the link for your convenience :):
http://yourdailygerman.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/denn-meaning/
the difference is mostly grammatical but recently there was a discussion on a board:
http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/5724/difference-between-weil-and-denn
and that made me think about the matter again…. and there is a slight difference but I haven’t been able to word it yet… I will add it as soon as I understood what exactly it is… anyway… this is a really subtle difference in use… go with weil for the everyday
Thank you :)
Can you tell me the difference between lernen and erlernen?
Ok so… the er prefix often gives the word a more divine feel…. so erlernen sounds a bit like more.
Then, erlernen implies that you are done. You know it. You achieved mastery kind of. Lernen lacks that notion. You can lernen German for decades without erlernen it.
Lernen is also the translation of to study in the context of sitting in the library or read a textbook.
I did 2 hours of studying. would be Ich habe 2 Stunden gerlernt.
Erlernen can’t be used that way.
And than finally I think erlernen sounds best with nouns, whereas lernen can be used for all kinds of things.
Ich habe gelernt, dass/wie/zu/wo etc…. all this doesn’t sound very good with erlernen.
I think lernen is way more common and erlernen is really limited to a craft or something.
I hope that helps :)
Thanks a lot :)
What does allerdings mean exactly?
Good question!!! I’ll add it to my list :)
What’s the difference between trauen and vertrauen?
That would probably be worth a WotD too… I just have such a long list that I don’t think I can fit it in… in short vertrauen is to trust, trauen is to have the courage, with a side meaning of to trust that is mostly used in negative phrasings with nicht (don’t trust)
obgleich, obschon, obwohl what is the difference between them?
Oh those are exactly the same :)… obwohl is used pretty much always, obgleich sounds very educated and obschon sounds dated… I did use obschon in my masters thesis a lot but more as a little joke (I don’t think anyone got it)… I never use it in spoken
What does zwar mean?
Zwar comes from the same root as Wahrheit (truth) but it has shifted in meaning over time… I think the best translation is a phrasing like “Conceded that …., I nevertheless….”
Make your word of the day “trotzdem”!
What’s the difference between mieten and vermieten?
That is simple… mieten is to rent as the person who pays rent, vermieten is to rent out as the person who gets the money from the other person :)
Any chance of getting a Word of the day on the reflex verb “sich”?
Hmmm “sich ” doesn’t really carry much meaning … I mean there is certainly a lot to say but it is all grammar… I’ll have to think about
The core of it is that “sich” can be any SELF referential pronoun in third person so it can be:
himself, itself, herself, oneself, themselves and in also each other or one another at times.
schon und eben ….. bitte!!!
“schon” will be one of the next words :)
Could you do a word of the day on the word bloß.
Ohhh good word! I never would have thought of that although it is so common :)
I’d like to throw out a suggestion to your presumably long list of WotD topics: perhaps an article on amplifiers. I find myself knowing very few ways to amplify adjectives and such in German. I know sehr, and then voll, echt and tierisch from some of your posts, but I always feel at a loss for words when I’m trying to sound passionate or incredibly frustrated about something.
Great idea… makes for a good special :)
Can you explain mal? It seems like it gets thrown into sentences all the time but I don’t know why.
I will… probably in March… till then I’ll make sure to use it ever more frequently :)
How about Sonst? (hope im not repeating a suggestion) Sonst confuses the crap out of me!
I thought at first, that it just meant “or eles”
Gebe das Rauchen auf sonst du ungesund werden konntest.
Does it have other meanings too. My dictionary says it means like 10 different things.
Yep, I will do sonst since it is one of these small functional words that one really needs. But “else” is pretty much it. I don’t know what language you are translating it to. Maybe there are in fact 10 different concepts but to me it is pretty clear cut… I mean in comparison with things like eben or doch :)
i don’t understand why u all want to learn german i mean english is a way more beautiful and usefull language
btw my mothertongue is german
hello, I would like to ask, can you please explain the adverbs like : miteinander, beinander…and all the words that contain EINANDER ? thanks.
This is a really really great suggestion especially because I would have probably never thought of it … tausend dank!!! :)
hey do you know why verbs such as zahlen, antworten and zweifeln add be to the front? does it change meanings at all, because if I’m not mistaken it doesn’t drastically alter the meaning of the verb…
yep it does… I am actually planning to do a post on be as a prefix soon so this is just the basic asnwer:
be kind of means something like “to inflict the verb on sth”… I’ll elaborate in the post to come :)
Oh and then it also changes the grammar a great deal… check out the article on antworten vs. beantworten for more on that
Hey, do you think you could do one on…
Solang, So lang, Solange, So lange, so weit, soweit, so weit wie, so lange, sofern wie…
This stuff is really confusing to us English speakers, and I honestly have looked everywhere for a good explanation.
Oh that’s a great idea… my god, I have soooo much work to do it seems :) but thank you!! I think I’ll just do a word on “so” and fit it in there.
By the way… soweit vs. so weit was part of the recent German spelling reform and they changed in the rules there… it might be more logical now but to me it is just wrong.
Here is the difference for all these words in a nutshell:
if it is a subordinating conjunction then write it as one word… all the other situations, 2 words… I’ll elaborate in the post
Ich würde dir empfehlen, ‘gelten’ zu decken. Es scheint ganz verwirrend, wann man Wörterbuch an sieht.
:D… besser wäre zu sagen “zu behandeln” oder etwas komplett anderes. “Decken” wird relativ selten benutzt… nur für Tisch, Dach und Pferde (guck mal “Deckhengst” nach) :)
Ich decke den Tisch.
Ich decke ein Dach.
Und auch so, wenn du sagen willst “cover something physically” dann ist das meistens “bedecken”
Ich bedecke meinen Kopf.
“Gelten” mach ich… aber nich hier, sondern in meinem neuen Q&A Forum… link folgt morgen :)
oops. Tut mir Leid. Das ist ein tatsächlicher dummer Fehler. Aber kenne ich jetzt zwei mehre Verben. Außerdem sah ich einen Gebrauch von “sondern”. Danke und danke!
Es ist schon Morgen hier in Indien. Deshalb muss ich ungefähr sechs mehre Stunde warten. Hätte die Zeit weltweit gleich sein! Ich würde die Zeit mit den Fingern nicht zahlen müssen.
Nein, kein dummer Fehler. Was man nicht weiß weiß man nicht. Da ist nix dumm dran :).
Du hast noch ein paar andere Fehler gemacht. Einen 2-mal:
“Ich kenne jetzt 2 mehre Verben”
Das funktioniert in Deutsch nicht. Du kannst entweder sagen:
“Ich kenne jetzt noch 2 Verben”
(but that implies that you are somewhat saturated with verbs)
oder:
“Ich kenne jetzt 2 neue Verben.”
(which have the same “another 2… oh my” notion of noch)
Der gleiche Fehler ist hier:
Deshalb muss ich ungefähr 6 mehre Stunden warten.
Hier sagt man:
“… ich ungefähr noch 6 Stunden warten.”
Hier kannst du nicht “neue” sagen :).
Dann…
Ausserdem sah ich einen…
Da solltest du die spoken past verwenden. Dein Satz klingt Goethe-mässig.
Dann….
Hätte die Zeit weltweit gleich sein.
Guter Versuch, aber das ist English :).
Deutsch wäre entweder:
“Wäre die Zeit nur weltweit gleich.”
If only time were the same world wide
oder:
“Könnte die Zeit nur weltweit gleich sein.”
Oh could the time be the same world wide.
Mit “hätte” implizierst du in Deutsch eindeutig Vergangenheit konditional und das macht in dieser Situation keinen Sinn.
Und dann schließlich noch zur Sicherheit:
Die Zeit mit den Fingern zahlen means “to pay it with your fingers.”
Du meinst aber zählen bzw. zaehlen ;)
Aber, hey… man kann alles was du geschrieben hast ohne Probleme verstehen also mach dir keine Sorgen. Fehler sind zum lernen da.
I am so grateful to you! I always I am writing perfect German. And the effort you put in correcting it makes me stop replying in German. May you reach the blue skies above the clouds in your life… from where you can see all the mistakes people are doing in German so that you could correct them all at once. :D
Seriously, I wish you all the best! Viel Glückwünsch!
Ich habe den Link für “gelten” vergessen:
http://askaboutgerman.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/gelten-meaning/
NEEEEIN. Du darfst nicht aufhören in Deutsch zu schreiben! Wenn du das machst, dann … äh… dann ähhh… dann korrigiere ich garnix mehr… nie wieder. :)
Haha. Wirklich hatte ich dir antworten gewollen, aber bisher hatte ich keine Zeit! Das kann schlimm meinerseits scheinen, aber hatte ich dich verstehen. Dann dachte ich dass, es Internet ist, wo Kommentare je gefunden werden können. Und hier ist ich.
Allerdings habe ich einen Zweifel. Dies “äh” ist der gleiche “eh” aus Englisch, oder?
genau das gleiche :)….
hier ein interessanter Artikel über “äh”… vielleicht kannst du den ja verstehen
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article1190513/Ein-Aehm-sagt-mehr-als-tausend-Worte.html
Hi Emanuel…I think I found a new gem (aka unlisted post). it’s darauf and his friends. here’s the link http://yourdailygerman.wordpress.com/tag/darauf/
or maybe it is listed under someother name. bye
:)… that is listed under online course and then da-words because it is dealing with all of them at once.. but thank you anyway. I will include a link in the WotD section:)
What’s the difference between hinweisen and verweisen? :)
Here you go :)
http://askaboutgerman.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/hinweisen-vs-verweisen/
I created this new forum thing so interesting questions like those don’t get lost in the comments here but you can also keep asking here, whatever you prefer :)
Hey, could you explain the difference between nun and jetzt? Also the difference between wieder and noch/nochmal? Also could you perhaps do echt as your word of the day, find that word a bit confusing…
oooofff… those are tough questions. I will do a WotD on noch and also on wieder at some point so this will have to wait, but as for nun vs. jetzt, … I’ll have to think about it and as soon as I have figured it out, I’ll let you know.
What is confusing about “echt” though? It is pretty much “really” all the time. Do you have examples that confuse you?
Alright, so someone actually asked the same question (jetzt vs.nun) in one of my lectures so I was forced to think about it :)…
here is the link to the German-is-easy forum. I put the answer there, so it doesn’t get lost in the comments.
http://askaboutgerman.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/difference-jetzt-nun-german/
Ok, thanks man! As for echts, I was just confused as to what its actual definition was because I have heard it in so many instances, but if it does mean ‘really’ most of the time then I will take your word for it.
Well, at least I think it is… okay, it can also mean real or genuine as in “not fake” but that is the same idea pretty much… in either case, if you come across an example where “really” or the more broad meaning doesn’t fit, go ahead and let me know :)
On a side note… when you talk you should not use echt when you want to say “really really”… “echt echt” just doesn’t sound nice. So for double really go for “echt richtig” or “echt total”
komm mal klar what does it mean?
I totally forgot that question for a few days… sorry :)… here you go:
http://askaboutgerman.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/komm-mal-klar-meaning/
What’s the difference between “antworten” and “beantworten”?
http://yourdailygerman.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/antworten-beantworten-difference/
Hey man! I have seen the word ‘lauten’ banded about a lot here in Germany, in particular with regards to accessing codes or opening times. What does it mean? And is it a direct replacement for sein or means something different?
Someone in forum had the same question and I gave an answer there:
http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/6297/das-verb-lauten
My answer is the one on the bottom with no votes :)… but don’t think it’s bad… I just gave it kind of late so I think that’s why I got no votes.
And by the way… it is definitely not a word of spoken German… I never use it and I super rarely hear it… so don’t dig too deep :)
Can you please do an article on preposition families – like um, rum, herum, darum, warum, umher; or aus, raus, heraus, hinaus, draus, daraus, woraus, draussen, aussen, ausser, ausserhalb? Those things confuse me.
ooooffff… that will be more than one post I guess but I’ll see what I can do. Could question, that’s for sure…
I have written about the difference between hinter and hinten. And all I explain there also holds for the pairs runter-unten, raus – draussen, rein-drin, vor-vorn(e), rauf – drauf… so you will find at least some answers there. Here is the link:
http://yourdailygerman.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/difference-between-hinter-and-hinten/
and then another quick fix:
words with “r” are usually shortened words with her and the meaning is roughly the same (sometimes one is better than the other depending on the situation). The just-r version sounds way more colloquial.
rum -herum
rauf-herauf
raus- heraus
runter – herunter
rein – herein
Hope that helps
Danke schön. Another thing I wanted to know – i don’t know if this is a quick answer or an entire post, but the idiomatic usage of duzen and siezen – how to use these words in speech.
Oh that’s easy I think… you just use them as what they mean… I’ll just give you some examples:
- Mein Professor hat mich geduzt.
- Einen Polizisten muss man unbedingt siezen. Duzen kostet Geld.
- Die meisten Leute in Berlin duze ich.
- Du kannst mich duzen.
Generally I would say, that duzen and siezen is not used that much and people rather go for “du/sie sagen”. But that might be a regional thing or a personal thing, anyway. Of the two, siezen is even more rare… if you said to someone:
- Bitte siezen sie mich (please be use formal pronouns)
that would be really really disconnecting… like raising a big wall.
I hope that helps, if not, then maybe I just didn’t get what you were going for so just ask again:)
I’ve learnt three different words for ‘access’, – zutritt, zugang and zugriff. Do they mean the same thing/are interchangeable? Or do they have different meanings
Hehe… German and its precision. So, the key to this is looking at the roots of the words.
Zutritt comes from treten which is to kick and to step. So Zutritt is an access you can access by “stepping”. For instance a door.
Zugang comes from gehen and it can be used in a very literal sense… for instance for a door… in a less literal and yet physical sense (Zugang zu sauberem Wasser) or in an abstract sense… for example a computer. However, the physical notion is the more common one.
Zugriff comes from greifen which means to grab. So this is only used for things you can touch… in a literal sense but equally in an abstract sense. A computer trying to access a file doesn’t really want to enter it, but rather wants to do stuff with it… like … with a book. So in context of a file for instance Zugriff would probably the best choice, Zugang kind of works and Zugriff makes no sense… hope that helps :)
Brilliant as always, cheers dude!
Hey, dude, how are you? I’m studying the declinations of some words like viel, manch, solch, all… and the following adjectives. As a matter of fact, I understood quite easily some of the general rules (most of them I saw at DUDEN-Richtiges und Gutes Deutsch) but a doubt appeared through my studies: I can’t quite understand when to decline or not the words I mentioned before. I mean, I know how these words should be declined, but I don’t know WHEN they should be declined. I don’t really know if there are any rules or something, but if you could give me at least a hint, I would really appreciate :)
Auf Wiedersehen!
here is my try :
http://askaboutgerman.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/declension-of-manch-solch-viel-and-others/
Hey, dude, I’ve just read it! Thanks for describing it with such precision, I really appreaciate that :)
I’ve noticed a common German linguistic technique that is often used is for them to start a word with ‘da’. When this is used, what excatly does this mean and is it only used in certain situations?
Do you have an example for this? Or do you mean the da-words… like daran, davor darauf etc… because then there is a post here for you :)
http://yourdailygerman.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/da-words-meaning-german/
e.g. ‘da steht mein Auto’. If I’m not mistaken, I would say this in English as ‘that’s my car’, but in German I assume that the way to say this would be for ‘da’ to be placed at the start. If this is the case, I wanted to know in what situations and instances I would use ‘da’ at the start rather than my default English version (which I’m sure doesn’t translate well into German)…
Oh okay… let’s start with translating your English version… and this is pretty straight forward:
- That’s my car.
- Das ist mein Auto
The sentence:
- Da ist mein Auto.
does not really mean the same although the English version and the da-version might be used in the same situations.
The da is like a verbal index finger pointing at something… the translation is “there”. Da can point to things “inside the speech”… that’s what the da-words do a lot .But da can also be just a verbal companion of a physical pointing gesture…the sentence “Da ist mein Auto” does not make any sense if I don’t indicate what da is pointing at. I can use my finger or my head or even my leg… but I have to point.
Do we need this da? No… we could just point our finger and say “Mein Auto”… same content… but that wouldn’t be a sentence and “da” allows us to make a sentence… which would mean nothing without the physical pointing though…
So… the sentence literally means:
- There/here is my car.
But also the first version (Das ist mein Auto) doesn’t make sense without the physical indication… so basically the difference is that da- is more focussed on “where?” while “das” is more focused on “what is this”
What is really tricky is the combination:
- Das da ist mein Auto.
“Das” is pointing and “da” is pointing too… pointing at the same thing that is. If I wanted to translate this I could say:
- That over there/right here is my car
(Note that da can point at anything no matter how far away or close by it is.)
But I think it is more accurate to just drop the da and translate this as
- That’s my car.
Germans just love use the verbal pointer “da” and you can throw it in whenever you are doing a physical pointing gesture.
So… I hope this made some sense. I really have problems to word things right now, so if it wasn’t clear please please be honest and tell me and I’ll give it another shot. Anyway… so bottom line:
- Das ist mein Auto.
is kind of answering “Which car is yours?” while
- Da ist mein Auto.
is ansering “Where is your car?”
Hope that clears it up.