Hello everyone,
and welcome to another episode of Prefix Verbs Explained. Today we’ll have a look at the verb that’s probably the favorite word of all students… especially in summer.
ausfallen
Aus can add two notions to a verb: switched-off-ness and outside-ness. And in combination with fallen, switched-off-ness doesn’t make too much sense. I mean… switching off by falling?
“Honey, can you turn out the light?”
“Sure.” (shoves bed side lamp from the nightstand)
*crack
“Thanks.”
“That was our last one. We gotta get new ones tomorrow.”
What a dumb system that would be.
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Shouldn’t this read: “Thomas thinks that his hair is slowly falling out.” Instead of “starting to fall out.”
That’s more literal, for sure.
The German phrasing sounds a bit like it’s about the slowly start of hair loss, that’s why I chose this translation. I wasn’t sure if “slowly falling out” is also about the beginning.
The thing with the lamp killed me. Thanks for the mental image:)
Haha, nice :)
Super und danke!
A little correction: one example in the post, “Wegen Hiltz” should be “Wegen die Hiltz”.
Actually, both are possible (wegen Hitze – wegen der Hitze) but in formal announcements, it’s more idiomatic without the article :).
Grüße Emanuel
Würde die Übersetzung von “ausfallen” in diesem Satz der Vorstellung von “to turn out” entsprechen? Etwa so, how the budget „turns out“?
Weil in den USA jeder Bundesstaat individuell entscheidet, wie hoch sein Budget für Bildung ausfällt.
Könnten ausfallen und herausstellen in einigen Fällen austauschbar sein?
Danke
“ausfallen” ist nicht die beste Wahl in dem Kontext da der Bundeststaat ja KOMPLETTE Kontrolle hat, wie das Budget ist. “ausfallen” hat ein bisschen ein Element des Unkontrollierbaren. In deinem Beispiel klingt “ausfallen” als ob jemand unbedingt nicht “ist” verwenden wollte :).
Können “sich herausstellen” und “ausfallen” ausgetauscht werden… nee, vielleicht in 1 von 1000 Fällen.
“sich herausstellen” geht um “information being revealed/revealing itself”, bei “ausfallen” geht es um “judging a result”.
Danke! Ich bin nicht sicher, ob ich den zweiten Punkt verstehe, was Theorie/Praxis angeht. Ich wollte sagen, “my plan turned out badly”. Funktioniert “etw ist gut/schlecht ausgefallen” anders als “sth turned out well/poorly?”
“Mein Plan hat nicht funktioniert” oder “Mein Plan ist gescheitert” wäre ja vielleicht direkter…
“etwas ist X ausgefallen” ist beschreibt den Endstatus den eine Sache erreicht. Danach kann man sagen “etwas ist X”
– Die Kritiken sind gut ausgefallen.
also dann
– Wie sind die Kritiken? Die Kritiken sind gut.
Bei dem Beispiel mit Plan funktioniert das nicht den der Plan ist dann “weg”.
– The plan turned out badly.
– How’s the plan?
– The plan is badly.
Das macht keinen Sinn aber wenn du “ausgefallen” verwendest, dann klingt es ein bisschen so.
Hilft das?
Als der Schüler mit Sabotage-Gerät in den Elektroraum schlich, war versehentlich sein Rucksack offen, und eine Drahtschere fiel raus. “Mist,” sagte er. “Ich wollte einen Stromausfall veranlassen, damit die Unterricht ausfällt. Da ich jetzt erwischt bin, ist mein Plan schlecht ausgefallen.” Das war eine echte Schade, weil das Wetter ausgefallen gut war, sodass er gerne blaugemacht hätte. Stattdessen musste er im Büro des Schuldirektors sitzen während der ausfallend wurde.
Wow, super kreativ :)!!! Und richtig gut geschrieben. Hier mal ein paar kleine Korrekturen:
– Stromausfall veranlassen… besser “verursachen”; das klingt direkter
– … mein Plan ist schlecht ausgefallen… das ist nicht so idiomatisch und es ist eher ein Urteil über den Plan in der Theorie, nicht die Praxis. Da wäre “funktionieren” die richtige Wahl
– “Das war eine echte Schade…”
Entweder “das war echt schade” oder “das war eine echte Schande (shame)”. “Schade” ist ein Adverb.
Aber sonst echt top!!
Ich denke, dass Sie zu viel “t” in “Zahnarzt” gestellt haben.
Stimmt. Den Fehler mach’ ich öfter mal. Danke
Hi, I just joined two days ago and have a question please – staying on Maria’s cleavage :) when does one use “beinahe” as opposed to “fast”
Thanks – this is a cool site!
Those two are pretty much synonymous. I guess you wouldn’t use “beinahe” with numbers (like… almost 10 o’ clock or almost 10 kilos) but that’s the only difference I can think of.
Willkommen, by the way. I hope you like it around here :)
what about subjunctive? do we have to use it here? “da wäre alles beinahe rausgefallen”
“person is in fact NOT gestorben”- https://yourdailygerman.com/2017/12/09/frieren-gerfrieren-freeze-german/#comment-42805
Hmmm, I think you mean “Maria’s cleavage was so low.” Like her dress is so low cut that she’d totally fall out if any bouncing went on. Actually the “cleavage” is what you see when the dress’ neckline is low cut, so it doesn’t quite make sense. (You could use “décolletage” or “neckline.”)
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Danke :)
Hey have a question, I’ve read somewhere that the modal verben should not be used with zu, but take a look at this example “er hatte beschlossen, nicht den ganzen Kreis mit einem Mal finden zu wollen” and alot of other examples where zu is used with modal verbs could you please explain this to me?
So the rule you’ve read is actually that “zu” is not used AFTER a modal verb. So if you want to connect a normal verb to a modal verb, you don’t need “zu”
– I must go.
– Ich muss gehen.
We connect “go” to the modal “müssen” without “zu”.
But of course we can also connect a modal verb to a normal verb. Then we do need “zu”
– Es ist schön, singen zu können.
– It is nice to be able to sing.
Here, we’re connecting “können” to “schön sein” and that’s why we need a “zu”.
So in a way it’s a matter of who’s the boss in the sentence. If the modal verb is the main verb and we attach something to it, then no “zu”. If we attach a modal to a normal verb, then we need “zu”
Does that help?
Hello everyone! I´m a new member here too.
I have been using this page to understand and differentiate some verbs. My goal is to study in Germany next summer.
Thank you so much for the effort you make on explaining this to us.
A very slightly related question…I have been told that a person can use “ausfallen lassen” in terms of skipping something. For example, if you were speaking with a child, “Willst du das Bad ausfallen lassen?” Is that correct?!
Yeah, that works. I have ausfallen lassen a shower here and there myself :)
Cool and Awesome. Thanks for this article
Gerne :)
Hey Emmanuel! Toller Blog-Post, wie immer. Ein paar Vorschläge, wenn du jemals Themen ausgehst: ich würde gern deine Erklärungen von “beziehungsweise” und “bescheid” lesen. Ich habe keine Ahnung, was der Unterschied zwischen “Weißt du?” und “Weißt du bescheid?” ist. Und beziehungsweise scheint sehr oft verwendet zu werden, aber ich hab noch kein Gefühl für seine Bedeutung. Es bedeutet etwas wie “und”, “oder”, “und/oder” und auch “respectiv”? So verwirrend!
Danke :)
Super Vorschläge, danke! “beziehungsweise” hatte sich schon mal jemand gewünscht, aber irgendwie hab’ ich’s vergessen.
Eine kleine Korrektur:
– … wenn du jemals die Themen ausgehst.
Das ist nicht ganz richtig. Die Themen gehen aus, sie sind Subjekt und sie gehen mir aus (von mir weg, negative receipient)
Also:
– … wenn dir jemals die Themen ausgehen.
Aso, sehr hilfreich, danke!
Hi Sir, thank you very much for reading my email and considering a free account for me. Actually I was totally disappointed, because this was not the first time I lost these kinds of resources just as a result of not having international credit cards in my country. I would not forget this generosity of your community and try to make my best effort to use it in a right way.
As a retired military guy, “to fall out” or “to fall in” has a completely different immediate meaning for me. I’m sure you’ve seen it in (American only?) movies. When soldiers are just hanging around outside, doing nothing, and the First Sergeant screams, “Fall in!” that means everyone gets quickly into the box-shaped formation and stands at attention. Conversely, after he’s done barking orders and yelling at everyone, the command, “Fall Out!” means soldiers can go back to doing what they normally do, which is stand around and find something to bitch and complain about. So, “fall out!” is always a good and welcome command to the ears of Army soldiers :)
For trivia…I think the German equivalent to “fall in” is “Stillgestanden”. Or the infamous “Aaaaachtung”. The opposite, I don’t know. I did civil service. My liver is still grateful for it.I feel like, all that my friends who did go to the army ever did, was drinking :).
I realised the fact that ausfallen is used in the sense of ‘cancelling itself’ when i once said “Der Zug wurde ausgefallen”, and was immediately corrected that it should be “Der Zug ist ausgefallen”.
I have a partially related question which I hope makes sense, und zwar, I have been told that “Ich wurde geboren” is correct and “Ich bin geboren” is wrong. I assume it is since gebären is the verb, which someone does to you. Why is it not possible to use the latter as a Zustandspassiv sentence? Or perhaps I am wrong.
Danke im Voraus.
You’re totally correct. “bin geboren” is 100% correct on a pure grammatical level.
Is it wrong in practice? Well, I’d say no.
“wurde geboren” is a tense that describes a process while “bin geboren” is a description of a state (that’s the result of a process). “gebären” is a process with a beginning and a clear end and we do take note of the day it happened. Also, “geboren” isn’t a very interesting characteristic because every one has it. So based on that, “wurde geboren” is probably the more fitting version because it’s about a process. However, calling “bin geboren”wrong is … well… language Nazi style.
grammatically it is not wrong and there are plenty instances where the state matters.
– Ich bin zum Reiten geboren.
– I’m born for riding.
This is clearly about the state, how you are, and nobody can (or will) argue that “wurde geboren” is better here. And there are many many more examples where “ist geboren” is used in writing. So whoever told you that “bin geboren” is “””wrong”””… maybe they like it better, maybe it makes a tad bit more sense, but reality knows both versions.
Perfect use of “und zwar” by the way!
Ok. How come its bis nächstes Mal when bis takes dativ? How did that manage to ausfallen like that?!
Who says that “bis” takes Dative?
Looks like either you didn’t finish this paragraph or left something on the end you meant to delete:
“All right. Now, before we move on, we should quickly mention a couple of uses that are a bit independent of the verb. Their core definitely is some idea of falling out though. The ge-form ausgefallen can be used in the sense of extraordinary and the phrase ausfallend werden means to become verbally abusive. I think the idea of falling out of some”
Damn, that’s true. I didn’t finish the sentence and I didn’t mark it as unfinished so I didn’t catch it. Thanks for bringing that up
Hello! New member here!
I guess one useful thing I can add to this post is that the idea of something “not taking place although it was scheduled” has an idiomatic cousin in English, in “to fall through.”
Oh really? Does “fall through” work for stuff like a meeting for example?
Yes, a meeting can fall through. Anything that’s planned but ends up not happening.
Cool, thanks.
I would add, though, that at least to me “fall through” sounds more like a failed attempt than I think “ausfallen” does. Like, we WANTED to have a meeting, but it fell through. You wouldn’t use it for any situation where the cancellation is seen as positive (again, at least I wouldn’t). It’s not necessarily something super serious or anything, but at least in that way it’s got a little bit of a conceptual connection to “durchfallen” as well.