“Freeze!”
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Great article! Yet I’m not sure (and your dictionary doesn’t specify either) which of these verbs can be done by someone/something on something else (like “The ice box freezes the beer” ) and which are done only by the object itself? (“The beer freezes”).
I’d say “einfrieren” for both options in this context. Definitely not “frieren” and “gefrieren” would work for the beer freezing by itself, but it sounds a bit too “pompous”.
Thanks! But I was looking for a more general overview, not just this context. Like, could you use gefrieren if it is done by something else?
Die schlechte Wetter hat das Wasser gefroren.
(The bad weather froze the water.)
You’d usually rephrase it like “The water froze because of the…”. So you wouldn’t typically express this as “A freezes B” and if you do need to (like in the context of food), then it’s usually “einfrieren”.
Top article thanks ✌️✌️
Danke :)
How exactly is gefroren/erfroren pronounced? You seem to ignore the last “r”, in dit.cc the are 2 versions: one without the last “r” pronounced and one with it pronounced. In google translator all “r” are pronounced. Are there different versions?
Thank you in advance,
Not sure what your question is… obviously there are different versions :).
My question is: in “gefroren” you seem to pronounce “gefroen” (the last “r” almost not audible); in others places I hear “gefroren” with a strong last “r”.
Here is this link, both ways are pronounced: https://www.dict.cc/?s=gefroren
Which one is the standard and what is the difference?
The standard, if there is such a thing even, has a slight “r” but it really doesn’t matter. It’s a regional difference and which one sounds natural depends on where you are. The north and east tends to swallow the second “r”, the South pronounces it. No idea about the west. Just pick whatever is the easiest for you, and don’t make it too strong.
Good as always, I see in one of your examples you use nur for just, not Gerade. When do you use nur and when gerade? in fact a post about gerade would be lovely.
If “just” means “only” then it’s “nur”. There’s a two part article on “gerade” and “eben” ;)
Oh help, and where does bloß come in this context?
As a translation for “just” it is synonymous with “nur”
Ich glaube wir sagen: The lake froze over, or, the lake is frozen. Maybe even, the lake froze!
However, I have never lived near a frozen lake. Maybe people who do live there would say this differently.
Camille713
Emanual: Well, now I know how little I understand the Subjunctive and how much help I need with it.
Person243: Thanks for the info om “starr” and all the ways to use it – look forward to more of your comments.
“Frozen over” is more idiomatic for bodies of water. “The lake is frozen” sounds like it might be frozen all the way through, although for that we would probably say “frozen solid”. A frozen waterfall beloved of mountaineers could be described as “frozen solid”.I wonder if one day you might give us a little lesson on the subjunctive, which I really still don’t have a feel for. In one of the examples above you’ve got a climber almost freezing to death. In English that’s not counterfactual – he did almost freeze to death. German seems to come at from the angle that he didn’t freeze to death, never mind the “almost”, let’s use the subjunctive. That right?
Ha… the moment I typed that example I was like “Oh… someone’s gonna ask about this”. Subjunctive is coming, no worries.
But to give you a bit of insight (you’re such a regular commenter, you’ve more than deserved it)…
– … ist fast gestorben.
This is not wrong either, but it sounds a bit strange. Why? Because “… ist X” sounds like you’re describing how someone is. But the person is in fact NOT gestorben. And there’s no gradient. You can’t be “a little died”.
In English, that problem doesn’t arise because the past tense is formed differently
– Someone has died.
– Someone died.
There’s no “to be” in either of them.
If you were to use the written past in German, you’d see no subjunctive.
– Er starb fast bei dem Versuch.
– He almost died in the attempt.
But with “ist X” the subjunctive kind of makes sense because the person is NOT X. They almost were X, but they’re not.
Hope that helps :)
Interesting! That’s totally different from French. In French, the past of to die also uses the “to be”, but you still wouldn’t use the subjunctive in that example, that would be totally bizarre. You would just say “il est presque mort” which translates to either he almost died or he is almost dead, and I guess we just rely on the interlocutor to understand the meaning through context.
Hah. To me it is really bizarre to think that “wäre fast gestorben” could sound wrong XD. Seriously, it is absolutely incomprehensible to me how this could not make sense.
Quite some fundamental difference we’ve stumbled upon here.
Is there ANY context in French where “wäre fast gestorben” (I mean, using the subjunctive with “fast”) would be the proper way to say it?
And does the subjunctive always need a trigger/follow up? Or can I say it independently of an (implied) if-condition
It would only make sense with an “if” clause. And in the “wäre fast gestorben” example, it’s almost impossible to make it make sense in French.. I guess you could make up an elaborate story for some hypothetical chain of events that would have resulted in him almost dying where it would make sense but otherwise it really doesn’t work.
I racked my brain to think of cases where you could use the subjunctive in French without an “if”. The only cases I can think of would be “j’aurai aimé” or “j’aurai voulu” and maybe “j’aurai pu” which are I would have loved to, I would have wanted to and I could have, respectively (just using I as an example, it also works with other subjects). Even if they can stand on their own, it still sounds like there’s more to the story and you would want to know why not.
Cool. Thanks Emanuel – that’s gone in. “He were almost died”. Almost sounds right in English if you say it in a Yorkshire accent.
It was the beinahe that I focused on so I missed that it was the subjunctive (a bit of a closed book to me here too). So could you have written ‘wäre fast erfroren” and that would have been equally correct or is beinahe rather than fast used particularly with the subjunctive or . . .?
No, German is really chill with this stuff. “beinahe” and “fast” are interchangeable. And there are no real word-triggers for subjunctive. It’s solely based on meaning.
Danke vielmals! Jetzt fällt der Schnee und ich friere. Zehr zeitnah… And for becoming motionless, we use freeze. Not in German?
You mean the way the police calls out: “Freeze!”? That would be: “Keine Bewegung!” (lit.: “No movement!”) in German.
Or to freeze because of emotional stress. “I was so preplexed/stunned, that I just froze.” = “Ich war so perplex/verplüfft, dass ich einfach erstarrte.”
There is a proverb for that: “starr vor Angst/Freude/Überraschung…”. You could translate “starr” here as “benumbed”, “petrified” or maybe “frozen” if you prefer.
“starr” seems like a good word for Emaluel to elaborate on. It has many facets, including prefix verbs, different meanings and interesting adjective constructions like: “starrköpfig” = “headstrong”.
When moving pictures freeze, or other visual media, as Emanuel already mentioned: “einfrieren” is used. “Look how long he can hold that weight up.” – “No, it’s only the screen that froze.” = “Schau mal, wie lang er das Gewicht hochhalten kann.” – “Nein, das ist nur der Bildschirm, der eingefroren ist.”
In the same context, you could for example also use “(Bild-/Ton-)Aussetzer haben” or “stocken” (which originates I think from milk or blood getting solid, “to clot” – is that the word? So, very similar to “to freeze” but for emulsions instead of fluids).
Thanks a lot! I think “erstarren” is what I was thinking of.
Hahaha… love your weight example!!!!
Having watched far too many Krimis on German TV the past year I can state with confidence that German Polizei shout out “Stehen bleiben!” (lit. stand stay) for ‘freeze’.
Oh really?! But now that you mention it, “stehen geblieben” does sound a tiny bit high brow.
“Sehr” nicht “zehr” ;).
Natürlich.
I have trapped in the bus almost 2 hours because of the snow…
and reading this i was like…
na. Ok… ich weiß
Lol
So much fun indeed.
Thanks for sharing!!
Oh man… I wish I had some of that snow here :)