Hello everyone,
and welcome to a new episode of the series on German modal particles.
You know… those dochs and halts and jas and ebens that Germans put everywhere and that are so hard to get a handle on.
And today, we’ll take a look at:
The meaning and use of “denn”
And I’ll start by telling you What it DOESN’T mean.
Denn doesn’t mean then in the context of time. The German word for that is dann.
- Wann? Dann!
- When? Then!
Dann itself looks like than, which makes this a little confusing. A few hundred years the words were the same pretty much, but then they each went into their own direction and now we’re left with the mess.
But yeah, the word for then in the sense of time is dann.
And denn itself has three distinct meanings or uses:
- Flavoring particle in questions
- Expressing because
- Synonym for als in comparisons
I put them in order of how important they are. The flavoring particle is definitely our focus today, lso because many explanations online kind of get it wrong.
But I’ll also touch on the other two as well.
So, are you ready to dive in?
Then let’s go.
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The equivelent word in English is “for.” It isn’t commonly used to mean “because” in spoken English, but it is common in older written English, such as fairy tales. “And Cinderella was very sad, for she had no gown to wear to the ball.” And. like “denn,” it can only follow the clause it refers to; you can’t start a sentence with it when it means “because.”
Sehr gut geschrieben!
Was mir grade zu “denn je” noch einfiel: Auch hier hält “als” Einzug: In täglicher Konversation würde ich eher sagen “Die Sommer sind mittlerweile heißer als je zuvor”, statt “… denn je”. Meiner Meinung nach (oder vielleicht ist es ne regionale Sache) ist “denn je” schon extrem schriftsprachlich. Das würde ich nur benutzten, wenn ich mit Absicht sehr formell oder korrekt sprechen will. z.B. in einem Vortrag. Mit dem Zusatz “zuvor” klingt “als je” völlig okay für mich :D.
Das stimmt, dass “denn je” nicht so oft vorkommt, aber ich benutze es auf jeden Fall “ab und zu” auch im Alltag.
“als je zuvor” ist auf jeden Fall eine gute Option. Nur wichtig für Lerner: “als je” alleine geht nicht. Das klingt echt komisch.
ein Bekannter hat mir diesen email geschickt – Was machst du denn? –. I feel it is very rude , impolite. Am I too sensitive or is it a normal question
Only this one sentence as an email? Or was there more?
In Spoken conversation, it would depend on the intonation. It could mean:
– Gee, what the hell are you doing?!
And also:
– Anyway, so what do YOU do, by the way? (interested voice)
As a single sentence email, I would find it weird. But it also depends how well you know each other and what the conversation was before.
It’s most likely not intended “very rude”, but maybe it’s the infamous German directness at work.
Vielen dank
In Austria instead of the filler-denn you can use “leicht”.
Can you give us an example maybe?
Danke für den Artikel. Hat mich weiter gebracht.
Das freut mich zu hören :)!
In my experience (and research), it is common in colloquial spoken German, at least in Austria and perhaps southern Germany, not to transpose the verb when using weil. Weil is much more commonly used in these areas.
BTW The word “da” is also used as an alternative to mean the same thing (with transposed verb) but I think mainly (only?) in written (formal?) German.
Yes, that’s true for Norther Germany as well, but it really only works for “weil”, not for “da” for example. And only if the weil-sentence comes AFTER what it is reasoning for.
This sounds wrong in spoken as well.
Hey Emanuel,
Why the sentence
“Entschuldigung, wissen Sie denn, wie ich zum Markt komme?”
Is wrong?
I thought “denn” can be used in questions, long and short?
Great question!!
At first, I was thinking it is because there is no shared context. So no prior conversation and the people don’t know each other.
But then I realized that
would totally be okay and even preferable over the same without “denn”.
And then I realized that it depends on the question type.
For w-questions (with question word), “denn” works pretty universally.
For yes or no questions, it only sounds appropriate if there is an ongoing conversation. In these questions, it has a vibe of connecting to what was before, but when there’s nothing, it sounds weird all of a sudden.
Let me know if that helps.
The W-questions with “denn” part is satisfying for me.
But for the Yes or No questions, in this case, “denn” would have the both function of paddling and referring backwards (as in first meaning with because).
This is what makes me confusing.
Hallo Emanuel, on Question 4 of the test, I thought the last choice “Thomas koch Pasta, Weil er Hunger hat” was one of your trick questions and not a typo–because it should be Thomas kochT, –but turned out it really was a typo!
Oh sorry for the confusion!!
Yeah, in a multiple choice situation like in that question, it’s not clear if that was on purpose or not.
Generally, unless the topic is specifically conjugation, these mistakes are ALWAYS typos though (just in case you come across another somehwere) :)
Hi Emanuel,
Wie hast du denn nur die IHRE Telefonnummer gekriegt?
In this example sentence, why do you have “die” and “ihre” at the same time?
Many thanks:)
Good catch! That’s a typo. “die” has to go. I first had “die”, then changed it to “ihre” and forgot to edit out “die” :)
Sorry for the confusion!
While i really enjoyed the article, i find myself being a little more confused than before :”) The overload of information confused me…
Love how witty this article is!
I just found this blog today and I’m really impressed. I really like this style of teaching and I thank you wholeheartedly for explaining this really well. There’s only one thing I can’t quite understand – the last question from the quiz. It lists some answers that use DENN in affirmative or imperative sentences as correct. Why is that so? Isn’t it always used in questions? Are they part of idioms?
Hi, thanks for the great feedback and also for the question about the quiz! You’re totally correct. None of these sentence were idiomatic, except the question. I forgot to tick the box to make the question “multiple answers” instead of “one answer”. It should be fixed now.
Vielen Dank und viel Spaß mit der Seite :)
I want to say a big thank you for your mentioning the Manifestum of Languages. I am having a great time! I never enjoyed the idea of being confused so much :)
Hi Emanuel. I am learning a lot with your blog!
You might find this article interesting on denn vs weil.
It mentions that both A-weil-B and A-denn-B can tell that B is the reason why A happens, but only A-denn-B can tell that B is the reason why you say or believe that A happens.
Examples:
Die Straße ist naß, denn es hat geregnet.
Die Straße ist naß, weil es geregnet hat.
(the street is wet because it rained, regardless of my opinion)
Es hat geregnet, denn die Straße ist naß.
*Es hat geregnet, weil die Straße naß ist.
(I say/believe that it rained, because I perceive that the street is wet)
Apparently, this second kind of causal link, this reason for stating the fact instead of reason for the fact itself, can only be expressed with denn.
Wow, that’s actually true!!
“denn” can be used for this kind of inferring.
– Es hat geregnet, denn die Straße ist nass.
by itself, it sounds a bit weird to me. But in context it would work, while the same with “weil” wouldn’t.
That makes sense, too.
What happens is basically an omision of the part “I think/say”. A “weil”-sentence is an integrated sentence, so it’s one level below “es hat geregnet”. Hence it CAN’T refer to a top level sentence like “I think/say”
A denn-sentence on the other hand is a top level sentence, so it can very well refer to an unspoken “I think”.
That said, I would STRONGLY recommend learners NOT to use it that way. It’s not that common and you need to have sprachgefühl to pull it off. The chances of it being a mess is really high :).
Thanks a lot for sharing this, that was an interesting little insight!!
Hallo! Ich lerne seit vier Jahren Deutsch, weil ich es für meine Prüfungen lernen muss. Jedoch wurden meine Prüfungen abgesagen wegen dem Coronavirus und ich lerne doch Deutsch! Warum? Ich kann jetzt nicht aufhalten! Ich bin besessen! Also hab ich jeden Tag studiert und es hat viel verbessert, da deiner Blogs sehr fantastisch sind! Danke!
Super :)!! Das freut mich zu hören. Und ja, mach auf jeden Fall weiter!! Du bist schon so gut, bald bist du bereit für C1!!
Dankeschön!
Dankeschön!
Wow nice jooobbbbb
awesome post, thanks! <3
Glad you like it :)!!
Great article!
I have a question about the test on this answer choice of the 2 questions of choosing the grammatically correct answer. This sentence ‘Weil er Hunger hat, kocht Thomas Pasta’, how is it correct in one question and wrong in another if the sentence is already grammatically correct?
Great question!!!
Simple answer: We messed up and forgot to mark it as right in the second one.
Thanks for pointing that out and sorry for the confusion (I would be REALLY confused by something like that)
It would be better if you got straight to the point.
I know! This was from a period where I really went off topic a LOT. I want to edit all my old articles and trim some fat, but it’s a slow process. Thank’s for the feedback though!
Umm…I don’t want Emanuel to get to the point! This blog is more designed to review ideas we already have seen in class, or go more in depth on words we “know”. He shuffles around the edges. Many other blogs are TOO short, brief, basic and don’t give the full Sprachgefühl.
Why do you even do this it doesn’t make any sense
IT makes sense to some people. Nothing works for everyone. And I mainly did it because I enjoyed it.
If you have a question about it, you’re welcome to ask.
This is the worst thing ever