Hello German Learners,
And welcome back to the series on German particles. Today, with a thorough look at the meaning and use of
schon
The “normal” translation of schon is already, but it’s actually not a perfect match and many German native speakers use already wrongly.
But more importantly, schon is one of those infamous particles that Germans pepper their speech with. You know, like doch and eben and mal.
As usual with particles, many sources you can find online will list a whole bunch of potential meanings for schon, or they’ll just say it “adds emphasis”.
Neither approaches is true.
The particle schon does have a somewhat clear core function.
Today, we’ll explore all about that and we’ll also talk about schon as already and how it goes beyond that. Of course, as usual, with loads of examples and the occasion stupid joke.
So if you’re ready, let’s fart right in. I mean dive…
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“Pizza ist fertin?” –> “Pizza ist fertiG?”
Fixed, danke!
fuck you, bloody capitalist.
What do you want? Do you know what capitalism is? Do you know what defines a capitalist?
Jesus… Get a life.
I listened to the audio multiple times and I just can’t here you say the word doch. is that an audio-typo, or I haven’t cracked the native German code yet?
It’s really lazily pronounced. I say “do'”. which then contracts to “hasto” with the verb before it.
Thanks for clearing it up. It’s almost too subtle to hear.
Decided I need more listening, opened my 1st German-dubbed movie (Tinkerbell, because why not?), and am now having fun with all the schon’s they’re throwing here and there. Thanks for the thorough explanation.
Hahaha, a word like fairy dust :)
I’m reading a book and one character, after coming back from shopping in bad weather, says to her daughter “Stell schon mal was in die Küche.” I’ve been struggling to find a good translation. ‘Already’ doesn’t quite fit neatly or elegantly, but looking online I found a discussion which suggested ‘could you do this now’ as the tone it lends to the sentence.
A bit more context would be needed to judge tone (like, what’s the situation and why is the person telling the other person that).
But without that, I would go with:
– You can go ahead and put something in the kitchen.
or
– Actually, go ahead and put something in the kitchen.
or something along those lines.
A bit of context: the mother is at the front door of house, cold and wet with snow and can’t find her keys to open the door. Her young daughter opens the door and enquires as to whether she has bought something to daughter wants.
I this case, I’d need more specific context. Like a dialogue snippet or something.
Mainly to gauge the tone.
I feel like if “already” doesn’t work, then ANY translation that explicitely tries to capture “schon” will sound a bit “longer than it needs to be.”
Do the two options I mentioned help a bit though?
Hallihallo Emanuel! Great article!! Ich danke dir dafür.
Ich hätte mal eine Frage:
“Komm schon is mostly used in a context of encouraging someone to do something.
It doesn’t really work if you want to doubt someone’s statement. Just to give you an example
Wie seltsam würde es klingen, wenn ich im letzten Beispiel “komm schon, du weisst, dass er Scheiße ist,” sage?
Not too bad, actually. Not sure why I made it sound so strict :).
I was on my way home from the city with my tandem partner, when she asked me “Wo wohnst du schon wieder?” She said it in a neutral/friendly way, and I interpreted it as a “I know I asked you already, but once again, where are you living?”. But that doesn’t match the surprised/irritated way that you describe the “schon wieder”. Am I correct that it has this other meaning?
Thank you for a great article!
It’s a weird question she used. It only makes sense to me if you switch flats often.
Or possibly, it’s something southern. What part of German Speakistan is she from?
what about the other meaning of “so” as in “I believe so” (Ich glaube schon) ?
It’s the same pretty much as saying “I think yes.” It’s an affirming “schon”, so not really a different or separate meaning.
So curious what this schon is..
“Die andere Seite des Bediennes, das Sich-bediennen-Lassen, war mir immer schon suspekt. Noch mehr das Sich-bediennen-Lassen wollen”
So am i right in thinking immer schon suspekt would be something like “always undoubtedly suspect”
“I always found the capacity to serve undoubtedly suspect”
I’m also curious what you think about “sich bediennen lassen”. Cus i wasn’t sure if the sich related to the bediennen or the lassen – sich beidenen sounds to me a bit like “self-service” which would then mean the sentence meant something completely different….
ok so I just put the first sentence into deep L
“I’ve always been suspicious of the other side of being served, of letting myself be served.”
interestingly it eliminated the schon.
But it does seem to have a completely different sense of sich bedienen lassen to my attempt at translating it.
I thought the “sich lassen” was more like “die Tür lässt sich schließen”
but the deep L translation seems to be more to do with the idea of being served like “Der König lässt sich bediennen”
Do you have any thoughts on this? I can’t tell if this sentence is to do with the person who is serving or being served. The book is about the expereince of someone who worked in gastronomy.
Yeah, skipping it is the best choice. It’s fused into the “always”. In German, adding it to “immer” gives a certain flavor of “Hah, I already knew it”, which would be lacking with just “immer”.
The “sich lassen” is DEFINITELY the one from “König lässt sich bedienen”. The better comparison is “Ich lasse mir die Haare schneiden”.
Thanks for the clarification. I obviously trust you but is there a reason why you are sure other than context?
Is it because you would never use the “die Tür lässt sich schließen” sense of sich lassen to talk about a person?
Oh, you can use that other sense with people:
It’s the context that makes the difference here.
The first option just doesn’t really make enough sense to put the second one into question.
Cool… then you could say the die Tür lässt sich schließen sense of sich lassen can only be applied to people when its about what can be done to them (?)
I think i was thinking of sich lässen as a translation of “can” like “the door can be closed” and that this was to do with the capacity of something / someone to do something and got confused about what extent i might be appropriate to extent this to the capacity of a person to do something.
so Thomas lässt sich gut schrieben absolutely doesn’t work as “Thomas ist in der Lage, gut zu schrieben“.
Yeah, I think you have it now!
“lässt sich schließen” is basically a figurative take on “allows for being closed”. Like… think of the “interact” menu of an object or person.
No, this schon feels like the obscure version of “already”. Like… “gestern schon” only that instead of “gestern” the point where you had this knowledge was “immer”.
Also, schon will very rarely actually translate to “undoubtedly”. It’s just not the same tone.
The self reference in “sich bedienen lassen” refers to “lassen”.
thanks!
Surprised no one’s mentioned this but the use of “by all means” sounds really off to me.
This is the only sense of the phrase i know:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/by-all-means
There is a similar sounding phrase “by any means necessary” which also means something completely different …
Could you give me some context? Where did I mention “by all means”?
Oh, interesting. I guess I had a wrong impression of “by all means” then. I think I got it from contexts like this:
– If you really want to do this, then by all means… do it.
I thought it expressed a sort of “giving in” by the speaker.
i can kinda see how you could have formed that impression
So I have a couple of questions.
I am pretty sure i have heard people just reply to something someone else has said with “schon“. This is a thing right? Like, its the “reassuring /confirming schon” right?
Also I think i’ve heard both “schön cool” and “schon cool”…
“schon cool” would be like “without question cool” or something like that and “schön cool” would be “pretty cool”.
So “schon cool” is cooler than “schön cool” ?
So, yes “schon” can be a one word affirming answer to a question, often in contexts where there was some doubt.
– Ich will nix trinken heute.
– Aber du stößt mit uns an oder?
– Schon, ja.
It’s more idiomatic to add some sort of second word though.
As for “schon cool”… think of it more on a spectrum of “It WAS cool, even if I get where doubts might be coming from” to “pretty cool.”
“without question cool” only fits if there is actually some doubt in the room.
“schön cool” to me is more like “nice and cool”, so the “schön” doesn’t really qualify the “cool”, but rather the verb.
I hope that helps though I suspect it created more confusion :)
interesting. Actually no more confusion than usual – learning german is generally a state of constant confusion….
This was so fun to read, thank you!
Could you tell me if this would make any sense:
Ich spreche kein Französisch, aber Spanisch schon. (as in: …, but I do speak Spanish)?
Yes, that’s PERFECT actually!!
So here ‘schon’ just means ‘yes’ or ‘i do’? Which above example does this correspond to?
Great explanation of schon – very helpful in bringing me beyond the simple “already” definition!
I don’t really understand the question. Do you mean all the examples from the article?
Thank you for the wonderful article.
Colloquial German has always be a great challenge for me, even for a c1 speaker……
So under the context of explaining will something be provided/given, could Wird es schon geben be a direct translation for it will be given, z.b ein Bett,
or even from a commanding style, can wird es schon geben be translate as “as I/you explained before?”
Can you give me a bit of context please? Like… a situation? I do not know what you’re going for.
– XYZ wird es schon geben…
This can mean two things:
– XYZ will already be there (be supplied)
– XYZ will probably be there.
“schon” does NOT have a notion of “as explained before”. That’s “ja”.
‘schon’ can also mean ‘probably’!?
In combination with “werden”, yes.It reinforces the assumption that’s in the statement.
Great article , Thanks
I wonder if you could comment on the position of SCHON in a sentence ( I mix Duolingo with your articles and Easy German )
Wir haben unsere Koffer ins Hotel schon geschickt
Wir haben unsere Koffer schon ins Hotel geschickt
Wir haben schon unsere Koffer ins Hotel geschickt
Duolingo only accepts the second, Google translates all three identically
We have already sent our suitcase to the hotel
Thanks
Dave Ryan
The second one is the best, the third one is okay and the first one sounds wrong.
The reason is that “schicken” is VERY connected with the location you send something to. By splicing schon in between the location (ins Hotel) and (schicken) you’re creating a LOT of contrast to the usual word order and in this case you can’t “justify” this amount of contrast.
Read my series on word order if you want to know more about that :).
Or the series on the position of “nicht” which is based on the same core idea.
Generally, words like “schon” or “mal” stand between “theme” and “rhema”.
If that doesn’t tell you anything – you’re not alone. 99% of people don’t know this concept.
It’s too much for a comment but my series on word order should clear it up to an extent.
Let me know if that helps.
Wow you’re good
I went back to the Word order series and re-read all three again. I remember my eyes glazing and brain going fuzzy the first time. It only happened half way through part three this time.
I think ( despite the fuzzy glaze) I had understood the first time and that it was lurking in my understanding all the time.
I’m getting there, thanks for the help ( and unicorns and squirrels )
The series does need an edit, for sure, it hasn’t been updated in a long time and back then my thoughts were less organized :).
Lovely, detailed explanation; but a scone is not a British breakfast item! It is served as the main item of an afternoon cream tea (the light meal) usually with a pot of tea (the drink), served with thick or clotted cream and jam to spread on each half.
I have never seen it offered at breakfast.
Oh, my apologies then!
I used to work in a bistro and they’d have scones. I had never heard of it before and there people were ordering it for breakfast only.
But those were Gööörmans of course :)
A scone or a schon!?
Scone – it’s a British bakery item.
Hey, people! Amazing article, bro:)
Can you please explain what “schon von weitem” means?
Context:
Sie sahen ihn schon von weitem auf sich zukommen.
It means “already from afar”. So the idea is that they saw him very early on.
Hope that helps.
Hey there :) thanks for this article! About the usage in rhetorical questions, is it any similar to ‘auch’ ?
Like ‘Thomas? Was will der schon machen?’ can also be ‘Thomas? Was will der auch machen?’, meaning ‘nothing, no one’. Or, even if you can say it, it gives a different vibe or meaning altogether?
I personally don’t use this “auch” all that much, and I also don’t hear it in daily life. But I think I’ve seen it in books and yes, it’s roughly the same vibe.
Ok, gotcha :) thanks!!
Thank you for another extremely useful piece.
I just wanted to ask, in the example of ‘Warst du schon mal in Paris?’ is there any difference in tone/meaning between that and just saying ‘warst du mal in Paris?’ without the schon?
Thanks
Great question!
To me, there’s no real difference between the two. Without “schon” it sounds a tiny bit more “general” in the sense of “have you EVER”, but there’s effectively no difference in what you’re asking or what the response would be.
Hope that helps!
The audio files are not matching up, starting from the 5th play button from the top. The 5th audio file plays what’s supposed to play when pressing the 6th play button, and so on.
Whoops, awful!! Thanks for the heads-up, it’s fixed now :)!!
In the German Harry Potter books, “you-know-who” is referred to as “du-weißt-schon-wer”. What’s the schon mean here? Does it mean something else / not make sense if you take it out?
Thanks for a great article!
Great question!!
I never really thought about this, but it adds a mix of “already” with a slight vibe of “no doubt”… like, “you no doubt know who, already; I don’t need to explain or clarify. It’s so obvious.”
This would also work, but sounds less colorful.
And another really important aspect is rhythm.
“wer” has an emphasis and so does “weißt”. The “schon” in between doesn’t have emphasis, so we get a nice flow:
Hope that helps :)
Mein Opa war auch schon Bäcker.
What meaning would schon have here
Could be two things:
1) Someone else in the family line who comes AFTER the granpdpa is a baker
2) The grandpa has had several jobs and one of them (before the current one) was baker.
My first impulse was for meaning number one, but it’s impossible to know without context.