Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. And this time, we’ll take a look at the wonderful world of
achten
By itself, achten might not really be a verb you have on your radar, but it has some pretty useful siblings. Like Achtung for instance, which you might know from warning signs. Or Achtsamkeit, which is pretty central in meditation.
And of course you’ve all know acht, the number, which is the one who ate nine.
Or wait… that was actually seven.
Sieben acht neun.
And it’s not even funny in German.
Probably because nothing is funny in German.
Not even the show Friends, which in German was called Coworkers.
Anyway… there are plenty of useful German words with acht in them and today we’ll explore what they all mean, how to use them and of course how they’re even connected.
So are you ready to jump in?
Then let’s freaking go…
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You have this with the examples of the number usage.
How does this work into meaning a wobbling wheel?
8Hz is the frequency of wobble that causes a crash?
We call it 8, because when you look at the wheel lengthwise, it’s not a straight line anymore, but has a bend and when you turn it fast, it looks a bit like an 8.
Wow. That is not going to be easy to ride on for sure. Great image
When I was trying to record “Im Wald in der Nacht,Nimm dich vor der gehörnten Mähne in Acht.“ only “Im Wald in der“ was evaluated. It could be because “Nacht,Nimm“ has no space after comma or there is a new line marker.
You’re right, actually! It parses out the new line. I tried several versions now, with manual space and so on, but nothing is working, so I’ll have to work on the code for that.
For the meantime, you can just add a space manually after the example is loaded in the recorder. That’ll work (you can edit all examples there however you feel like it).
I’m glad to hear that someone is using this feature, by the way :)
Thanks for starting this feature. This is really super valuable. Your website was always very helpful, but now it is even better by adding the speaking component.
My German pronunciation used to be pretty good for my level, but over time, I became quite sloppy with it. So now, I can work on the pronunciation again. If I concentrate, I sometime get lucky with 100% for the whole sentence, but especially with longer or difficult sentences, I get some words in yellow or red. With careful repeats, I can typically get over 90%.
Inspired by this feature, I found online similar AI sources for other languages. I’ve also found this: https://speak.ef.com/en. Is this what you use? At first, I thought I would need a native speaker to record the correct pronunciation, but it seems that all those AI algorithms just work from a provided text. I should then be able to use speak.ef to create my own exercises in other languages.
Yes, that’s the AI I am using. They gave me access to the AI itself, so I could create my own exercise type.
I hope they never decide to revoke that :).
And yes, it does NOT process audio. It gets a sentence in writing and from that it builds and expectation of how it should sound and then compares your recording with that.
I’m here to thank everyone who makes it possible for me to read this awesome article for free. So excited to start my journey with the Fitnesstrainer hahaha
Der beste Teil des Artikels ist Wojaks Brief an McDonalds, aber was um alles in der Welt ist ein Gehörnten Mähne?
Warum lässt Bob es nicht einfach färben?
“gehörnte Mähne” ist natürlich ein poetischer Begriff für “Einhorn”.
Und Bob möchte sich nicht verstecken nur um akzeptiert zu werden #zebrapride
Oh, Bonus points weil du Wojak kennst :)
Statt ‘achten auf’ kann man ‘achten über’ nutzen? Gibt es einen Unterschied? Vielleicht wenn etwas passiert in diesem Moment, statt in den Fall, dass etwas möglicherweise schaffen wird?
…im Falle…
…oder ‘falls’…. I need to read your article on ‘falls’; though not sure it mentions ‘im Falle’….
Nein, “achten über” gibt es nicht. Hast du das irgendwo gelesen?
Nein, aber ich habe etwas über ‘auf’ und ‘über’ gelesen – that suggested ‘auf’ when the future is involved and ‘über’ when present (I just saw your article suggests ‘goal’ rather than ‘future’)
I guess what you read was about “sich freuen auf” vs “sich freuen über”. You can absolutely not generalize this stuff. It’s not gonna work. Even my vague notion of “goal” will not always work.
Yes that was it. Another shortcut bites the dust :(
Hahahahah, “über” is quite easy to grasp… just picture yourself hovering over a topic in some way. That generally works.
In this example:
“Ich habe große Achtung vor meinem Fitness-Trainer.”
“Meinst du Achtung für oder Interesse an?”
“Naja… beides.”
The first speaker sasys “Achtung vor “and the second says “Actung fuer”
Which is correct? Is the second speaker correcting the first?
As always, thanks very much for your blog!
Good question! They’re both correct actually, I didn’t really notice that I used both in one example.
Hallo, ich bin’s wieder, diesmal in einer noch größeren Depression als je zuvor, und ich habe ‘ne “spannende” frage an euch alle(n?) und zwar, wie geht ihr mit sprachelernenantrieblosigkeitsyndromdessterbens um? Denn mein Gehirn hat offensichtlich Spaß daran mir mein Leben zu erschweren.. Egal.. bitte nicht so ernst nehmen ( vieleicht doch) .
Tschüss.
jetzt gehe ich mein subscribe ernenuen denn wer bin ich um benachrichtigt zu werden dass ich nur zwei artikel pro woche lesen kann, excusez moi?!
Spaß und bleibt sicher. :*
Hahah, oh nein, dieses Syndrom ist ein Problem für viele Lerner :).
Mein perönliches Mittel ist einfach dann Vokabeln zu lernen, ganz stupide mit Flashcards. Aber das funktioniert garantiert nicht für jeden.
Kopf hoch, lieber Pawli, du bist echt witzig und klug. Übe Achtsamkeit und sei nett zu dir selbstPass auf dich auf, LG
Oh, so lieb!! Ich schließe mich deinen Worten an!!
Denk daran, was du schon so alles gelernt hast. Irgendwann konntest du gar kein Deutsch und jetzt hast du einen ziemlich langen Kommentar komplett auf Deutsch geschrieben. Vielleicht war es anstrengend, das ist normal, aber du hast es geschafft und kannst stolz auf dich sein.
Dass dein Gehirn Spaß daran hat, dir das Leben zu erschweren – schön ausgedrückt, und das Gefühl kenne ich auch.
Vielleicht hilft es, wenn du Lernmethoden findest, die dir Spaß machen, wie z.B. Musik auf Deutsch hören und die Texte lernen, oder eins deiner Lieblingsbücher nochmal auf Deutsch lesen (mir ist es egal, wenn ich nur ein paar Sätze pro Tag schaffe, Kinderbücher sind auch eine Option), oder kurze Videos auf Youtube schauen zu Themen die dich interessieren und wo du dich gut auskennst (dann ist es leichter, ein paar neue Vokabeln zu lernen).
Es ist vollkommen normal, wenn du Dinge vergisst, nicht alles auf einmal verstehst, und mal einen schlechten Tag oder eine schlechte Woche hast. Lass dich nicht runterkriegen, mach einfach weiter, und feiere das, wenn du einen kleinen (oder größeren) Erfolg hast :)
“when it lays down” should be “when it lies down.” This error has become distressingly frequent in the US, particularly among the younger generation, since grammar is not taught, or only sketchily taught, it our schools these days. “To lie” is intransitive; “to lay” is transitive – it must take a direct object. “I lie down” is correct; “I lay down” is not, because you have not provided a direct object and are probably trying to say that you are lying down. It WOULD be correct, although kind of poetic in tone, to say “I lay myself down.” There is an old and pretty much forgotten children’s prayer that goes, “Now I lay me down to sleep…..” — “me” is the direct object. Note that “lay” is also the past tense for “to lie,” so you can rightly say “I lay on the bed last night.” The past tense of “to lay” is “laid,” as in “I laid the pencil down.”
The English mirrors the German. I only got the English straight after I learned the German: liegen, lag, gelegen equals lie, lay, lain. Whereas legen, legte, gelegt matches lay, laid, laid. I actually reference the German swiftly in my brain before opening my mouth in English. I’m a native English speaker from the US.
Are you from one of these regions where German has kept a bit of a foothold?
I see “meines Erachtens” fairly often in online discussions. “Das ist m.E. nicht ernst gemeint / Aber es ist m.E. nur eine Frage der Zeit.”
If I’m reading this right, it looks like the “ob” in “beobachten” is the same as in “obdachlos”. So maybe “obdachlos” is something like not having a roof over your head. At least that’s a handy way for me to think of it. I sometimes have trouble remembering that word for some reason.
(Also the rhyme and rhythm worked out pretty well in the translation about the horned crest.)
Those are some fairly high class discussion board you’re hanging around on :).
Seriously, m.E. might actually be more common than the spoken phrase itself.
When writing, I only thought of the verb “erachten”, but I forgot about this phrase, so thanks for bringing it up.
And yes, the “ob-” is the same as in “Obdach”.
An example of the imperative of achten could be the beer drinking song ‘Ach du liebe Augustin’.
Wait, no :)… that’s “ach”, the sigh. Like “Oh Augustin”. It’s not related to “achten” (though that would make sense too).
komische Worte: Pickelhaube, Schnapsidee, Kummerspeck. Außerdem hast Du “when it lays down…” geschrieben. Das soll “lies down” sein (intransitive, irregular), or “when it lays something down” (transitive, regular).
Es gab vor viele Jahrhunderts ein Lied: Ihr Männer gibt Acht vor hübschen Frauen die haben doch etwas Gewisses. Von Marlene Dietrich (wer war das? sagst Du) gesungen.
Außerdem, sehr gute Sendung, leicht zu hören. Hast du vielleicht ein Schluck Helium geatmet für ” … community guide lines …” Komisch.
“Here. Watch out for him carefully.” – more idiomatic would be “be careful with it”
I was going for a dramatic personification here. As if the pen were a person. But I guess that works better in my German mind :)
It’s more the “watch out for” part that’s odd. The personification works fine, even in English, but “watch out for him” sounds way more like sich vor ihm hüten or nach ihm Ausschau halten. At least in context, it sounds like what’s meant is to be careful or keep a close eye on the pen, right?
Yeah, like the pen is the chosen one, but it’s a baby still so you need to protect it. How would you translate that?
Maybe ‘watch over’ then, if like a baby, in place of ‘watch out for’? (Unless is an evil kind of baby..)
I kind of like “watch over” – has almost a slightly epic or at least very serious vibe. “Take good care of” would be a bit more normal/everyday.
Ha, thanks! Yes does sound bit epic I guess, kind of guardian angel vibe.
“Watch over” it is then :)
‘Take good care of..?’ So as in ‘Take Good care of My Baby’ – which I now think is also a song title?
And yes I agree ‘Take Good Care of.. (my Baby) does sound v. trite compared to ‘watch over’ which is in different realm, more the kind of Power of Love: ‘I’ll protect you from the hooded claw, keep the vampire for your door’ sort of higher level. (Much higher level of protection than usually granted to a pen, but then this is an exception!)
Ein schlechtes Gutachten kann einfach nicht außer Acht lassen.
Haha, das stimmt. Gutes Wort: Gutachten! Das habe ich vergessen.
And the phrase außer Acht lassen – I think I’ve probably heard that one more often than some of the other ones in the article.
Damnit! I had it in the first draft as an example for fixed phrases and then took it out .:)
Tiny minuscule typo – to take care OF :)
Danke danke danke, wie immer! Acht hat ein vierte Bedeutung für mich – acht! = what the!
Das verstehe ich nicht :). Hast du das mal so gehört??
Vielleicht meint er “echt”
Dear Emanuel. Please don’t worry about poor sound quality etc. We engage with you because your posts are so interesting.and because you are never boring. I might have given up with German if not for you. Many thanks x
Aww, thank you, that’s a really nice feedback :)!
Hallo lieber Emanuell,
Ich habe endlich die Unterschied zwischen verachten /missachten und achten auf etwas / aufpassen auf etwas verstanden ! Vielen Dank.
Bis Bald
alle deiner Posten sind sehr hilfreich. danke schön.
Vielen Dank :)!
Oh, und es ist “Posts” auf Deutsch auch “Posten” is “positions” in a figurative sense.
Boy, you found some good stuff to smoke before this lesson! Sehr lustig.
Hahahaha, freut mich, dass du Spaß hattest :)
Hallo,
Emanuel, you need to acht auf your typos :)))))
“the number 8 other words” (the number 8 and other words)
Here’s one in German: “Darauf müssen Sie achten, wenn sie 2021″ (Darauf müssen Sie achten, wenn Sie 2021)
“in context of rules” (in the context of rules)
“would sounds out of place” (would sound out of place)
“doesn’t exist any more” (anymore)
“my article about the meaning of for” (you mean the meaning of -ver, right?)
“to contempt” (contempt is not a verb, you can say “to have contempt for”; if verachten has a disdain/contempt feel to it, do you reckon it could be translated as “to loathe” or is loathing too strong?)
“Ächten kind of weird to describe” (Ächten is kind of weird to describe)
“Or least” (Or at least)
“it’s train track” (it’s a train track)
Thanks for yet anothe great article, I’ve only now understood the difference between achten auf and aufpassen auf!
Bis bald!
Wow, that was super fast :)!!
And bonus points for catching one in German :)!!
Danke wie immer uns liebe Grüße