A fun look a the various meanings of "übergehen", the difference between the separable and not separable version and the words "rübergehen" and "drübergehen".
By: Emanuel|64 Comments| Updated:
September 13, 2026
Hello everyone, and welcome to another epic-sode of the epic series about German Prefix Verbs. What’s so epic about it? Well, this is you speaking German without knowing about prefix verbs, and this is you is you after you mastered them. Yeah. Can’t wait. So let’s get right to it and have a look at the meaning of übergehen ▶ Many prefixes have two quite distinct notions. Über, the German version of over, is easy on us in that it has only one. Or one and a half. It can express above-ness and across-ness and when you think about they’re closely connected. Across usually involves above. Just think of crossing a river or crossing a street. I mean sure, you could cross below it in a tunnel. But at least to me, across has a default built in sense of above and German has fused both ideas into über. Now, gehen means of course to go, so does that mean that übergehen means to go across or to go over? Well, it’s not that simple. Especially because über can be both, separable and inseparable. So we’re really talking about two verbs here. Three if we add in the r-version rübergehen. And yes, we do have to add that :0….
Separable "übergehen" focuses on moving from A to B in a literal or abstract way like changing, shifting, or passing into something. Use it for transitions in place, behavior, ownership or state. ·Da vorne geht die Straße in einen Kiesweg über. ·There, ahead of us, the street turns into a graveled path.
Inseparable "übergehen" means to pass over or ignore someone or something, often in social or formal contexts. It often sounds a bit formal and is common with people and decisions. ·Thomas wurde bei der Beförderung schon wieder übergangen. ·Thomas was passed over again for promotion.
"rübergehen" is the everyday word for actually going across or walking over to the other side. It’s literal and common. "drübergehen" is similar but usually needs a specific thing you go over or treat the surface of like painting or ironing. They can sometimes be used interchangeably but not always. ·Lass uns mal rübergehen. Kommt doch kein Auto. ·Come on, let's cross. There's no car around. ·Ich streiche mit weiß vor, und dann geh ich mit grün drüber. ·I'll put on a white base coat and then go over it with green.
Learn the noun "der Übergang" which means the transition or a crossing and the adverb "übergangsweise" which means temporarily or for a transitional period. You might also see compounds like "Übergangsjacke" or "Übergangsfrisur".
Think literal crossing equals "rübergehen" or the separable version of "übergehen" for transitions. If someone gets ignored or skipped, it’s the inseparable version meaning to pass over. That small idea of crossing versus being passed over will guide you.
Loved it! One typo “ Just think of crossing a bride. You can’t do that when you’re under it. “ I would never, never cross a bride. I read the comments. I agree about the rot Ampelman dilemma. I have seen it – and felt it – a several times in my stay here in Berlin. My wife is more of the “Look both ways, and make your choice”. I am more of the “respect Lokal traditions” person…unless the ICE I need is leaving soon. I loved the joke about the wall being nothing but red lights.
Wow, I did not know that crossing does not work for bridges. In German, we use “rübergehen” for crossing a street and a bridge but I guess technically, we go along a bridge and across a river, so maybe English does have a point here :)
No, no, no… crossing bridges is perfect. You didn’t spell bridges… you spelt BRIDE. ohne ‘G’ On another note, we just landed back in the US. Berlin was great, Münster was lovely, and all of the towns we biked through had there own vibe and interest to us – as Americans. There is soooo much of Deutschland that we would love to have here. Trains is #1.
We already talked about it and said we would cycle from Hamburg to Sassnitz. Or Frankfurt downward…. Eine Richtung, die mit dem Wind ist! Wir sind schon zweimal in der Schweiz. Ich würde gern mit einer Sprache bleiben, die ich vielleicht verstehen kann…
If you go to Ruegen, you MUST explore the South of it. It’s got so much diverse landscape, perfect for biking and one of my favorite places in Germany. Anything South of Sassnitz, especially South of Binz.
And the old forest North of Sassnitz of course. And if you can, check out Hiddensee. It’s a car free island west of Ruegen.
kishkisan
the link for “this is you after mastering prefixes” no longer works
Or it never worked? And we are destined to never master the prefixes
Thanks for the heads up!!! I changed it (I was an image of a young duckling :)
person243
“Ich gehe über vor Freude.” = “I am overcome by joy.”
This one is a bit special as there is neither a target nor something you cross in the sentence. That is even stranger than with “Er geht hinüber.” = “He transcends.” Where the target is at least implied (the realm of death or just the condition of being dead). And here you just “go over”. Well, it would be easy to just say: “It is an idiom, it does not have to make sense.” But that would be too shallow I think. There is this a bit older meaning of “übergehen” (separable) Which is “to rise over something”. It is not really used nowadays I think. Duden said something about sparkling wine and how you want to keep it from overflowing. “Pass auf, dass nichts übergeht.” = “Pay attention that nothing slowly shoots out.” (I don’t know about the Wnglish translation.) But I think that is the meaning that is used in this idiom. “Ich gehen über vor Freude.” =(lit.) “I rise above the border of normality and social customs because of joy.”
Again, a really nice article. I just wanted to add this, as that sentence was the first that came to my mind when I read the title. Cheerio.
Your analysis makes total sense and I think this is how the idiom was coined. The thing with that particular phrasing however is that I wouldn’t even know how to put it in past
– Ich bin vor Freude übergegangen/übergangen?
Both sounds really really odd to me and I feel like the idiomatic-ness is completely gone. This one made me think of “Mir gehen die Augen über”. This is also pretty weird.
I think here I would use the Präteritum. “Ich ging über vor Freude.” It also seems to be one of these phrases where it sounds strange to put the separated prefix to the end. I also thought about “Die Augen gehen mir über.” It should be expanable by the same “übergehen” as in the other phrase. “That is such a beautiful sight that my eyes try to get out of their sockets.” = “Da gehen mir die Augen über.” Here the border is quite physical and is what hinders the eyes from falling out. On the other hand I have no clue. It is all just guessing.
Tinuviel
That’s a very good piece of advice. The part with imagining being at a camp fire with a story teller. :) It’s nice to get advice from a Tolkien fan. While reading The Children of Hurin i often got frustrated thinking that maybe i started out reading the books in the wrong order. Like watching a movie series from the 3rd season, without seeing prior episodes. Names of places, of characters, events are abundant on every page, so i got overwhelmed. I even thought of taking a pen and paper and making some sort of family tree for each character to better understand their genealogy, since it was and still is confusing. I guess maybe i’ll go on like this, by reading this one and then continue with The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and so forth. Cause i haven’t read those yet, i was pondering for quite a while what order would be better to read them in. Have you read the books with a few illustrations here and there? The Children of Hurin has a few illustrated pages by a man by the name of Alan Lee. His imagery really helps the “dreaming” process while reading the book. But they’re not very numerous, therefore the reader’s imagination can conjure whatever mental pictures it wants. Oh and, what did you mean when you said Unfinished Tales is more for the subconscious? Is it lighter in comparison to the Silmarillion?
Tinuviel
i’m glad to hear you love Tolkien’s work, too. i really wanted to dive into his universe by reading his books in an order that would help me understand his stories better. maybe it would have been better if i started with The Silmarillion, and then continued with The Children of Hurin, Unfinished Tales, all the way to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. aaaand… there is also another book by him that is connected to these ones which is called The history of Middle Earth. i’d also love to the see more of his works on screen. it was the movies that inspired me to start reading the books and, i must say, i feel like i’m actually in that world with every turn of the page..
The thing with all of these books is that they are essentially the same. Tolkien left an abundance of fragments which his son then ordered. He finally compiled them into a coherent book. That’s the Silmarillion. But he also published them as fragments with a lot of comments and annotations. And then they also published single stories like “The children of Hurin”, which is also a part of the Silmarillion.
I actually did the same as you did. I started with “Unfinished tales” and I got really really confused at times. On the other hand, there are some REAL gems in there that are missing in the “streamlined” Silmarillion. I recall a version of the lore of Beren and Luthien where Sauron (or Morgoth… not sure) was a giant cat. Everything was random and crazy and felt incoherent in the beginning but I somehow really got sucked into the story and the world and I still have a few of the images I imaged in my head. Reading that story in particular was a bit like dreaming… you don’t always understand or remember everything but it is strong imagery and it is inspiring :). I’d say “Unfinished Tales” is more for the subconscious, the soul while Silmarillion is for the conscious side… if that makes sense :). Don’t try to understand everything with the tales, just imagine you sit at a camp fire and someone is telling fantastic stories.
Tinuviel
Please keep up the good work. The way you write everything by adding some humor makes the learning process easier and more fun. All the grammar books i’ve come across have a somewhat cold tone that seems kinda intimidating :P Oh and.. Your intuition was quite close. I’m currently reading “The Children of Hurin”. She’s mentioned in there a bit. The Silmarillion is next on my “must read” list :)
I LOVE the Silmarillion and the whole lore. One of the few books I’ve read multiple times. I absolutely want to see this as a TV series!! At least the stuff of the Elben war after they reached Middle Earth. It’s perfect for a big production.
Tinuviel
absolutely love your blog! i find it extremely helpful. it’s actually much better than the myriad of books for learning german that i’ve found in stores. i sincerely thank you for the time you invest in writing these posts. it must take a while, i think.. :)
Thanks for the nice feedback. Oh, for some reason I feel like you’ve read the Silmarillion.
Mariana
Thought of writing “I love you” but it seems there’s a lot of competition ;-) Thanks for a fantastic blog. Absolutely useful and great fun – you have such a sense of humor!
Good question, that’s essentially the same as “rüber”… these pairs exist for many directions
-ich geh runter = Ich geh nach unten – hoch – nach oben – vor – nach vorne – hinter – nach hinten
You can check out the post on “hinter vs. hinten”. There’s a bit more about that in there. Oh… sorry für das Englisch… ich komm immer durcheinander, wenn ich Kommentare beantworte.
wessp
Hi, I’ve recently started to follow this blog, and have been enjoying your posts very much. Your explanations of the words, and how they are used in a sentence, are funny and helpful (although I don’t always understand the grammatical structure – weakness on my part). I always look forward to the sentence featuring the recurring characters of Thomas and Maria (it’s like a continuing story) – nice to see they have patched things up a bit after the yoghurt-eating incident ;-)
Just a small (not very important) note: “After the catastrophe people are trying to get back to their normal day-to-day routines.” would flow smoother – ending the sentence after “day to day” just feels a bit abrupt.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that particular example. Thanks for the fix and also for the nice feedback. And the adventures of Thomas and Maria will definitely continue. And they will get pretty crazy once Thomas discovers that time machine in the basem… but I don’t want to spoil anything :D Oh, if there’s a structure you don’t understand feel free to let me know. Maybe I can point you to the right post, or at least give you a quick fix.
Bradford
Thanks – great post as always!
By the way, would you possibly do a word of the day sometime on frieren, gefrieren, einfrieren, erfrieren, zufrieren (and unverfroren), etc.? These are pretty confusing :|
Good idea, but I’ve a lot coming up already. I can give you a quick fix though:
frieren – base verb, used for “to freeze” in sense of people feel very cold
gefrieren – water freezing to ice zufrieren – freeze over (that’s what lakes and rivers do in winter) einfrieren – to freeze in sense of putting something in a freezer, also used for toes and fingers sometimes – erfrieren … freeze to death – unverfroren… idiomatic word for “blunt, impertinent”
Noch zum oben Geschriebenen kann man hinzufügen, dass “zu”-Verben oft den Sinn des “Schließens” (verschiedener Grade) haben, z.B. zumachen, zudecken, zufrieren, zumauern, zubauen, zukleben, zunageln, …
deliverance
I love you!
alexviajero
“Lass uns mal rübergehen. Kommt doch kein Auto. Come on, let’s cross. There’s no car anywhere.”
Hahaha. Unless Germany has changed a lot since I lived there, this is NEVER a good idea. I was yelled at more than once for attempting to cross the street (when the sign said “do not cross”) even though there was NO car in sight. :)
Well, as far as Berlin is concerned we do do our fair share of crossings. If there is no car coming. It’s a fascinating field to examine group pressure. Like, when I walk up to a red traffic light and there are 3 or 4 people waiting, I am much more likely to wait even if I’m in a hurry than if there was no one. And then, if one person breaks the group others will soon follow. I recently was at a comedy show and there was this comedian who talked about his day job as a tour guide.He said, sometimes during night tours he would try to motivate the German tourists in the Berlin city center to cross a red light. And the very center (Brandenburger Tor and so on) is COMPLETELY empty at night. But they would not cross. And then he was like “Why did the GDR even bother building a wall. They could have just put up traffic lights everywhere that were always red. That was pretty funny. Oh and some more traffic light trivia… in Dresden, there’s a traffic light which actually is always red. And it’s not the only one.
Hilarious! Love the idea about the GDR going to all that trouble to build the Wall — when permanent red lights would have been much cheaper and probably just as effective! Too funny.
He was pretty good actually. He cracked me up several times and that’s quite the feat because the acts before him were either awful or boring and I was kind of in hater mode already. Another good one was this: he would talk about the Pegida movement in Dresden (which is where he’s from) and he’d be like “blah blah blah… yeah, I know they don’t like to be called Nazi… that’s why I call them nahzuy”. (just using English “z” and English “i”) Took me a second to get it but then I cracked up completely. So hilarious.
wiztroubjest
Dear Emanuel, Why is this not an ‘um…zu’ construction? “Ich geh’ kurz zum Nachbarn rüber, nach Salz fragen.”
Ah! Danke schön! Ich habe nichts vorher über ‘ich gehe verben’ – außer ‘ich gehe spazieren’ oder ‘ich gehe klettern’. Ich dachte, sie waren ein paar besondere Beispiele, und keine inoffizielle Regel.
Ich habe nichts…gehört. (Ich habe ein Verb vergessen.)
Karol
Wow well noticed!, i can’t wait for the reply ;)
der Libyer
herausragender artikel wie immer! (Artikel oder Beitrag?)
I was wondering about the preposition used with the first übergehen,
“…IN einen Kiesweg über” “..gehen nahtlos INeinander über” “..das Koffein IN die Muttermilch übergeht” “geht IN Maria’s Besitz über” “Der Übergang von Studium INS Berufsleben”
But: “..gehen Thomas und Maria langsam ZUM Knutschen über.” “Immer mehr Universitäten gehen daZU über”
So im guessing if it’s a thing (noun) that you’re crossing/trasitioning then u use “in + akk” but if it’s a verb you’re transitioning to, you would use “zu” , is thing correct?
Jetzt, wo ich diesen Kommentar gelesen habe, ist mir doch Gegenbeispiel zur Theorie von dem Libyer eingefallen:
– zum Angriff übergehen – zum Alltag übergehen – zum Hauptgang übergehen (in einem Restaurant)
Aber zumindest “Alltag” kann man auch als Abstrakten Zielort auffassen. Eine Definition, die alle Fälle abdeckt, gibt’s wie’s aussieht nicht (wie immer).
Your analysis is perfect, I think!! I can’t find an example that would fault it. I actually didn’t even realize that I was using two different prepositions. Oh and “Artikel” is better, I’d say. “Beitrag” would be more fitting for a journal or something where there are several authors discussing one subject.
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Loved it!
One typo “ Just think of crossing a bride. You can’t do that when you’re under it. “
I would never, never cross a bride.
I read the comments. I agree about the rot Ampelman dilemma. I have seen it – and felt it – a several times in my stay here in Berlin. My wife is more of the “Look both ways, and make your choice”. I am more of the “respect Lokal traditions” person…unless the ICE I need is leaving soon. I loved the joke about the wall being nothing but red lights.
Wow, I did not know that crossing does not work for bridges. In German, we use “rübergehen” for crossing a street and a bridge but I guess technically, we go along a bridge and across a river, so maybe English does have a point here :)
No, no, no… crossing bridges is perfect. You didn’t spell bridges… you spelt BRIDE. ohne ‘G’
On another note, we just landed back in the US. Berlin was great, Münster was lovely, and all of the towns we biked through had there own vibe and interest to us – as Americans. There is soooo much of Deutschland that we would love to have here. Trains is #1.
You have to come back and check out Ruegen island and Saechsische Schweiz some time.
We already talked about it and said we would cycle from Hamburg to Sassnitz. Or Frankfurt downward…. Eine Richtung, die mit dem Wind ist! Wir sind schon zweimal in der Schweiz. Ich würde gern mit einer Sprache bleiben, die ich vielleicht verstehen kann…
If you go to Ruegen, you MUST explore the South of it.
It’s got so much diverse landscape, perfect for biking and one of my favorite places in Germany.
Anything South of Sassnitz, especially South of Binz.
And the old forest North of Sassnitz of course.
And if you can, check out Hiddensee. It’s a car free island west of Ruegen.
the link for “this is you after mastering prefixes” no longer works
Or it never worked? And we are destined to never master the prefixes
haha, no you’re absolutely meant to master them. The picture is back! Thanks for letting me know :)
ahahaha I can’t wait to reach that point!
The first link to “this is you” refirects to some sketchy virus warning website. probably best to remove/change it.
Thanks for the heads up!!! I changed it (I was an image of a young duckling :)
“Ich gehe über vor Freude.” = “I am overcome by joy.”
This one is a bit special as there is neither a target nor something you cross in the sentence. That is even stranger than with “Er geht hinüber.” = “He transcends.” Where the target is at least implied (the realm of death or just the condition of being dead).
And here you just “go over”. Well, it would be easy to just say: “It is an idiom, it does not have to make sense.” But that would be too shallow I think. There is this a bit older meaning of “übergehen” (separable) Which is “to rise over something”. It is not really used nowadays I think. Duden said something about sparkling wine and how you want to keep it from overflowing. “Pass auf, dass nichts übergeht.” = “Pay attention that nothing slowly shoots out.” (I don’t know about the Wnglish translation.) But I think that is the meaning that is used in this idiom.
“Ich gehen über vor Freude.” =(lit.) “I rise above the border of normality and social customs because of joy.”
Again, a really nice article. I just wanted to add this, as that sentence was the first that came to my mind when I read the title. Cheerio.
Your analysis makes total sense and I think this is how the idiom was coined. The thing with that particular phrasing however is that I wouldn’t even know how to put it in past
– Ich bin vor Freude übergegangen/übergangen?
Both sounds really really odd to me and I feel like the idiomatic-ness is completely gone.
This one made me think of “Mir gehen die Augen über”. This is also pretty weird.
I think here I would use the Präteritum. “Ich ging über vor Freude.” It also seems to be one of these phrases where it sounds strange to put the separated prefix to the end.
I also thought about “Die Augen gehen mir über.” It should be expanable by the same “übergehen” as in the other phrase. “That is such a beautiful sight that my eyes try to get out of their sockets.” = “Da gehen mir die Augen über.”
Here the border is quite physical and is what hinders the eyes from falling out. On the other hand I have no clue. It is all just guessing.
That’s a very good piece of advice. The part with imagining being at a camp fire with a story teller. :) It’s nice to get advice from a Tolkien fan. While reading The Children of Hurin i often got frustrated thinking that maybe i started out reading the books in the wrong order. Like watching a movie series from the 3rd season, without seeing prior episodes. Names of places, of characters, events are abundant on every page, so i got overwhelmed. I even thought of taking a pen and paper and making some sort of family tree for each character to better understand their genealogy, since it was and still is confusing. I guess maybe i’ll go on like this, by reading this one and then continue with The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and so forth. Cause i haven’t read those yet, i was pondering for quite a while what order would be better to read them in.
Have you read the books with a few illustrations here and there? The Children of Hurin has a few illustrated pages by a man by the name of Alan Lee. His imagery really helps the “dreaming” process while reading the book. But they’re not very numerous, therefore the reader’s imagination can conjure whatever mental pictures it wants. Oh and, what did you mean when you said Unfinished Tales is more for the subconscious? Is it lighter in comparison to the Silmarillion?
i’m glad to hear you love Tolkien’s work, too. i really wanted to dive into his universe by reading his books in an order that would help me understand his stories better. maybe it would have been better if i started with The Silmarillion, and then continued with The Children of Hurin, Unfinished Tales, all the way to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. aaaand… there is also another book by him that is connected to these ones which is called The history of Middle Earth. i’d also love to the see more of his works on screen. it was the movies that inspired me to start reading the books and, i must say, i feel like i’m actually in that world with every turn of the page..
The thing with all of these books is that they are essentially the same. Tolkien left an abundance of fragments which his son then ordered. He finally compiled them into a coherent book. That’s the Silmarillion. But he also published them as fragments with a lot of comments and annotations. And then they also published single stories like “The children of Hurin”, which is also a part of the Silmarillion.
I actually did the same as you did. I started with “Unfinished tales” and I got really really confused at times. On the other hand, there are some REAL gems in there that are missing in the “streamlined” Silmarillion. I recall a version of the lore of Beren and Luthien where Sauron (or Morgoth… not sure) was a giant cat. Everything was random and crazy and felt incoherent in the beginning but I somehow really got sucked into the story and the world and I still have a few of the images I imaged in my head. Reading that story in particular was a bit like dreaming… you don’t always understand or remember everything but it is strong imagery and it is inspiring :). I’d say “Unfinished Tales” is more for the subconscious, the soul while Silmarillion is for the conscious side… if that makes sense :). Don’t try to understand everything with the tales, just imagine you sit at a camp fire and someone is telling fantastic stories.
Please keep up the good work. The way you write everything by adding some humor makes the learning process easier and more fun. All the grammar books i’ve come across have a somewhat cold tone that seems kinda intimidating :P Oh and.. Your intuition was quite close. I’m currently reading “The Children of Hurin”. She’s mentioned in there a bit. The Silmarillion is next on my “must read” list :)
I LOVE the Silmarillion and the whole lore. One of the few books I’ve read multiple times. I absolutely want to see this as a TV series!! At least the stuff of the Elben war after they reached Middle Earth. It’s perfect for a big production.
absolutely love your blog! i find it extremely helpful. it’s actually much better than the myriad of books for learning german that i’ve found in stores. i sincerely thank you for the time you invest in writing these posts. it must take a while, i think.. :)
Thanks for the nice feedback. Oh, for some reason I feel like you’ve read the Silmarillion.
Thought of writing “I love you” but it seems there’s a lot of competition ;-)
Thanks for a fantastic blog. Absolutely useful and great fun – you have such a sense of humor!
Haha, yeah it appears there is :). Thanks for the great feedback!!
I am still in love with you!
I’m just a cat explaining German after a nuclear accident in my litterbox gave me superpowers :)
“Froderungen” soll zu “Forderungen” übergehen. :-)
Eine berechtigte Forderung
How could translation “ire” be coming from to go? is it a sense of abstraction?
That’s the Latin word for it. “Ire”. The two are not related but they mean the same.
Erstmal danke.
Was ist mit “drüben”, also beispielsweise geh mal nach drüben.
Good question, that’s essentially the same as “rüber”… these pairs exist for many directions
-ich geh runter = Ich geh nach unten
– hoch – nach oben
– vor – nach vorne
– hinter – nach hinten
You can check out the post on “hinter vs. hinten”. There’s a bit more about that in there.
Oh… sorry für das Englisch… ich komm immer durcheinander, wenn ich Kommentare beantworte.
Hi,
I’ve recently started to follow this blog, and have been enjoying your posts very much. Your explanations of the words, and how they are used in a sentence, are funny and helpful (although I don’t always understand the grammatical structure – weakness on my part).
I always look forward to the sentence featuring the recurring characters of Thomas and Maria (it’s like a continuing story) – nice to see they have patched things up a bit after the yoghurt-eating incident ;-)
Just a small (not very important) note: “After the catastrophe people are trying to get back to their normal day-to-day routines.” would flow smoother – ending the sentence after “day to day” just feels a bit abrupt.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that particular example. Thanks for the fix and also for the nice feedback. And the adventures of Thomas and Maria will definitely continue. And they will get pretty crazy once Thomas discovers that time machine in the basem… but I don’t want to spoil anything :D
Oh, if there’s a structure you don’t understand feel free to let me know. Maybe I can point you to the right post, or at least give you a quick fix.
Thanks – great post as always!
By the way, would you possibly do a word of the day sometime on frieren, gefrieren, einfrieren, erfrieren, zufrieren (and unverfroren), etc.? These are pretty confusing :|
Good idea, but I’ve a lot coming up already. I can give you a quick fix though:
frieren – base verb, used for “to freeze” in sense of people feel very cold
gefrieren – water freezing to ice
zufrieren – freeze over (that’s what lakes and rivers do in winter)
einfrieren – to freeze in sense of putting something in a freezer, also used for toes and fingers sometimes
– erfrieren … freeze to death
– unverfroren… idiomatic word for “blunt, impertinent”
Noch zum oben Geschriebenen kann man hinzufügen, dass “zu”-Verben oft den Sinn des “Schließens” (verschiedener Grade) haben, z.B. zumachen, zudecken, zufrieren, zumauern, zubauen, zukleben, zunageln, …
I love you!
“Lass uns mal rübergehen. Kommt doch kein Auto.
Come on, let’s cross. There’s no car anywhere.”
Hahaha. Unless Germany has changed a lot since I lived there, this is NEVER a good idea. I was yelled at more than once for attempting to cross the street (when the sign said “do not cross”) even though there was NO car in sight. :)
Well, as far as Berlin is concerned we do do our fair share of crossings. If there is no car coming. It’s a fascinating field to examine group pressure. Like, when I walk up to a red traffic light and there are 3 or 4 people waiting, I am much more likely to wait even if I’m in a hurry than if there was no one. And then, if one person breaks the group others will soon follow.
I recently was at a comedy show and there was this comedian who talked about his day job as a tour guide.He said, sometimes during night tours he would try to motivate the German tourists in the Berlin city center to cross a red light. And the very center (Brandenburger Tor and so on) is COMPLETELY empty at night. But they would not cross. And then he was like “Why did the GDR even bother building a wall. They could have just put up traffic lights everywhere that were always red.
That was pretty funny.
Oh and some more traffic light trivia… in Dresden, there’s a traffic light which actually is always red. And it’s not the only one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DeMJOzuFR8
Hilarious! Love the idea about the GDR going to all that trouble to build the Wall — when permanent red lights would have been much cheaper and probably just as effective! Too funny.
He was pretty good actually. He cracked me up several times and that’s quite the feat because the acts before him were either awful or boring and I was kind of in hater mode already. Another good one was this: he would talk about the Pegida movement in Dresden (which is where he’s from) and he’d be like “blah blah blah… yeah, I know they don’t like to be called Nazi… that’s why I call them nahzuy”. (just using English “z” and English “i”) Took me a second to get it but then I cracked up completely. So hilarious.
Dear Emanuel,
Why is this not an ‘um…zu’ construction? “Ich geh’ kurz zum Nachbarn rüber, nach Salz fragen.”
Das ist eine Zusammenknüpfung von “Ich geh’ kurz zum Nachbarn rüber” und “Ich geh’ nach Salz fragen”.
Kleine Korrektur: Zusammenfügung oder Verknüpfung. Wobei Zusammenknüpfung an sich nicht falsch ist. Ist einfach nicht so idiomatisch.
Danke! :-)
That’s the “gehen + verb” structure which doesn’t really fit the standard system.
– Ich gehe [verben].
This is proper German, and not only in colloquial speech. The sentence in question is essentially that, just with a bunch of extra info in there.
– Ich gehe [mal… rüber] [ nach Salz ] fragen.
Hoffe, das hilft.
Ah! Danke schön! Ich habe nichts vorher über ‘ich gehe verben’ – außer ‘ich gehe spazieren’ oder ‘ich gehe klettern’. Ich dachte, sie waren ein paar besondere Beispiele, und keine inoffizielle Regel.
Ich habe nichts…gehört. (Ich habe ein Verb vergessen.)
Wow well noticed!, i can’t wait for the reply ;)
herausragender artikel wie immer! (Artikel oder Beitrag?)
I was wondering about the preposition used with the first übergehen,
“…IN einen Kiesweg über”
“..gehen nahtlos INeinander über”
“..das Koffein IN die Muttermilch übergeht”
“geht IN Maria’s Besitz über”
“Der Übergang von Studium INS Berufsleben”
But:
“..gehen Thomas und Maria langsam ZUM Knutschen über.”
“Immer mehr Universitäten gehen daZU über”
So im guessing if it’s a thing (noun) that you’re crossing/trasitioning then u use “in + akk” but if it’s a verb you’re transitioning to, you would use “zu” , is thing correct?
“In” steht für Zielorte (sowohl abstrakte, als auch konkrete), während “zu” Aktivitäten andeutet.
Jetzt, wo ich diesen Kommentar gelesen habe, ist mir doch Gegenbeispiel zur Theorie von dem Libyer eingefallen:
– zum Angriff übergehen
– zum Alltag übergehen
– zum Hauptgang übergehen (in einem Restaurant)
Aber zumindest “Alltag” kann man auch als Abstrakten Zielort auffassen. Eine Definition, die alle Fälle abdeckt, gibt’s wie’s aussieht nicht (wie immer).
Ist übrigens auch ein Übergang *zum* Berufsleben möglich?
Ja, ich glaub’ das geht. Aber allzu idiomatisch klingt es für mich nicht.
Your analysis is perfect, I think!! I can’t find an example that would fault it. I actually didn’t even realize that I was using two different prepositions.
Oh and “Artikel” is better, I’d say. “Beitrag” would be more fitting for a journal or something where there are several authors discussing one subject.