Hello everyone,
and welcome to another episode of Prefix Verb Shorts.
Whether you have to fill out a form or impress your friends… today’s word will help you with that. Ladies and gentlemen… get ready for a quick look at the super useful meanings of
angeben
An has two notions that it can add to a verb: “on-ness” (as in going/not off, ) and “at-ness” (or its directed sister toward-ness). In case of geben which means to give we’re only dealing with one of them… the latter.
And if not that one then it’s the former. Yap, I actually have no idea.
But it doesn’t really matter in this case. The only thing an does with geben is making it more specific.
Geben is for giving all kinds of things… cups, glasses, plates or sh*ts.
Angeben is for: information.
“angeben” for “giving information”
angeben means as much as
to give information in response to an inquiry
And if you’re wondering why the definition sounds so formal … well that is because angeben is a rather formal term. You use it in context of filling out a form or a survey, or talking to a police officer or the press. Not if you inform your loved about what you’d like for dinner.
So, let’s look at some examples
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Wud? I this a joke i don’t understand, please explain Emanuel!
I’m happy to help but I have absolutely no idea what you’re asking about. Please be a little more clear what it is that you want me to explain.
I’m sorry, I meant that I don’t understand what this sentence means.
I understand all the words but not the meaning
I want to know what a ‘general resignation’ is and why it can be the reason for a person’s resignation.
thanks, and yes, i already duckduckgo-ed it to no avail.
German “resignation” is something like “giving up due to disillusionment”.
The person is feeling like “OH boy, my work makes no sense.” and so resigns.
Let me know if that helps.
Yes, that was very helpful, i didnt even think about putting ‘resignation’ into a translator bc i was so sure it was just an english word
there was smth like a ‘general resignation letter’ in search suggestions and since i have never worked for a company, i thought this was some corporate jargon or smth.
dankeschön!
*o mighty Emanuel, destroyer of compoundconfusions.
That’s not helping :). I really don’t know what you want to know.
I don’t English good enough to be able to think of a way to say this politely but I think that you accidentally marked the 3rd question’s answer as the wrong one (since you explicitly said that angeblich is used often irl (option 2) and nach angaben is not the same thing (option 1))
Also this was probably the funniest post I’ve read until now, i really had fun.
Fixed it, thank you :)!
Oh and don’t worry about being polite. I’m German… I like bluntness :D
Kann mann auch ‘angeberisch’ sagen, im Sinne von pretenzioes?
To me “angeberisch” is more about being a show-off, being braggy. So not sure, if “pretencious” is a good fit.
Gib mir bitte mal das Buch an, ___ auf dem Tisch liegt.
a) dass
b) das
I see this example on DW Facebook page. Why is it angeben in this case?
Very good question! To me, “angeben” makes no sense here, but it might be a Southern dialect thing. I feel like i have heard Austrians or Bavarians use “angeben” in the sense of just “geben”, but it’s not standard for sure. At least not in Germany.
Wow! Vielen dank!
Gerne, gerne :)
Could you just answer with “angeblich”. Like:
“Er hat gesagt dass er hat das Haus allein gekauft.”
“Angeblich.“ ?
great question, but nope, that would sound odd.
A bit like saying “Allegedly” in English in that context.
Er hat gesagt, dass er das Haus allein gekauft hat.”-“Angeblich.” yes u can, it would mean that u don’t think that his statement is true and that he actually didn’t buy it alone.
Actually, I agree with you. I don’t know why I was so against it in the other comments. It’s quite a while ago.
It’s HUGELY dependent on how you say it though. With the wrong intonation, it will sound completely out of place.
Hi,
Is it possible that angeblich can be used where eigentlich is used? My 5-year old daughter speaks German and she often uses a word sounded like “anklich” or “anglich”, which I thought she just learned something wrong for “eigentlich” according to the situations where she uses this word. However, her German is much much better than mine so I am not sure if it is just a word I don’t know, like angeblich .
Hmm… I don’t have kids of my own but I think “angeblich” would sounds a bit strange to me from a 5 year old. Maybe I’m wrong but I think this whole notion of
“someone said something and I’m reporting it while at the same time making clear that I do doubt it to some extent” is something they don’t need to express yet.
What I do know for a fact is that “eigentlich” gets shortened to something like “eingkich”, especially by kids. The combination of sounds in the proper “eigentlich” is a bit of a pain.
And “eingkich” might sound like a slurred “angeblich” to the untrained ear.
Anyway… it’s hard to tell for sure. Do you have an example, maybe? When put in context, I think I could tell for sure which it is.
Oh and have you read the post on “eigentlich”? Because it’s not the same word as the English “actually”
Hi
Just checking… in the example “Thomas nimmt seine neue…” there is no word “Freundin”. Is this a typo or could you actually drop the word “girlfriend” from the sentence?
Thanks!
That’s actually correct :). In general, in German you can just skip a noun and have the adjective take its place if the noun is well established. English uses “one” there but German doesn’T need it (in fact it wouldn’t work, if you tried)
– Ich habe zwei Bier…. willst du das warme oder das kalte?
– I have two beers… do you want the warm one or the cold one.
And if there’s only so much as a whiff of relationship context then “seine Neue”, “sein Neuer”, “ihr Neuer”, “ihre Neue” mean the new “partner/fling”. Of course you could say “Freundin” as well… it would sound more respectful. But then again… maybe it is in the “complicated”-stage still, so not having a noun there is more true to the situation :).
Actually… it’s kind of interesting that it doesn’t work in English except in one case…. the ex.
Even that’s not really the same, since “ex” is a prefix, not an adjective unto itself.
There really is some use of adjectives as abstract nouns in English, but because we don’t have grammatical gender, they tend to feel plural or non-count, and gender-neutral if there’s no further context:
– Out with the old, in with the new!
– Fortune favors the bold.
– Which bottle of wine should I open – the red or the white?
You can use indefinite articles with some things – “a red” or “a white” when talking about wine, for example – but it’s much rarer than in German, I’d say.
Actually, there are a couple of examples that do refer specifically to romance/relationships: “his/her beloved” and “his/her intended” (“intended” sounds more like a fiancé[e]). A little more serious than “seine Neue,” though… :)
I someone gave me pretty much this wine example a few months ago when I asked about this in an English language forum. Because I was wondering when it is actually possible and if there was a rule but nope… the usual English “You just have to know what’s idiomatic and what isn’t”-system :D Thanks for the insights!
Hi I think this is awesome. I would like to translate this into korean and share on my blog..is it okay?? of course I will put your name on the text as a orginal source..
That’d be great :). Thank you for thinking about this. If there’s a link and my name I’m all in…. oh could you post a link here? Then I can Google-translate it and see ho Google fails :D. Thanks again.
something seems to be missing missing… ” for anything that someone but that they doubt to some extent” doesn’t make sense
Not at all :)… the missing word was “says”. That’s what happens if I over edit one sentence. Thanks for making the article a bit less confusing.
As always, good stuff. I especially like the “fact sheet” summary.
One minor note: der Poliker should be der Politiker
Ha… I hope you’re not just scrolling down to the fact sheet :). As for the Poliker… I think it was a drunk Politiker. He’s sober now, though.
Is the word “Angebot” related ?
Nope, that comes from “anbieten”…. the “ge” in there is the same one that we see in the ge-forms… gekauft, geschlafen, gefragt and so on. Hope that helps
hi I have been taking German classes since secondary school and I have to say that it was only until I came across your website that I truly began to feel that I was learning German.Thanks for the good work.
Thanks for the nice feedback. Hope the learning goes better from now on :)
Hi,
Thanks for another wonder word description.
You sure the plural of die Angabe is ‘angeben’? Leo seems to differ
https://dict.leo.org/ende/index_en.html#/search=Angaben&searchLoc=0&resultOrder=basic&multiwordShowSingle=on
Oh ops, that was a typo… of course “Angaben” is correct. Nice catch! Danke
fantastic, both angeben and your new Prefix Verb Shorts. Thank you so much !!
Could you explain a little about the double prefix ‘anzugeben’ please.
There’s not much to explain…. it’s “angeben” used in a “zu”-construction
– Thomas hört nicht auf, mit seinem neuen Auto anzugeben.
– Thomas doesn’t stop showing off with his new car.
If you’re unsure about zu-constructions… check out the post on those over in the course section :)
“That last one was a little taste of how the more bureaucratic German “sounds” like. There’s much much worse though :).”
Come. On. That sentence sounds almost poetic.
;)
Okay, I admit it… it’s Goethe.
Ich mag einfach diese deutschen Wortanhäufungen wie “bekannt gewesen sein”, “gelesen zu haben”, “worden sein können”, “wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte”… ;)
Tut mir leid aber es muss heißen “wollen haben werden sollen GEsein hätte.” Da musst du nochmal nachgucken unter Unsinnitiv 2 ;)
Ne, das ist ja ein Zitat. ;)