Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will have a look at the meaning of
eben
and the meaning of
gerade
Wait what? Eben AND gerade? Both of them together?!?! This is so much madness it’s not even Sparta anymore.
I mean, both these words are in the top ten of the “German Words that Piss Me Off”-charts of students. So is it really a good idea to talk about them together?
The answer is: maybe.
I … I mean, yes! Hell yeah.
Why?
Well, because not only are their normal meanings kind of close. Also their crazy meanings are. In fact, they’re often synonyms. And the … uh… “logic” behind their crazy meanings is the same. You cannot really talk about eben without automatically also explaining gerade. So we might just as well do it in one go.
Well, two go-s because this is gonna be a two-parter.
What we’ll do today is take a look the “normal” side of both words, see where they come from and what they have to do with each other.
Then, we’ll find out a crucial twist to their meanings and then we’ll stop right when it gets interesting. Just like a TV Show. Or that date I had recently. So… are you ready to get lead on and then let down? Perfect.
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Are you sure that we can say “Mein Chef ist immer sehr geradeaus”. I have checked in chatGPT and https://www.verbformen.de/chat/. It says to use geradlinig. Could you please clarify?
“geradeaus” does work. “geradlinig” also works, but to me, it’s a bit more holistic and includes acting truthfully and forthrightly, while “geradeaus sein” is a bit more about German bluntness. Not sugar coating things or not mincing words.
Thanks for the explanation
One of the secondary verb meanings of grade in English, as in “to grade a road” is to smooth it out or to make it even . It is so close to gerade spelling-wise! Dictionaries I consulted say it comes from Latin gradus for step but I wonder where Latin got it from? After all, a result of a step is a straight line segment and even when you step up or down it’s hopefully onto something more level than what you step over.
Wow, this is super interesting idea, and can be an awesome mnemonic!
I did a bit of digging now and it appears that it’s not the actual etymology though.
“gerade” is actually two words that kind of became one. One is related to the family of German reden and English ratio, rite and reason, which come from a root that was about “talking”.
And the other ties in to “ridge” and “ring” and originally was about curvature (ironically).
The English “grade” on the other hand does tie in with a root that was about “stepping”, as you said.
Thanks for the feedback!
I faced a question which brought me to your artikel and I say I had heard ebenso/ebenfalls so many times, not knowing what they meant. thank you. could u also look at this (chatgpt said B) is true but failed to convince me)
A) eben nicht
B) gleichmäßig nicht
Voller Satz:
Die Kinder könnten während eines Diktats durch das Zuhören lernen. Aber man muss konstatieren, dass sie Rechtschreibung ……. durch Zuhören lernen.
Definitely A. B makes no sense in this context.
could you please explain what does “eben nicht” mean here?
It makes a tie in to some earlier claim that people learn from listening and says that spelling (which is a desired learning) is NOT a thing that you learn by listening.
It’s hard to say what the eben does exactly, without more of the text, as it can have more than one “color”.
Thank you very much for this high-quality article. Such diving deep into the language makes learning process so much enjoyable!
Thank you :)!
I think there is an English word that is very close to gerade – to grade, or level out, something such as a roadbed. And the device that does that is a grader…
Wow, nice parellel :D!!! I’m pretty sure that they’re not related etymologically, but it’s definitely a good way to remember the core idea.
How do I register so I can buy a month? I have “subscribed” so get 2 free per week, but I have not set up a user name or password and I see nowhere to do that.
You can do that here:
https://yourdailygerman.com/german-is-easy-member/
Let me know if you have further questions :)
Thanks so much for this article! Super interesting and enlightening. I always love analyzing words in my head, tracking their origins and finding connections between different languages. For example, I recently found an interesting connection between the word “board” (as in blackboard) and eating or food. I needed German, English and Icelandic for that :-)
Anyway, *just* wanted to add: “justification” also has these two meanings. It can mean “the action of declaring something as correct or appropriate”, but it can also mean straight or aligned (like the “justified” text alignment in text editors).
Wait… but… but…. what is the connection between “board” and eating??? :)
Here goes:
The shorter path between “board” and “eat” is, as it turns out, through Icelandic: in Icelandic, “Borð” means “Table” whereas “Borða” means “eat”. I don’t speak Icelandic (yet!), but learning this connection has lead me to finding lots of similar connections in German and English. Ready?
The word “board” in English has meany meanings. A somewhat less known meaning of the word is (quoting Oxford) “the provision of regular meals when one stays somewhere, in return for payment or services”. So, to board means – to be fed. But apparently there are (using your term here) crazier connections between “board” and “eat”.
One translation of “board” into German is “Tafel”, which could mean “blackboard” (the thing the teacher writes on in class) but could also mean “Table”. As a matter of fact, “table” and “Tafel” are strongly related and have a common origin (Latin “tabula”).
At this point we can probably establish that “board” is used to describe something flat, two-dimensional, possibly made of wood. We can further reinforce this: “board” could also mean “to get on an airplane”. I think we can safely assume this comes from boarding a ship, which means to get on the deck, which is this flat, wooden surface on the upper part of the ship. Wait… flat and wooden? Aha! Same as “board”! But “board” has another meaning, which is a group of people who are the decision makers around some topic (as in “board of directors”). I’m making a guess here that this is because they typically sit at a long table, a “board” or “Tafel”. Bear with me, not done yet.
Translating “Tafel” back to English, it could mean “board”, “table” or – “plate”. Huh. Plate is new. We know that “plate” could mean something flat, as in “tectonic plates” or a metal plate. But we also know that “plate” is the round thing we eat from. There is another English word for round food containers: “dish”. The word “dish” is strongly related to food: we borrowed “dish” to describe a portion of food at a restaurant, for example. But we also say “satellite dish” to describe the round thing we use to receive radio signals from space.
Ready to close the crazy loop we opened? What German word does the word “dish” remind us? Tisch! This is no coincidence: both words stem from the Latin word “discus”, which goes all the way back to ancient Greek and means something round, like the round thing people used to toss as a sport in the original olympic games. (Stupid thought: is this why greeks like to smash plates? “I don’t care – it’s flat, it’s round, let’s throw it!” There is another Latin word, “discuss”, which means to break something to pieces. Hell, I’m not gonna go there now).
Hope you enjoyed the ride! :-)
Hahahahaha… yeah, I did enjoy it :). Especially the connection between throwing plates and discussing. That’s a really cool one!!
My name is Eben but why is there a German word for it if i am right here?
Wow, really? Your name is “Eben”? What country are you from… or actually… what language are you named in?
Interesting blog post, but in the end it doesn’t give me the key information it promised. What is the difference between “eben” and “gerade”, with relation to the unicorn example? Which one is “just”, which one is “even”, or how is the relationship if it is more complicated?
That’s all actually in part 2… which wasn’t linked up :D. It took a while before part 2 came out and I simply forgot to add the link. Here it is:
https://yourdailygerman.com/2015/12/04/eben-gerade-meaning/
Let me know if you have any more questions then
Hello there! And thanks for your great job!
Now, you wrote:
Was Biertrinken angeht ist Maria Thomas ebenbürtig.
Wouldn’t it be correct to use “wann” instead of “was”?
PS: I’ve studied German for 3 months so am still a noob XD
No, “wann” wouldn’t work. The phrasing is “was [insert thing] angeht …”
Check out this article for more:
https://yourdailygerman.com/2013/11/07/angehen-meaning/
Why would you use “wann”?
BTW… you’re only three months in an you already read this nerdy piece about “eben” and “gerade”… respect :)
I can definitely relate to the notion of ‘straight’ meaning ‘good’, because my dad used to say to me “keep on the straight and narrow, and you’ll not go wrong”, meaning, “stay honest and true, and life will be good for you”.
Out of curiosity… do you have an idea what the “narrow” is a symbol for?
Probably from Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Interesting!! Thank you (I got this comment only now)
Hello, Enmanuel, I come to you with an indiscreet proposal.
I need to translate a letter URGENTLY to german (5 hours from now… and counting. Posted at GMT 14:34). It’s for an application for a study grant in Germany through the DAAD. My lazy Lehrer told me he would help me but it seems he’s bailed on me, and I must deliver the letter today or I’m dead: of course, this is the way I always do things, at last minute, and I knew this would happen, but I didn’t imagine it would be so hard to find Überzetzere here in Venezuela. And I’d only trust the translation of this letter to someone that would capture the subtle nuances of language it contains.
Now here’s the catch just so you convince yourself this is the shittiest deal of your life: I can’t pay you or donate to you because here in Venezuela we got some badass currency control so there’s no way in hell I can’t get Euros or Dollars, much less transfering them over the internet. But I’m a English-Spanish translator and I’m not so bad myself, so I would forever owe you spanish translations for that day you have to confess your love in the language of telenovelas to that 18-yr old spanish girl you will meet at your 50’s or something.
Dringende Grüsse,
David.
[email protected]
Damn, sorry man but I just read it now (20:19 Berlin time). Are you still alive??
Yes man, thanks for minding! A Lehrerin from the Institut (an absolute angel) kicked my head in the right direction and right now I’m finishing a much simpler, made-in-David motivation letter. Kudos, and good luck to you. If all goes well, I’ll buy you a pint in August
Is this post… snowing?
It’s a wordpress.com thing. I could turn it off but I like it :).
Thanks. My Dad is much farther along than I am, and still loves to learn.
My Dad learned German as a young boy from his German (Prussian) Grandfather, who he lived with during WWII, so he is very comfortable with the 19th century Prussian dialect and needs to work to keep up with the more modern changes to Duden and modern word usage. His “Grandpa Heiser” was born in Demmin (1883) and grew up in Üeckermunde before seeing the world as a sailor (1890s – 1900s) and emigrating to California before WWI. My Dad took some German in college, lived in Germany a couple of years when he was in the Army and even had occasion to speak German in Vietnam of all places, but has struggled to keep up with it since, here in America. He has been working on it over the past several years as he maintained and established contact with the German members of our family, as he promised his Grandfather he would. I finally found the time 3 years ago to start learning and he has helped me out a lot. A lot of very long but fascinating and unbelievable stories exist about Grandpa Heiser and my German family that I will save for another time.
You are missing a “k” in “atuell”
Der Mantel ist ebenso zeitlos wie atuell.
The coat is as (lit.: “equally so”) current as it is timeless.
Danke!
Great post! I forwarded this article to my Dad and he is hooked now, too.
I have a question about the use of Zielgerade.
The final stretch in a literal sense, like the end of a car race, is what I think you talked about in the post. Can it also be used for more abstract things, like the final stretch of one’s physical rehabilitation, or one’s college degree program, for example? Cases where you are “bringing it home” literally or figuratively?
Thanks again.
Eric
Yeah, “Zielgerade” works pretty much like in English, I think. Are you and your dad both learning German??
the way you used even in the unicorn example, even means “exactly” as in “it sounds crazy but it’s correct” but when your going extremer than before
-I saw an elf today. And a fairy. And even a unicorn.
-this day was so magical, I even saw a unicorn.
-this day was so bad, even if I saw a unicorn it would still be bad
I think I get what you’re saying and yes, even is often used to sort of top something of. However
– This day was so magical, I even saw…
This is not really going extremer. The “even” is used to express just how magical the day was, not to make it even more magical. At least that’s my understanding.
I have to approve comments when the user comments for the first time. That’s why they don’t show up immediately. They’re not lost :)
Ich habe auch oft gehört “eben” im Sinne von “right now”
-Ich muss mal eben telefonieren.
-Muss mal eben ins Toilette.
Genau… die Verwendung für “now” ist ziemlich wichtig. Das Wort “just” wird uns helfen, da den Zusammenhang zu verstehen.
Kleine Korrektur:
– Muss mal eben auf/zur Toilette.
Mit “in” heißt das, du willst “into the bowl”.
danke :)
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