Hello everyone,
And welcome back to a new episode of German Prefix Verbs Explained. Yes. Another one. There’s always another one.
And today, we’ll look at a verb that’ll transform your boring, stiff textbook German into super authentic colloquial hyper German.
Seriously.
Everybody’s secretly gonna be like “Wow, is [*insert your name here] a native speaker?”.
Get ready for a look at the meaning of
abgehen
Quick insert:
If you want just a quick overview of the meanings, you can find it in my second project – the prefix verb dictionary. There, you can find a lot of the most common prefix verbs like angehen, bekommen or aufmachen, and you don’t only get hand made translations that actually make sense and that come with audio examples – no, you also get a really cool an unique interface that let’s you explore prefixes and verbs like nowhere else. It’s a new project, but growing fast, so check it out :)
But now let’s hop right in.
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The Base Meaning of “abgehen”
As most separable prefixes, ab has two ideas it can add to a verb – one is about location and the other is more or less or abstract.
Usually more. Of course.
The locational aspect of ab is downward, the other part is the idea of separation and parting.
Just think of an apple tree. When apple and tree separate, then the apple moves downward.
So downward and separation – those are the two ideas that ab can add to a base verb.
Now, our base verb today is gehen and of course that’s the German version of to go.
And in combination with ab it can also mean to come.
Now you’re all like “What?!?! To go means to come now? This language needs to see a psychologist.”
Which brings us to our Sponsor for today – Better Help.
Nah… I’m kidding of course. This is not YouTube and I don’t do sponsors.
And gehen as to come isn’t all that crazy if you think about it:
going in, coming in – the difference is really just perspective.
And if you think about for instance a sticker being removed from a surface – is that coming or going? It doesn’t really matter.
And so with that mindset, it makes sense that that abgehen means to come off.
- Der Aufkleber geht nicht ab.
- The sticker won’t come off.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Mein Eintrittsbändchen ist schon wieder abgegangen, kann ich ein neues haben?
- My festival wrist ribbon came off again. Can I get a new one?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Beim neuen iPhone Peel™ geht die Farbe ab.
- The color comes off of the new iPhone Peel™.
(not sure if that’s idiomatic, native speakers to the rescue :)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now, this meaning by itself is nice, but it would not be enough to make abgehen worth a discussion.
What makes abgehen a real must-have is the second meaning.
The Second Meaning of ‘abgehen’
The best way to approach this meaning is to think of a rocket lifting off.
That’s not the meaning, mind you, but the idea.
It’s really hard to find one translation or even describe what it is, so let’s just look at some examples.
- Der Gitarrist geht ab.
- The guitar player is going crazy. (doing a solo, for example)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich hab am Wochenende meinen Wagen getunt… aaaalter wie der jetz abgeht, mann. Richtig krass. (little bit of dialect :)
- I tuned my ride this weekend… dude, the acceleration is insane. Really crazy.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Seit der Nebenrolle in dem Film von Tarantino geht der Schauspieler richtig ab. (quite colloquial phrasing)
- Since his supporting role in the Tarantino flick the actor’s career is exploding.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Der Song geht ab. (for uptempo stuff)
- The song kicks butt.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Did you get an impression? There’s always an idea of a great or impressive performance of some kind. Like… abgehen is about being super cool or intense with a very active component. I know this is super vague but I don’t really know how else to describe it. I really think the image of the rocket is best way to think of it, but if you’re still uncertain let’s talk about it in the comments and flesh it out a little better.
Here’s a couple more examples:
- Meine Katze ist ein echter Kaffeefan. Du glaubst nicht, wie sie abgeht, wenn sie die Kaffeemaschine hört.
- My cat is a real coffee fan. You won’t believe how crazy she gets when she hears the coffee maker.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Hey Leute, ich brauch für meine Party-Playlist Lieder, wo alle abgehen. Habt ihr Ideen?
- Hey guys, for my birthday party playlist I need songs that make everyone dance/go crazy. Any ideas?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Gestern war im Kaufhaus 80%-Discount-Tag… du glaubst nicht, was da abging. Wie die Tiere, ey.
- Yesterday, there was 80% off day at the mall.. you won’t believe what (crazy stuff) was going on there. Like animals, man.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
In the last example, abgehen is pretty much to be going on and that’s also the focus of a super common, very colloquial way to say hi.
- Was geht ab? (Also often shortened to “Was geht?”; very slangy)
- What up?
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This one does sound a bit schoolyard-y. Like… it’s one of those phrases that kids would NOT want their parents to use. Unless their parents are renowned hip hop artists. But that limitation is really only for the greeting. All the other examples are something also 40 year olds would say and if you want to spice up your German with some authentic slang… this abgehen is definitely a good pick.
Cool.
So far we had to come off and this “rocket”-abgehen. Is that all?
Well, no, there’s one more meaning that we could mention and it’s actually the most literal one.
‘abgehen’ and ‘der Abgang’
Abgehen can mean to leave the stage or the scene. This one is absolutely limited to the context of theater though. It is NOT a valid option of you’re leaving the meeting to go to the bathroom.
- Der Schauspieler geht ab.
- The actor leaves the stage.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This idea of leaving the scene is also the core of the noun der Abgang and this one is not as limited as the verb.
- Nach ihrem Abgang aus der Politik, gehen viele Politiker in die Wirtschaft.
- After their departure from politics, many politicians get a job in the private sector/economy.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich mach einen Abgang.
- I’ll leave. (slangy)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Das Bier ist am Anfang sehr mild, im Abgang aber etwas bitter.
- Mild in the beginning, but it’s slightly bitter in the finish.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The last example is probably the most literal interpretation of the combo of gehen and ab we’ve seen so far.
But if you’ve read some episodes of this series you already know that for the REALLY literal meaning, we need a version.
The Meaning of ‘herabgehen’
Verbs with ab- do not have a proper r-versions . It doesn’t make all that much sense that rangehen exists while rabgehen doesn’t. For some reason (I suspect THIS ONE) the “parents of r-versions”, the her-versions, just never had kids for the ab-verbs. Herabgehen exists though and it’s pretty literal and literary. Literal because it is about actually walking down somewhere, so like r-versions usually do, it takes the combination of verb and prefix literally and literary because it sounds super high brow. Herabgehen is for princesses, what normal people do is runtergehen.
- Während ich die Treppe herabgehe, zitiere ich Goethe.
- As I walk down the stair, I recite Goethe.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Während ich die Treppe runtergehe, kratze ich mir am Arsch.
- While I walk down the stairs, I scratch my arse.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And that’s it for today. This was our look at the verb abgehen and if you’re a stage director at a theater or musical, then this is one you’ll definitely need this one.
Oh and if you want to speak authentic modern colloquial German, then you’ll need it too. Abgehen geht ab :).
As usual, if you have any questions or if you want to try out some examples, just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Thanks a lot! first day-first article :)
Sie sind lustig. Danke!
Question in example sentence ,
in this context, does it mean the actor retire from stage or just leaving the stage after the show?
Just leaving the stage after a scene.
Like the previous article
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“Ich hab am Wochenende meinen Wagen getunt… aaaalter wie der jetz abgeht, mann. Richtig krass”
which part is dialect? :)
It’s not really dialect, but all of it is colloquial. Particularly:
– getunt
– alter
– abgeht
– mann
– krass
Hello Emanuel. While writing a couple sentences for practice, and using deepl to correct them, it kept correcting me with ‘hinuntergehen’, everytime I used ‘runtergehen’ …
example – Ich gehe die Treppen hinunter.
I am wondering what, exactly, is the difference between them ?
“hinunter” sounds “fancy” and is what you’d write in a book.
In daily life, “runtergehen” is WAY more idiomatic.
Hello, I am listening to song called “Das kann ich ab”, (https://youtu.be/yUshGegOi2Q), I’m pretty sure abkönnen isn’t a thing, but I can’t work out what verb is silently missing here, what do you think?
Oh it very much is a thing :).
Here’s my dictionary entry for it:
https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning/gno/konnen/abkonnen/
Well TIL! I’m sure I searched for that earlier, but I must have mistyped. Thanks
As suggested by other comments, a closer idiomatic translation of the non-literal abgehen would probably be “take off”, like a rocket, which is definitely related to going upwards.
Possibly also “to start up” has a similar root? Both have more of a focus on the early part, you wouldn’t use them to describe a prolonged period of wild fun. Would abgehen describe an entire evening of wild entertainment?
“Come off” in English as an idiom would mean to be done successfully/to work well. Possibly a similar origin? But it is definitely less energetic than take off or abgehen.
You can definitely “abgehen” on the dance floor for 3 hours straight, so it’s not about starting in this sense.
Hello!
I’d like to add there’s a more direct connection in English between “going down” and “going crazy”.
If someone says something’s about to go down in the right context they could mean a fight is about to happen, some conflict is about to come to head. I.e. it’s about to get crazy.
Reference:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=shits+going+down&=true
Also if someone was going to dance you could tell them to “get down” – as in go dance really well. Go get down/go party/go dance crazy good.
Just some thoughts about how English can also have a connection between “down” and “crazy” that might make it easier to remember when german “ab” also connects to “crazy” :)
Nice! The more mental connections, the better!! Thanks for sharing this :)
Hey Leute, ich brauch für meine Party-Playlist Lieder, wo alle abgehen. Habt ihr Ideen?
Could you please tell me why we used ( wo ) here.
Thank you
The more accurate thing to use would be “bei der” but there’s a trend to replace certain situational/temporal descriptions with a generic “wo”.
It exists in English, too
Technically, it should be “in which” but “where” is just idiomatic.
Thank you very much. It’s clear now
Ich geh völlig ab, wenn ich deine Posts lese! , Lieber Lehrer ( i hope it makes sense :)) )
Yes, it does :). Thank you!
Caught myself thinking about abgehen this morning, standing in a crazy long line at my regular Dunkin Donuts. Usually it’s either there’s no one there or maybe one person. This morning, they had something like 8 people crammed in there (it’s a pretty small space). So, while I was standing in line I started thinking about how I’d describe this to Emanuel, if he were to ask me how my coffee run went:
“Es ging beim Dunk total ab”
Would that work? Because I don’t mean to say that it was enjoyable, more like, it was too crowded (I would use “wild” in English, and I probably would say something like “it was a total zoo”). And is it correct to use the written past here? Or should it be “Es hat beim Dunk total abgegangen”
Thanks! :)
I am a new member and I am always in a good mood when I am reading your post. Ich danke dir sehr!
Das freut mich sehr :)!
hey Emanuel! thanks for the enlightening article :) quick question about the example “Der Song geht ab”: can you also use this as a general statement about the song (rather than just a comment on what’s happening right now in the song) ?
You can, but just make sure you don’t use it in a sense of pure liking. The song has to be energetic, loud or fast paced or whatever… like…there needs to be lots of energy.
Hope that helps :)
just wondering: is “freikommen” an alternative to “abgehen”? For example: Der Aufkleber kommt nicht frei”
To me it sounds weird, but it might be idiomatic in Austria. I don’t know… Austrian German sometimes has phrasings that sound really strange to me.
At least in Australian English we say “The party is really going off!” Seems like your meaning of going well/going crazy. In a good youthful way. But very much slang.
Cool, would be interested if it works in British English or AE, too. Or if it would be at least understood.
In AE it would be understood but not commonly used.
As an older Australian, I would use “going off” for food that is going bad/sour/rotten. Also if you “go off on me” you are yelling at me.
Is that an old-school way to say it? Because you mentioned “as an older Aussie”… like, would it sound weird coming from a kid?
In AE you can “go off on” someone too, but I have no idea if young people say it. To my ears it doesn’t sound dated, but I’m too old for that to be any indication anymore.
Oh, and I thought of another one. Why else but this would a race start with “aand they’re OFF!”, or people who are leaving say “well, I’ll be off”? Off WHAT, exactly? They don’t know, because the only reason they’re saying this stuff is because some Olde Englisch ancestor inherited it from Opa Deutch-Sprache.
Got some (American) English cognates for you:
Rockets, careers, and souped-up cars at the starting line, do “Take off”–which seems to me to ge the best translation…even though it’s pretty literal.
I’m sure if you asked a random English speaker off the street where that expression came from they would scratch their head, think about it for a second and then say it came from an airplane taking off. But where did THAT come from, huh?
Also, this explains “what’s up” quite neatly, and also why we tell horses to “giddy up”. Sure, sure, some people think it came from an old English phrase, “get thee up”. But a) that sounds contrived and b) but where did THEY get it from? ….Huh.
This German undercurrent we have going on never ceases to amaze me.
Let’s say Germanic undercurrent :). I think stuff like this with “up, off, auf, ab” is really old.
By the way, there’s also “abheben” which is the proper word for the actual lifting off of rockets, planes and careers. “abgehen” is more about the general idea of “full bore” (I LOVE this meaning of bore)
thank you! awesome as always!!
Danke dir!