Hello everyone,
and welcome to a new episode of our series on prefix verbs, this time with a
verb that is kind of what German learners do with German grammar.
And I don’t mean wegwünschen :).
Get ready for a look at the one meaning of
aushalten
Now you’re like “What?!Only one meaning?!?!”
And yes, it’s super unusual for a prefix verb but aushalten really only has one meaning. Here it comes:
stand, bear, deal, tolerate.
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Just one thing I don’t really understand.
“sich-acc raushalten aus-dat” would use “aus” as a preposition to indicate what you want to stay out of.
Yet all examples I see use a generic “da” in them.
“Meine Freunde haben über Verschwörungstheorien gesprochen. Ich habe mich da rausgehalten.”
Could it also be “ich habe mich daraus rausgehalten” with a da-word?
Great question!!
You’re right that the “aus” tells us what we’re staying out of.
– Ich halte mich aus der Diskussion raus.
But when you replace that thing with a pronoun you actually just use “da” plus “raushalten”.
“daraus raus” could work for some contexts I guess, but most of the time it would sound weird if not wrong.
The reason is that what you stay out of is treated like a location.
– Ich gehe in das Haus.
– Ich gehe in es…. NOPE
– Ich gehe darein… nope
– Ich gehe (da) rein.
For locations, what kind of happens is that the preposition gets r- or her- or hin- for directionality and then becomes a prefix and the “da” is a lone pointer for location.
Does that help?
It helps I guess. I suppose the “r-” prefixes (and the others) give a strong enough sense of movement so no specific da-word is needed. This plus the fact that “da” is really generic and can be used in a lot of places.
Would it be a good rule of thumb that, if “da” could be used (referring to some location), it’s likely that no specific da-word is needed?
Also is there any article on this stuff (asking because I don’t even know what to search for lol)
You can think of “da rausgehen” for example as “daraus gehen”. The attraction between verb and directional prefix is stronger than between da and preposition, so it splits.
– Ich freue mich darauf.
This is not “locational”. So the da-word stays intact.
– Ich lege die Jacke darauf. (sounds bookish)
This IS “locational”. Using the da-word is not wrong, but it sounds a bit high register or artificial.
– Ich lege die Jacke da rauf.
– Ich habe die Jacke da raufgelegt.
This sounds much more natural. Because it’s about location, so the da-word gets split and the prefix instead attached to the verb.
An article that kind of is about the same dynamic is this one:
https://yourdailygerman.com/da-words-apart-spoken-german/
The da-words there get split without the preposition becoming a prefix.
– Da warne ich vor.
– Davor warne ich.
thank you for the information
Thanks for a great article! Could you comment on how synonymous the common meaning of aushalten is with ertragen?
Great question! “ertragen” is always done by a living being, usually a human and it sounds a bit grave.
“aushalten” also works for things. Like… a bridge can “aushalten” an earthquake.
And then there’s a phrasing difference.
“aushalten” can be used with a dummy object “es” when you give a location.
– Ich halte es hier nicht mehr aus.
For “ertragen” you need an object or if you use “es”, you need to “fill” it with a side sentence.
– Ich ertrage es hier nicht mehr. (sounds weird because no one knows what “es” is)
– Ich ertrage es nicht, dass du das machst. (works)
Hope that helps.
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– Schönes Ferienhaus… mit dem Garten und dem See und so… doch… hat was… hier kann man es aushalten.
– This vacation home is soooo beautiful…. my god, the garden and the lake, it’s amazing… A-MA-ZING… this is like super charming. I wanna live here.
For me, the go-to phrase would be, “I could get used to this.” Same sort of understatement.
There’s one “hold out” phrase I wondered how you’d translate: “to hold out for something.” It’s what you’d say someone’s doing if they’re in a negotiation and won’t accept a deal until they get something specific, or if somebody won’t give up doing something because they’re hoping for a particular good result. It really just kind of means “wait” or “hope for,” but it tends to sound like it would probably make more sense to just give up.
– He really hates his job, but he’s holding out for a promotion to management.
Haha… yes, “I could get used to this” is more accurate. I wanted to exaggerate a bit :).
As for “holding out for”… that’s a tough one. I don’t think there’s an equivalent for this. You’d rather phrase around it so it’s up to context. In the example you gave I guess I’d use something like
– Er hasst seine Arbeit total, aber er hofft auf eineBeförderung zum Manager.
– …, die Hoffnung auf Bef. hält ihn dort.
There are several other options.
“Halt dich da bitte raus, …………..” Just to illustrate better the meaning of sich rashalten here, I would use: “Keep uour nose away from this, …..”, a more or less, literal translation. Of course, “Keep your thoughts for yourself” is best in formal and polite address. Another “ugs.” is “Mind your own business!”.
Can “aushalten mit” only be used with people?
Das Scheißwetter halte ich nicht mehr aus.
Mit dem Scheißwetter halte ich es nicht mehr aus. >> not ok?
Also, I think I would say, “Keep your thoughts *to* yourself.”
Oh yeah, definitely “TO yourself.” To keep something “for” yourself sounds like somebody else might actually want it – kind of the opposite situation, really. And “for” would sound weird for something that comes from you anyway (thoughts, opinions, hands).
Learning prepositions never stops XD
Both your sentences are proper and idiomatic. And “aushalten” can also be used for things. A rope can “aushalten” a weight for instance. But that usage is somewhat rare.
Just to make sure I understand,
Mit dem Scheißwetter halte ich es nicht mehr aus. >> ok
Das Scheißwetter halte ich nicht mehr aus. >> ok
Mit meiner Schwiegermutter halte ich es nicht mehr aus. >> ok
Meine Schwiegermutter halte ich nicht mehr aus. >> ok or no?
They’re all ok. The last one is pretty strong sounding but yeah, people say both.
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Als Katrin zu schnarchen begonnen hat, konnte ich es nicht mehr im Schlafzimmer aushalten.
Wenn es kommt zum Thema Politik, halte ich mich einfach raus.
Sehr gut! Nur eine kleine Korrektur:
– Wenn es um Politik geht, halte ich…
– Wenn man auf das Thema Politik kommt, halte…
“Wenn es zum Thema kommt” ist nicht idiomatisch.
Ich denke da noch so an ‘sich von jemanden aushalten lassen’…Unterhalt und/oder mehr…??
Stimmt, das gibt’s auch noch. Aber es ist super selten, oder? Einfach für Unterhal/Alimente würde ich das nicht benutzen.