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.
“Haha, Emanuel very funny. So it has like 10 meanings, right?”
But no, I actually wasn’t joking. Aushalten really only has one meaning that’s relevant and it is where is where the huge amorphous multidimensional meaning clouds of the four verbs I just mentioned intersex.
I mean intersect…. oh boy… these “jokes”. They must be hard to bear sometimes. Or should I say the “joke” is hard auszuhalten?! Because this idea of putting up with challenging conditions, holding out despite shitty circumstances is precisely what aushalten is all about.
And man… this is SUPER common in daily life.
- Manchmal sind die “Witze” hier schwer auszuhalten.
- Sometimes the “jokes” here are hard to bear/deal with.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Hoffentlich schläft Thomas bald ein. Ich halte sein betrunkenes Gelaber nicht mehr lange aus.
- I hope Thomas falls asleep soon. I can’t bear/keep/take his drunk blabber much longer.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Es ist komisch, dass Leute nicht mal 5 Minuten Warten aushalten, ohne auf ihr Handy zu gucken.
- It’s a pity that people can’t bear waiting for even 5 minutes without looking at their phone.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Hey, kann ich bei dir pennen? Ich halte es zu Hause grad einfach nicht aus.”
“Ja, klar, komm rein.” - “Hey, can I crash on your couch? I just can’t stand being at home at the moment.” (lit.: I can’t stand it to be at home)
“Sure thing, come on in.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And because it’s so common, here are some more :)
- “Hast du schon gehört? Maria hat mit Thomas Schluss gemacht.”
“Na endlich, ey. Ich versteh echt nicht, wie die es überhaupt so lange mit dem ausgehalten hat. - “Have you heard? Maria broke up with Thomas. ”
“Gee, finally. I really don’t get how she put up with that guy for so long to begin with.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Mit diesen 7 Tipps kann man den grauen Berliner Winter gut aushalten.
- With these 7 tips you can put up with/deal with the gray Berlin winter just fine.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Boah, dieser Lärm ist nicht zum Aushalten.
- Man, this noise is too much.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And Germans actually also use it when they’re really really amazed by something. Because… you know… Germans are the absolute masters of hedged enthusiasm.
- 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.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But Germans do say that at times.
Now, some of you might be wondering how aushalten relates to the English to hold out. Well, it’s better to not think of them as translations. To hold out is just MUCH broader, it’s a much bigger meaning bubble and aushalten is only like a small part of it. And even when holding out is actually used with the underlying abstract idea of “holding your position, till something is over/out”, durchhalten or just halten are the more fitting translations.
- Der Motor hat (durch)gehalten, bis wir an Land waren.
- The engine held out till we reached the shore.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Der Spieler hat trotz Verletzung bis zum Ende durchgehalten.
- Despite the injury, the player held out till the end.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
All right.
Now, there aren’t actually any related nouns or anything to mention for us here so let’s get right to the r-version.
raushalten
And like usual, the r-version can express the literal combination of the local idea of the prefix and the verb…. holding something outside in some way.
- “Sind die giftigen Gasaliens noch da?”
“Halt mal die Hand raus, dann wissen wir’s”
“Haha, sehr lustig.” - “Are the poisonous gas aliens still there?”
“Hold your hand outside, then we’ll know.”
“Haha, very funny.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But this meaning isn’t really all that useful. Still raushalten is definitely something you should add to your active vocab. Why? Because it has an abstract meaning.
Combined with a person, raushalten expresses the idea of keeping someone from getting involved in something. And usually, this is used with a self-reference in context of some sort of debate or conflict.
- Beim Meeting gab es eine krasse Diskussion darüber, ob wir eine Pad- oder eine Kapsel-Kaffeemaschine kaufen sollen. Aber ich hab’ mich da komplett rausgehalten.
- At the meeting, there was a huge discussion/argument about whether we should buy a coffee maker with pads or one with capsules. But I stayed out of it completely.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Ich finde du solltest Thomas noch mal eine Chance geben.”
“Halt dich da bitte raus, du kannst das nicht verstehen.” - “In my opinion, you should give Thomas another chance.”
“You keep your thoughts to yourself, you can’t understand this.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And i think this is it. this was our look at the menaing of aushaletn and for absoultly no resaon this bit is full of typo’s. i know it sucks and U h8 it but its not that long so i hope its “aushaltable”.
“Just read summary of FAKE NEWS @yourdailygerman. Total disaster. Worst summary ever. SAD!”
Hey, stay out of this, Don!
So yeah… that’s it. As always, if you have any question or suggestions about today’ word or if you want to try out some examples and get them corrected, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
** aushalten – fact sheet **
meaning:
to bear, to put up with, to withstand
past:
form of haben + gehalten
hielt aus (written past not used in spoken)
related words:
etwas raushalten – hold something out of a window (or something) … rare
sich raushalten aus – not get involved in something (usually discussions or the like)
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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.