Hey there everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will have a look at the meaning of:
außer
Außer is the third of the infamous three but-lings, the three German translations for the word but.
Or actually, we should probably say “options”. The thing is that the English word but is for three concepts that German sees as different things. Of course… we all know how painfully precise German likes to be sometimes.
So yeah, German uses a different word for each of those three concepts and if you pick the wrong one, it actually sounds REALLY confusing to a German speaker, even though it’s all but in English.
The first two But-lings are aber and sondern and mixing up those is a really common mistake.
We’ve talked about sondern and how to tell it apart from aber in a separate article, so if you want to check that out, here’s the link:
Today, we’ll look at the third But-ling, außer and see how it’s different to aber and sondern. and we’ll also learn a few nice alternatives and cool related words.
So are you ready to jump in?
Then let’s go.
And in contrast to sondern, außer is actually pretty easy to understand. You’ve probably that it has aus in it, so it probably has something to with that area, where many of us couldn’t go as often this year: outside.
And while ausser is not about location, it is about the idea of figuratively putting something outside of a group. Or in one word, excluding.
The main word to express that (as a preposition) in English is except, but it’s also one of the concepts of but.
- I’ll eat anything but spinach.
Brussel spouts are okay. Fermented salmon is okay. Even one of the most disgusting and controversial foods on the planet – vanilla ice cream – is okay. But spinach is excluded.
And in German, that’s what außer is for.
- Maria isst alles außer Spinat.
- Maria eats everything but spinach.
- Dieser Film war alles außer lustig.
- This movie was all but funny.
- Ich lese nie Bücher, außer wenn ich muss.
- I never read books, except when I have to.
And just to make sure, aber and sondern would sound completely confusing to a German native speaker here. Like… to a German brain there is NO connection between aber and ausser whatever.
So maybe don’t think of ausser as but. Ausser is except, and except just happens to be an idea that can be expressed with but.
Cool.
Now, there’s actually a second option for except in German, and that one might be extremely confusing for someone who is learning German if they just happen to see it someone …
- Ich kaufe alles bis auf den Tisch.
If you go word by word, you’ll get someting about buying “up until the table”. But the real meaning is of course except the table. Which kind of makes sense… you buy and buy and buy, until you reach the table, which is when you stop.
- I buy everything except for the table.
Both options, ausser and bis auf, are pretty much the same. interchangeable. I think I came across an example some last week, in which ausser was not ok, but I can’t remember.
I will add it if it comes back to me.
But for the most part, they are interchangeable and people use them based what flows better to them in a certain context. I would say that ausser is slightly higher German than bis auf, but bis auf is by no means poor style or slang.
All right. So now we know what ausser means and I think you’ll agree that it’s not really that hard.
What we haven’t touched on yet, is the grammatical side of it, though. And the grammatical side of German is kind of like a 20 year old chad at spring break… it ge… actually, I’ll let your mind complete that one.
So let’s look at the question which case to use.
Which case to use after “ausser”?
And the surprising answer is… it depends.
And no, ausser is not one of those two-way-prepositions. Außer itself has no preferences at all.
We’re like “Hey außser, which case do you want.”
And außer be like “Whatever bro, I don’t mind.”
But before you go like “Hooray.” and start using your favorite case (if there is such a thing)… that’s not how it works. We don’t get to choose. The case we need actually depends on the role the außer-element has in the sentence.
- Ich kenne alle Leute hier außer die Frau im schwarzen Kleid.
- I know all people here except for the woman in the black dress.
- Maria hat alle außer mich zu ihrer Party eingeladen.
- Maria has invited everyone but me to her party.
Here, we use Accusative because the verbs, einladen and kennen, work Accusative.
The following examples, however, are in Dative.
- Auf der Party rede ich mit allen außer (mit) der Frau mit dem schwarzen Kleid.
- At the party, I chat with everyone except for the woman with the black dress.
- Maria schickt allen außer mir eine Einladung zu ihrer Party.
- Maria sends an invitation to her party to everyone but me.
And in daily life, people also use the Nominative after ausser. I don’t really know, whether this is “correct” German or not but honestly, I don’t care. Correct is what sounds right. There are examples where Nominative sounds right, and people talk that way all the freakin’ time… so… language to the people, we speak it we make it :)
- Alle außer ich/mir sind zu Marias Party eingeladen.
- All except me are invited to Marias party.
- Alle außer der/dem kleine/n Thomas gehen ins Kino.
- All except little Thomas are going to the movies.
So bottom line… ausser doesn’t really inform the case. Just use the case, that is used for the whole group from which you exclude someone using ausser.
Cool.
Now before we can wrap this up, there is one more thing, that I absolutely need to clarify.
You see… the thing is:
I don’t actually care about Maria’s stupid party at all, you know. I’m glad I am not ivited, and I wouldn’t have gone, had I been. So joke’s on you Maria. Have fun with your beta male orbiters.
Well, okay, maybe that didn’t really need to be clarified.
There are a couple of things I do want to mention about außer, though.
A couple of other uses
The first thing, we need to mention is that außer has another meaning… the idea of actually being outside. It’s only used in a couple of fixed expression, but those are fairly standard. The first one is außer Haus. It literally means out of the house, but it is mostly used as take-away or simply not there.
- Sorry but the manager is not here/is on site at the moment.
- Es tut mir leid aber der Manager ist gerade außer Haus.
And the other expression is the figurative phrasing: außer sich sein, which does exist in English, too. Only there it would be beside oneself with… thanks to Trevor who mentioned that in a comment.
- Ich bin außer mir vor Freude.
- I am beside myself with /delirious of joy
I am out of myself in/from joy. (lit.)
- Thomas ist ganz außer sich, weil sein Auto dreckig ist.
- Thomas is beside himself / just short of a frenzy, because his car is dirty.
Thomas is totally out of himself, because his car is dirty. (lit.)
And then, last but definitely not least, we have to mention the word außerdem.
Literally, it means something like “except that”, but the idea is actually inclusion this time, so it’s more like “besides that” or “in addition to that”.
For example, when you are at a bakery and you order something they might ask you
- Und außerdem?
Dictionaries list a whole bunch of translations like furthermore, besides and also but the common core of all of these is something like “and else” or the most literal version “other than that”.
- “Willst du mit ins Kino kommen?”
“Nein, ich muss noch Hausaufgaben machen, außerdem habe ich kein Geld.” - “Wanne come to the movies?”
“No, I still have homework to do and also, I don’t have any money.”
And that’s it for today. Hooray :).
This was our look at außer, which is the German word for except. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Hallo –
Sind die folgenden Wörter mehr oder weniger Synonyme?
außer wenn, außer, es sei denn
Ich habe diesen Satz gelesen und es scheint, dass mit einer gewissen Umstellung alle drei Wörter verwendet werden könnten:
Er kann sich dieses Auto auf keinen Fall leisten. Außer, er gewinnt im Lotto.
Liege ich mit meinen Überlegungen falsch?
“außer” und “es sei denn” passen beide perfekt, aber für “außer wenn” musst du den Satzbau ändern. Die Bedeutung ist aber gleich in dem Fall.
Hi! I am wondering what if I want to say “Besides x,y,z (which has been mentioned before), I want to talk about [one more thing].” In this case, should I use “außer” or “außerdem” or “neben”? Because in this case is not “exclusion” but add [one more thing] on top.
For example, A teacher wants to tell me in the “Elterngespräch” how my son is doing at school. But other than that I want to discuss if the school can encourage the students to read more.
Should I say: “Neben den schulischen Leistungen meines Sohnes möchte ich auch darüber sprechen, ob die Schule die Schüler zum Lesen anregen kann.”
or “Außer” is better? (but it’s not exclusion)
Thank you!
No, your hunch is correct. “ausser” doesn’t work well here. “ausserdem” would work, but then you’d have to rephrase your sentence.
“neben” is fine, but your sentence sounds a bit scripted.
Another option is “abgesehen davon”, but that is not as “additional” as the other options.
In spoken, I think people would most likely go for a phrasing with “ausserdem”.
Ups… I mean “außerdem”! Sorry. I keep mixing up the spelling because they changed it back and forth when I was in school and I stopped caring.
What could you speak about außerhalb? is it interchangeable with außerdem?
is sonst interchangeable with außerdem?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on what sonst you’re talking about.
Absolutely not :).
“außerhalb” is only for locations.
You can also find it in my dictionary :
https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning/aus/ausser-3/auserhalb/
According to the Duden, ‘ausser’ requires Dativ, except for verbs about movement. First example would be thus wrong and should be ‘ich kenne alle ausser der Frau’
“ausser” can also be used as a “conjuction”. Then, it has no influence on the case following it.
– Niemand weiß es ausser ich.
That is correct German.
LEarners and also most native speakers do NOT know how to distinguish between the preposition “ausser” and the “conjunction” and so saying it is followed by Dative is not very helpful in context of learning how to speak idiomatic German.
I don’t like Duden. And stuff like this is why :).
und zudem? ist zudem das gleiche wie ausserdem?
Ich hat hier komme aus das Artikel gehe um “sondern” schickt. (really having trouble translating what I want to say here “I was sent here from the article on “sondern”) Da drüben, war die Wort “außer” geschreibt. Ist es “außer” oder “ausser” oder beiden?
“außer” is officially correct, but I decided to go with “ausser” here since many people around the world have no “ß” on their keyboard and so double-s is likely how they’ll type it.
Dein Satz muss sein:
“Ich wurde von dem Artikel über “sondern” hierher geschickt.”
It’s a passive construction, so no “haben”. And you don’t need to use “gehen um” when you can just use a preposition “on – über”.
Passive sentences like this one look simple but they’re kind of advanced stuff. Just too much confusion with all the verbs :). Kudos for trying, keep it up!!
“Die Firma bietet außer einer Ausbildung auch die Möglichkeit für ein Praktikum. ”
Does ausser mean the same here? – except.
Well, according to Google translate, ausser = not only. Can you help me?
Great question!
The Google translation is based on the sense of the phrase, so it’s not entirely wrong.
Think of “ausser” as “besides”. So it’s kind of an “except” except that it’s not exclusive. Like…
“What does the company offer?”
“An apprenticeship.”
“Well, except that?”
“Oh, an internship.”
So the meaning is essentially that the company offers both things, that’s why Google’s translation is “not only”. But it’s a bit misleading.
Hope I could help.
Good
What is the best option for something like this:
“I am a bit tired and have a lot of work to do, but otherwise I’m good.”
I always thought it would be “ausserdem”, like “outside of that”, but now it seems that would mean “in addition to that” here. Is that right? Would “ausser” or “bis auf” be correct here, or something else?
Vielen Dank :)
Good question. “Ausserdem” does indeed mean “in addition to that”. “Ausser” alone is a preposition though and “bis auf” works as one, too. So you’d need an object to come after it. But they wouldn’t really work here anyway because they sound too excluding. Kind of like “except that”. We don’t need to exclude, we just need to look elsewhere.
The two common ways are
– Ansonsten geht es mir gut.
– Davon abgesehen…
“Ansonsten” is probably the best match because it also works as “otherwise” if you want to hint at consequences. Check out the post on sonst for more about that.
Alles klar. Vielen Dank!
Thanks a lot, really good lesson :D
New Loyal Follower :D
Willkommen an Bord :D
Sollte es nicht statt “Alle ausser ich/mir sind zu Marias Party eingeladen”, “Alle ausser ich/MICH sind zu Marias Party eingeladen”?
Genauso wie hier, in deinem anderen Beispiel “Maria hat alle ausser mich zu ihrer Party eingeladen”. Also, Akkusativ statt Dativ.
As GratefullReader has pointed out in another comment somewhere here, “ausser” can be a conjunction (like und) and a preposition (like mit).
If it is a conjunction, then it takes the case that the verb assigns.
– Alle Schüler ausser ich essen.
You can replace “ausser” by “und”. The meaning will be different but the grammar is the same.
Now, I can also use “ausser” as a preposition without changing the meaning. And then “ausser” always wants Dative, no matter what the verb demands
– Alle Schüler ausser mir essen.
Here’s another example.
– Thomas sieht alle ausser mich.
I used it as conjunction. The accusative comes from the verb “sehen”
– Thomas sieht mich.
And here it is as a preposition
– Thomas sieht alle ausser mir.
Both are correct and mean the same.
Now,
– Alle ausser mich sind zur Party eingeladen.
This does not work because “alle” is subject. So “ich” can either become “mir” (for the preposition) are “ich” for the conjunction. But there is no way it becomes “mich” because neither verb nor “ausser” calls for it.
Hope that helps a bit :)
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Ich glaube, es gilt Folgendes für außer im Standarddeutschen:
1. sei es eine Präposition, so muss der Dativ verwendet werden, außer wenn es um “Bewegungsverben” geht, wie stellen oder setzen; in dieser Hinsicht ist das Wort mit Präpositionen wie “vor” oder “neben” vergleichbar;
2. sei es eine Konjunktion, so hängt der Kasus nur vom Kontext bzw. von der relevanten Struktur ab;
3. man darf immer die Konjunktion mit der Präposition ersetzen, was das Leben einfacher macht ;)
Gib mir mal ein Beispiel für 3)… ich steh’ auf dem Schlauch :)
Aus deinem Post:
“Alle ausser ich/mir sind zu Marias Party eingeladen.”
In “außer ich” ist es ne Konjunktion.
In “außer mir” ist es ne Präposition.
Beides geht.
Ah stimmt…. alles klar :D… das Beispiel werd’ ich mir merken. Damit kann man gut den Unterschied zwischen Präp und Konj zeigen.
So, what is the difference between Präp and Konj in this case? Is the meaning different?
Actually, there’s no real difference apart from grammar.
– Alle sind müde ausser ich.
– Alle sind müde ausser mir.
Both sentences mean exactly the same, and people use it based on personal preference.
IN the first sentence, the case of “ich” depends on the noun it is “contrasting” (alle = subject = Nominative). The proper term for that kind of “ausser” is “Adjunktor”… like “als”.
In the second version, the “ausser” defines the case Dative. It’s really really rare that a word can go both ways without there being a change in meaning.
Hope that helps!
[Great|Awesome|Good|Fantastic|Excellent] post. Thanks!
Fantastisch, wie immer. :-)
Regarding ‘ausser sich sein’: that pattern exists in English, but we use ‘beside’ rather than ‘outside’ – i.e. ‘I was beside myself with anger/frustration/joy/glee, etc.’
Does the phrase ‘bis auf’ always take the accusative case?
Cool, I wasn’t aware that existed. I will totally add that to the article…
As for “bis auf”, it has the same mechanics as “ausser” so it is kind of case-ignorant and gets whatever is around it :)
Emmanuel, you’ve been doing a very good work. i just want to say: thank you!
I’m from Brazil and since I’ve found out your blog my German has improved a lot.
Keep up the good work!!!
Danke :)… I’ll try my best