Hello everyone,
and welcome to yet another episode of German Prefix Verbs explained, one of the longest running and most captivating series in all of TV series history. Better than The rings of pow… oh wait, anything is better than the Rings of Power.
Today’s verb is another one of those hidden gems. That means you won’t find it in textbooks and “normal” vocabulary decks, and it seems really random and boring at first glance, but then you find out about its everyday use and you’ll be like “OMG, this is amazing.”
Ladies and gentles, get ready for a look at the meaning of
aussetzen
Quick note before we start:
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 jump right in.
When you look up aussetzen in one of those boring legacy dictionaries, it’s likely you’ll just stare at a column of translations that don’t seem to have anything in common with each other. With words like to expose, to suspend, to plant, to criticize, to maroon, to pretermit, to skip and many more.
But contrary to what these translations might suggest, aussetzen is actually really straight forward.
Because all of the various meanings come from one simple core.
Like with all placement verbs, it’s not very helpful to pin a single translation on setzen. It makes more sense to just think of it as a word for the broad idea of setting and placing. The prefix aus can express “switched off”-ness and outside-ness and often it adds both ideas to a verb. But in the case of setzen all we need is outside.
Placing something or someone “outside” in some way. That’s the core idea of all the various translations.
Let’s put it to the test.
The most obvious version is probably this one:
- Normaler Urlaub ist Ihnen zu langweilig? Wir setzen Sie auf einer einsamen Insel aus – das Abendteuer Ihres Lebens.
- Normal vacation trips are too boring for you? We’ll maroon you on a lonely island – the adventure of your lifetime.
(literally: “set you out”) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Es ist unglaublich, dass Menschen ihren Hund an der Autobahn aussetzen, nur weil sie in den Urlaub fahren wollen.
- It’s incredible that people leave/abandon their dog for good on the highway, just because they want to go on vacation.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This is really about getting put/placed outside… outside on the island, outside from the safety of home, outside in the wild.
And this actually brings us right over to the next meaning.
Marooned on an island, you’ve got to face all kinds of stuff… mosquitoes, crazy island weather, hunger, scary animal noises, the constant complaining of your partner that it’s the worst vacation ever. You’re exposed to all that.
And that’s also a meaning of aussetzen – to expose. And in fact, expose and aussetzen are kind of literal translations. You see, to expose is the Latin prefix ex-, which carries a notion of “outside”, and the verb “to pose”, which is about placing something. aussetzen – expose.
Now, aussetzen is muchh less common though, and you always need to specify (using Dative) the influence to what something is exposed.
And also, aussetzen ONLY works in the sense of exposing to “forces”, be it the weather or a naggy boss.
It does NOT work for the idea of revealing or uncovering (there, enthüllen or bloßstellen are the words you want).
Anyway, time for examples.
- Die Skulptur war jahrelang dem Wetter ausgesetzt.
- For years the sculpture was exposed to the weather.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Viele Menschen sind am Arbeitsplatz permanentem Stress ausgesetzt.
- Many people are exposed to permanent/never-ending stress at their workplace.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich will mich diesem Druck nicht mehr aussetzen.
- I don’t want to expose/subject myself to this pressure anymore.
- Die Fische in Marias Gartenteich sind massivem Stress ausgesetzt, seit Thomas dort einen Hai ausgesetzt hat.
- The fish in Maria’s garden pond are subjected/exposed to constant stress ever since Thomas put/planted a shark there.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Oh Thomas, what are you doing. I really don’t understand why Maria is with him while I’m lightyears deep into the friendzo… anyway, I digress.
The next meaning of aussetzen is a tad bit more abstract. It’s still about placement outside of something, but this time it’s about placing outside of some sort of progression.
- Ich setze eine Runde aus.
- I’ll skip one round.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Wir gehen was trinken. Kommst du mit?”
“Ich glaub, ich setz heute mal aus.” - “We’re going to go have a few brewskies. You up for it?
“I think I’m gonna pass/skip today.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Mein Herz hat kurz ausgesetzt.
- My heart skipped a beat/stopped beating for a second.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Note that with the exception of Runde in the first example, this aussetzen usually doesn’t take an object. It just sounds wrong to use it that way.
So aussetzen is NOT the right word for skipping lunch or skipping a chapter in a book. For that, auslassen or überspringen are the ones you need.
- Ich lasse heute das Mittagessen aus.
- Ich habe das Kapitel übersprungen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
All right.
Now you might be like “Uhm… Emanuel, you said in the intro that aussetzen is an amazing hidden gem. Is that… uh.. is that gem part still coming?”
And you’re right of course. The meanings we had so far were interesting but nothing more.
The cool one comes now.
The useful meaning of “aussetzen”
You see, this probably comes as a surprise to all of you but…. Germans like to complain a lot.
Wow, mind blowing news, I know.
But yeah, Germans do have a penchant for finding the one little aspect about something great that is not so great.
And aussetzen is the perfect word for that.
The full phrasing is “etwas aussetzen an” and it means as much as “criticizing something about“.
How does that fit in with the core idea of aussetzen? Well, you “place” one aspect about a thing “outside” of the overall positive judgment… I hope that makes sense :).
It’s pretty common in daily life and I’m sure you and it will cross each others’ paths eventually. And you’ll be like “Oh, it’s YOU. I was expecting you.”
And aussetzen will be like “Uh… do I know you good Sir/Mam?”
And you’ll be like “No. But I know you very well.”
It’ll be so epic.
- “Du Schatz, ich find’ das mit dem Hai in unserem Teich nicht so eine gute Idee. Der Koi wirkt ein bisschen gestresst.”
“Du hast auch immer an allem was auszusetzen, oder?” - “Honey, I don’t think that’s such a great idea with the shark in our garden pond. The coi seems a little stressed.”
“You always have something to complain about with everything, don’t you?” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich war mit der Präsentation nicht zufrieden, aber mein Chef hatte nichts daran auszusetzen.
- I wasn’t satisfied with my presentation but my boss had no complaints.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Was hast du denn daran auszusetzen?
- What’s not okay with it?/What do you not like about it?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
I think we should note that this nagging-aussetzen is pretty much only used with generic words like nichts (nothing) or wenig (not much) or viel (a lot). And also, it’s mostly used in combination with haben, so auszusetzen haben. You wouldn’t say something like “Ich setze die Farbe aus.”.
I know you’re getting anxious now, like “OMG, so much to consider! I can’t!”
But if you feel that way, then just don’t use it :). You don’t really need it to get by, so you can just keep your ears open for it and slowly build a feel for how people do use it. And then one day, when you least expect it, you’ll be ready.
“Uhm, Emanuel… I least expect it NOW. Does that mean I’m ready?!”
Nah, probably not. So yeah, forget that bit. But you will be ready at some point. Big fat pinky swear.
All right.
Now, there are a few other phrasings with aussetzen out there but they’re all pretty narrow and nothing you’ll need. And if you really come across one, I’m sure you’ll be able to guess the meaning with what we learned today.
So instead of looking at those, we’ll focus the rest of our learning energy on raussetzen.
“sich raussetzen”
And we need all the energy we can muster because, yes, sich raussetzen is an r-version.
But it’s an abstract nightmare.
Forget bestellen or erfahren or bestehen. sich raussetzen is the real boss fight.
In fact, some of Dalí’s sickest paintings were made after he mused about sich rau… okay, who am I kidding.
Sich raussetzen is a classic r-version, as r-version as they come. So it’s super literal and about “space” and it simply means to go sit outside. Nothing more, nothing less.
Do we need the self-reference? Well, technically, it doesn’t have to be a self reference. What we need is a direct object, because that’s just how setzen works. So you can technically also raussetzen someone else, but that’d only be useful when you bring your grandma outside on the porch in her wheelchair maybe.
But when you talk about YOU going to sit outside, then yes, you need the self reference – you “set yourself outside”, is what you say in German, pretty much.
- Ich wollte mich in der Pause einfach ein bisschen raussetzen.
- I just wanted to sit outside for a bit during the break.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich wollt’ nur Bescheid sagen, dass wir uns raussetzen.
- I just wanted to say that we have moved outside.
(guest to waiter, that changed from an inside to an outside table)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Not exactly the definition of useful, but it’s one of those words that make you sound super native speaker-like if you use them at the right time.
And that’s it for today. Hooray.
This was our look at the prefix verb aussetzen. As always, if you want to check how much you remember, just take the little quiz I have prepared for you.
And of course, if you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked this episode and have nothing daran auszusetzen. Have a great week and I’ll see you next time.
** fact sheet **
meanings:
aussetzen – skip a turn (mostly in board and card games)
etwas/jemanden aussetzen – maroon, plant, abandon
etwas /jemanden (akk) einer Sache (dative) aussetzen – to expose something/someone to something
etwas an etwas/jemandem aussetzen – to criticize something about something/someone
etwas zur Belohnung aussetzen – put a bounty on something
ein Verfahren aussetzen – to stall/halt a proceeding (in court)
past:
form of haben + ausgesetzt
related words:
sich raussetzen – go sit outside
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I’m a bit confused about your example where you say “Die Fische in Marias Gartenteich sind massivem Stress ausgesetzt, seit Thomas dort einen Hai ausgesetzt hat.” Specifically the second clause.
Why would you “Ausgesetzt” the shark? Your not placing it outside of its normal position or outside.
Great question. I can see how that is confusing to non-natives.
“aussetzen” here is about “letting free to roam”. You have “an ecosystem” and you put an animal in it to roam free.
You’re right that a pond is not really “free” or “big”, but the example is basically “absurd”.
Does that help?
I thought that “Aussetzen” was in regards to leaving something outside its relative place of safety? Therefore the meaning of “Maroon” “Abandon”. Does it have something to do with the “Plant” meaning” of the verb?
Sorry if I’m missing something I’m trying to understand how this verb is used the best I can
In the context of animals it is about “setting free (out)”.
You could “aussetzen” a bear into the wilderness for instance. Whether the focus is on “freeing” or “abandoning” depends on the animal. If you leave your dog on the highway, “aussetzen” is negative, if you let a bear out into freedom, it’s positive.
The garden pond example is not typical and if you find it confusing just forget about it and think of putting a formerly captured shark out into open sea.
Does that help?
A little better yes. It´s that just that with how the article was written it seemed like the focus on aussetzen was just placing it outside the safety of something. I understand much better now. Thank you
aussetzen – skip a turn (mostly in board and card games)
Perhaps most literally in English “to sit so. out”.
Wait, “aussetzen” is not what you do to another player, but what a player does when they skip.
“to sit so. out” sounds like it’s about “causing” someone to have to skip a turn to me.
I might be wrong, of course but you definitely can’t “aussetzen” someone in German :).
It seems that “leave / leave out” covers a lot of meanings of “aussetzen”
leave out:
1. to cause to remain in the open
2. to omit or exclude
Hmmmm… that’s a bit dangerous. “aussetzen” doesn’t really ever translate to “to exclude” or “omit”.
“To cause to remain in the open” does fit well, but the second one can mislead you :)
(Es geht nur darum, dass ich immer darauf stehe, Deutsch an der Unlogik seiner Grammatik auszusetzen.) :-)
I’m afraid I have to correct the use of “aussetzen”. The phrasing is
– A an B aussetzen
A is what you criticize, B is the target of the criticism.
Der Satz wäre richtig:
– Ich stehe darauf, an Deutsch die Unlogik seiner Grammatik auszusetzen.
So richtig idiomatisch ist das aber auch nicht. Da würde man eher “kritisieren” sagen.
“Aussetzen” verwendet man tendenziell mehr in unspezifischen Wendungen/in Kombination mit “etwas”
– Ich setze etwas an [B] aus.
Ich würde gerne an PaulJs Frage noch eine anschließen. Was die Grammatik angeht, hätte ich nicht erwartet, dass es “etw irgendWO aussetzen” anstatt “etwas irgendwoHIN aussetzen” wäre, denn mit “setzen” (ohne Präfix) werden immer Direktiv-Ergänzungen benutzt. (i.e. warum wäre es: “Nach dem Streit über den Hai, setzte Thomas die meckernde Marie auf einer Insel [dat] aus”, aber: “Danach setzte Maria ihre Unterschrift auf die Scheidungspapiere [akk]”?) Steckt sich eine Logik dahinter oder muss man das halt merken?
We have a few of this literal translations into English.
For example instead of saying “We’ll maroon you on a lonely island” it would actually be quite common to say “You’ll set out to a lonely island.” The phrase “you’ll set out on [adventure/vacation]” is an extremely common phrase in vacation advertising in the U.S.
I also agree with berlingrabers that we use “sit out” to mean skip a lot in English as well. Especially when the person could LITERALLY be sitting it out for example in sports someone might say “he is sitting this one out today” or if you don’t want to partake in an event “I’ll sit that out”.
The meaning of “expose” is a little further removed, but we do use the verb to say we are putting something outside. Such as “I set the package out on the porch to be picked up”, so in that idea it does make sense that if you are setting something outside that it could get exposed to the elements. I’ve seen people say things like “I set something out and then it rained all night and ruined it” or “I set meat out for dinner and it went bad, because I forgot about it”, so there is that “abandoned” aspect in there as well.
As far as the complaining aspect the only thing I can think of close is to be “set against someone or something”. Further elevated by adding “dead” to it. “Why are you always dead set against everything I want to do?”. I guess I could see someone saying something like “you were set out against from the start”, but I think this “set out” idea for complaining would be a lot less common in English than in German and it almost always uses “against”, where it appears German uses “an” instead of “gegen”.
Well said!
Frage: The example had, “dass Menschen ihren Hund an der Autobahn aussetzen”. Okay, dative for the Autobahn, got it, but why “an der Autobahn”? I thought it was “an der Wand” und “auf dem Tisch”. “An” for vertical surfaces ” as in “das Bild an der Wand”, and “auf” for horizontal surfaces as in “der Teller auf dem Tisch.”
Good question. It’s called “an der Autobahn” because the dog is left on the side… the point of “an” is more about “adjacent and touching” and not so much about whether something is vertical or horizontal. For example, you also say “am Meer” when you’re at the sea.
If you leave your dog in the middle of the autobahn then it would be “auf” :)
Is auseinandersetzen related to the various meanings of aussetzen, as you’ve described it here?
Not really. “Auseinander” means “apart”. Auseinandersetzen” can mean “to sit someone apart”… a teacher could “auseinandersetzen” two kids in class to stop them from talking to each other.
And then “sich auseinandersetzen mit” means “to deal with/to confront” in the sense of you tackling some topic/issue, and it can also be used in context of arguing. But no direct ties to “aussetzen” except that there are the same parts in there.
Ich mag dein Physik-Witz
Wenigsten einer :)
Was it the sculpture or the sculptor who was outside in the weather – for years !
Loved this , learning lots.
Haha… my mistake. Sculptor would be “der Bildhauer” in German.
Just to check, since you only used stress and weather as examples of things one might be “ausgesetzt” to, does this work broadly for anything you’d normally want to be protected from/spared, literally or figuratively?
– Viele Wähler wollten vor November nicht zugeben, dass sie vorhatten, für Donald Trump zu stimmen, vermutlich weil sie sonst dem Spott ihrer Bekannten ausgesetzt gewesen wären.
Oh, and “quibble about something” could be a good fit for “etwas an etwas aussetzen,” at least in some situations. “Find fault with” is also a good fit generally, though it feels a bit more formal than your examples.
The example works perfectly. I did a quick google search and I found things like “Licht, Frust, Vorwurf, Druck, Genderwahn, Rauch”… it’s not universal but yeah, not limited to weather and stress.
At least in American usage, interestingly, “to sit something out” is a very good equivalent for the “skip” meaning of “aussetzen” (except when it’s about someone’s heartbeat). The literal meaning is a lot more like “sich raussetzen,” but it fits with your two examples really well:
– Ich setze eine Runde aus.
– I’ll sit out a round.
– “Wir gehen was trinken. Kommst du mit?”
– “Ich glaub, ich setz heute mal aus.”
– “We’re going to go have a few brewskies. You up for it?
– “I think I’m gonna sit this one out.”
The English “expose” has also historically had that “abandon” meaning like “aussetzen,” too, at least in some contexts. The ancient Romans were known to expose unwanted babies, i.e. abandon them to die out in the wilderness somewhere. It wouldn’t be a normal term for ditching your dog on the highway or anything, but the connection is there.
It’s also common to talk about “suffering from exposure” (i.e., to the elements – sun, wind, rain, cold, heat, whatever), which doesn’t seem to have a standard equivalent in German.
“sit this one out”… this reminds me of “aussitzen” (I’m sure you’ve heard it). It’s used mainly in political contexts when there’s a problem or crisis and the person in charge just does nothing and weathers it out. Merkel has a tendency to do that.
– Die Kanzlerin sitzt das Problem aus.
I probably have, but it’s good to see the comparison. That’s obviously kind of close, but a more typical way (at least in American idiom) to describe that situation is “ride it out” (pretty similar to “weathering” something). I feel like there’s another expression I can’t quite think of, too.
“Sitting something out” is really about skipping something you would normally want or be expected to participate in (or have been participating in up until now).
Iwo nichts dran auszusetzen. (check the first blue word after the physics joke for a spelling error, and before the second examples two times “ausmachen” instead of “aussetzen”) It was a very nice article again.
Would have been a shame to infect it with Leprosy, whose name in German was for a long time “Aussatz” (because the people infected were isolated in places away from the healthy or “ausgesetzt”), and the people infected were called “Aussätzige” (adjective: “aussätzig”). Nowadays one calles the illness “Lepra” or by a medical name, but the word lives in some proverbs, e.g.: “Hier werde ich ja wie ein Aussätziger behandelt!” = “I am treated like a Typhoid Mary here!” (or what do you say? An immigrant by Donald Trump…?)
I don’t know whether that belongs here, but there is also “voraussetzen” = “to assume/expect” with a bunch of connected words, such as “die Voraussetzung” = “requirement” and the parents-love-it participle “vorausgesetzt” . For example: “Du darfst zur Party gehen…” – “Juhu!” – “… vorausgesetzt…” – “Ohhh.” – “…du hast bis heute Abend das Zimmer aufgeräumt.” = “You may go to the party today…” – “Yay!” – “…iffff…” – “Ohhh.” – “…you tidy up your room till today evening.”
Actually, “treated like a leper” would be a very usable if not fixed expression in English too. I was going to ask about “Aussatz”/”aussätzig” myself. :) Not exactly everyday, except for people like me who work with the Bible often, where it’s still the standard translation for “leprosy.” (The word translated with “Aussatz” actually refers to a range of skin diseases, not necessarily Hansen’s disease, which is what the term is generally understood to mean today, at least in English.)
Wow, thanks a LOT for those corrections!! I really don’t know how ausmachen slipped in there. I must have been very tired when I wrote that paragraph :). Thanks als for “aussätzig”. I didn’t know it was connected to “Lepra” in any way. I always understood it just generally as “the ones kicked out by the group”, so basically like the dog left on the highway.