Hello everyone,
And welcome to our German word of the Day, this time with the second part of the new mini series called
How to sound more like a German
So, a while back I did an article about three words or uses of words that most German learners are not using enough. Like, in the sense that German native speakers use them much more often and you could easily sound more natural and authentic if you just started using them more.
If you want to check out part one, you can find it here:
Authentic German – 3 German Words to use more often
Today, we’ll do another episode of that, and I have decided to focus each episode on one issue at a time.
Honestly, partially that’s because of search engines and AI. It’s much better if the article has a clear focus.
But also, I’m finally working on the prefix verb book again at the moment, and it ended up being a very substantial do-over of what was there before.
Maybe I’ll do a sneak peek soon, if you’re interetsed.
Anyway, the word I want to tell you about today is
laufen
And we’ll explore how that’s different from gehen, and more importantly, how you can use laufen in everyday life that’ll make you sound much more authentic.
So are you ready to jump in?
Then let’s go
Quick look at the origin first: laufen actually related to the English to leap. But laufen is not really focused on jumping at all, but instead about the idea of steadily moving forward.
In fact, one of its translations is simply to walk.
- “Bist du mit Auto gekommen?”
“Nein, ich bin gelaufen?” - “Did you come by car?”
“No, I walked.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But it’s also the main German translation for to run. Yup, laufen, not rennen. The only time you’re really use rennen is if there is a possible mix up with walking. Like, when you’re running to catch a bus, laufen would be ambiguous because it also means to walk. But as soon as a sport context is established, laufen is the word for to run, so that’s the word for going for a run or running a marathon.
- Thomas geht jeden morgen laufen.
- Thomas goes running every morning.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And oh, laufen is ALSO the word for to run in the context of running devices and running liquids.
- Die Heizung läuft die ganze Zeit.
- The heater is running all the time.
- Meine Nase läuft.
- My nose is running.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Die Farbe läuft die Wand runter.
- The color is running down the wall.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now, those meanings are of course already quite useful, but there is another figurative use that might even be more common and that I feel like many German learners are underulit…. underitiliz… uh… that many German learners are missing out on a little bit.
“laufen” as “to go”
laufen is also as a translation for to go in the figurative sense of … well… going. You know… the going that’s about how things are.
- How’s it going?
Most of you know that this can be translated as:
- Wie geht’s?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But what you might not really have on your radar, at least not actively, is that you can also do this with laufen.
- Wie läuft’s?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
So what’s the difference?
Well, gehen is generally focused on the person’s “general well-being”. laufen on the other hand is more focused on a process “moving”.
By themselves, “Wie geht’s” and “Wie läuft’s?” can be used to ask the same thing more or less. In small talk for instance, and there, the version with laufen is a bit more casual, less personal sounding.
But “Wie läuft’s?” can also be used if you’re asking about a specific process and there, gehen does not follow.
Like when your friend is working on a really complicated project that she has to hand in the next day and you go to her room check on her:
- Wie geht’s?
- Wie läuft’s?
The first question would be asking about how she’s feeling. The second is about how the work on the project is coming along.
And as soon as the “process” or specific thing is made explicit, then gehen would sound weird and laufen is actually the word you need.
- Wie läuft’s mit deinem Mitbewohner?
- How’s it going with your flatmate?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Wie läuft die Jobsuche?”
“Läuft gar nicht!” - “How’s the job search going?”
“Poorly! /Not going well at all.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Du siehst traurig aus.”
“Ja, es läuft nicht so gut bei Maria und mir.” - “You look sad.”
“Yeah, things are not going so well with Maria and me.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Wenn alles läuft wie geplant, sollten wir Freitag fertig sein.
- If everything goes as planned, we should be done by Friday.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Und, wie ist die Situation am Grill?”
“Läuft.“ - “So, what’s the situation at the grill?”
“Smooth. Making progress./A OKAY!”
(fun little side note: answering “geht” here would sound like it’s going okay, but could be much better. “läuft” sounds way more positive by itself.) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
In all of these, we have a concrete task or “field of life” that we’re talking about. You would probably be understood using gehen but it does sound quite weird.
And conversely, laufen would make zero sense if you add the infamous mir or dir that you’d use with gehen.
- Wie geht’s dir?
- How are you?
- Wie läuft’s dir… NOPE
If you want to connect the person with laufen, you’d use bei.
- Wie läuft’s bei dir.
And that’s asking “How’s it going?” and not “How are you?” because the focus of laufen is always on a process, even if it’s super vague.
Now, a quick word on the past tense.
As you know, most verbs use the spoken past (the “perfect”) in spoken German. However, a number of the most common ones also use the written past (“preterit”) and for some, the choice of past tense depends on which meaning they’re using this.
The trend there is that the literal meaning is going with spoken past and the figurative meaning goes with the written past.
And laufen is a great example for this. If you want to say that you walked home, you’d definitely use the spoken past.
- Ich bin nach Hause gelaufen.
- I walked home.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But if you use the figurative laufen, then the written past is the more common choice.
- Alles lief wie geplant.
- Everything went as planned.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This is not super strict though. The spoken past does work for that as well.
- Wie lief die Prüfung?
- Wie ist die Prüfung gelaufen?
- How did the exam go?
I mean… to me personally, the version with lief does sound a lot better, but the other one is also okay, and the further South you go, the more common it’ll be.
And I think that’s pretty much it for today. This was our look at laufen and how it’s used in colloquial German for “things going”.
And if you haven’t been using it already, definitely do add that to your active vocabulary because it’ll definitely make your German sound a lot more natural and authentic without having to use cringe slang expressions.
As always, if you want to check if you remember the key points, just take the little quiz I have prepared for you.
And of course if you have any questions or about this or about similar uses of laufen that you’ve come across, just leave me a comment and we’ll talk more there.
I hope you liked it and see you next time!
Oh, by the way:
I have recently added the prefix family of laufen to my prefix verb dictionary.
There, you can find the core meanings as well as all the important and less important prefix versions with laufen, like ablaufen, auslaufen and so on in a really easy to navigate way.
It’s a project I’m slowly building out, and it takes a lot of time because I actually don’t use AI for any of the translations or definitions, but it is growing steadily and it’ll be a really good resource.
Here’s the entry for ablaufen:
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
Thank you so much for the 1 year subscription Emmanuel. I will use it wisely . God bless
Hi everyone,
I’m Atil from the Philippines. I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who paid a little extra to help learners like me. I’m really touched and grateful to be sponsored by this amazing community.
Learning German is a big dream for me, and your support makes it possible. Thank you so much for your kindness and team spirit.
Viel Spaß und Liebe aus den Philippinen!
– Atil
Willkommen, Atil!
Viel Erfolg am Deutschlernen:-)
Emanuel ist ein super Lehrer und wird dir bestimmt gern helfen.
Mag dein Traum,, Deutsch zu lernen, bald in Erfuellung gehen!
Is the swan called Jo ?
Haha, no, it’s basically “yo”, but I usually spell it with “j” in German.
ah ok cool. joa made no sense so i was confused…
It’s casual usage for “Ja”,, similar to “Yeah” in English or
“Oue” instead of “Oui” in French:-)
yeah, I thought it first it might be a weird version of joa or jö but from the context it made no sense.
Actually weirdly joa (and nö) doesn’t appear in DWDS at all but they do appear in Duden. Weird case of Duden having the edge there… DWDS is generally better for regional / colloquial german.
Neither have jo though. Thats a YDG exclusive i guess : )
It’s pretty much Denglish, but I use it so much, it’s hard for me to get rid of it. I even use it with my mom.
Lol. Denglish ist aber doch ein wichtiger Teil der deutschen Sprache, der nicht unterichtet wird, obwohl es haufig im Alltag benutzt wird.
Als ich meinen ersten Job in Berlin angefangen habe, bei dem Deutsch haufig gesprochen wurde, konnte ich nicht glauben, wie viel englisch benutzt wurde. Googeln, posten, bloggen, nice, too much usw. Fand ich sowohl lustig als auch überraschend.
Fand ich auch bei Deutschunterrichten krass, dass sich einige Lernende beschwert haben, wenn ab und zu Anglisimus erwähnt wurden.
Denglisch so wie Engleutsch, oder?LOL
I’m missing the context about the swan, but are “jo” and “joa” really Denglish? And what about “nee”, “nö”, and “ne”?
Those all seem pretty common and I thought it was just a similar system to English or really a lot of languages, where there’s more than one way to say yes and no. It didn’t seem like a loan word, like “easy” or “happy”. I could of course be way off. Just seems like an interesting topic.
“jo” and “joa” themselves are not Denglish, but just dialect version of “ja”. But the way I used it in the cartoon with the swan is pretty much 1:1 “Yo, what’s up.” and this is definitely Denglish.
Oh, that makes sense. I’m using a different setup than normal and totally missed the cartoon.
BTW, not sure if it’s just me, but I find the new font a little hard to read. The lines are kind of fine.
Yeah, I’m not too happy either. I’ll change it soon, probably back to the most basic ever.
“Jo” is also colloquial pronunciation of “Ja”, at least in the Northern part of Germany, around the Hamburg area.
Na, geht’s dir gut, Martin? – Jo, kann nicht klagen.
“Nee” for example is completely regional, especially around Berlin. The other is more specific to the Hamburg area and “Ne” I recall hearing around Westerwald.
Thank you for (finally) clearing up when a läufen becomes a rennen. Your explanation helps give me a sense of the usage.
Hi, Emanuel! Loved this article- I went down a rabbit hole a few weeks ago trying to get to the root of the difference between gehen/laufen in this context, and this article does it so concisely!
Can you give some examples when ‘verlaufen’ would be a more idiomatic choice than ‘laufen’ in this kind of context? What I gathered from my rabbit hole was that ‘verlaufen’ is more about how a process went/is going, and ‘laufen’ is a little more emphasis on the results of a process. Is this pretty accurate?
Thanks!!
We have a similar pair in Urdu: chalna and jaana. The former is roughly equal to laufen, the latter to gehen.
Though by employing chalna in the causative form, chalaana, we unlock a treasury of meanings, like to slash with a sword, to shoot arrows, to start/drive a car, to run a program, to shepherd cattle, to exercise might, to turn on a computer, to run the government, and so on.
The core idea being to set/keep something in motion, so I think.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me actually “to make run/go” fits all your contexts :)
Do you use chalna and jaana for “things going”, though?
Oh yes, all the time. They are perhaps the most used verbs. to walk, go, how goes work, fan is running, etc. We have a separate verb for the actual running with legs though.
We also use them as a command to sound dismissive: Go! Scram! when someone says anything preposterous or gets rude; and also as “come on” to coax or cajole someone
“Go! Scram!” = Hau’ ab! Verpiss dich!
I think “verpiss dich” is much ruder than “scram”
True, however it’s still quite common among a certain casual vernacular.
The “laufen”/”leap” thing is interesting – I’m also told that in Swiss German, they use “springen” (or, you know, whatever mutant dialect version of the verb they actually pronounce) for “jogging.”
I think it’s “spccchhhhhingen”.
I find “springen” for “jogging” very on brand for the “cutsy” vibe of Swiss German. And running is in fact kind of just repeated leaping, in a way, so it definitely makes sense.
In Swabia, as I recall when visiting an old grad school chum from the Stuttgart area, our hostess needed to purchase some last minute provisions, with the sentence
“Do, i spring‘ glei’ zum Baecker!” = I’m going to the bakery just now!
In North-Rhine Westphalia where I’m from, it would sound as though she said, “I’m jumping to the bakery!”
I would have said, “Ich laufe gleich zur Baeckerei!” or simply “Ich gehe gleich zur Baeckerei!”
For those who don’t know… Swabia is pretty much next to Switzerland, so that make sense that they share common vocabulary quirks.
I komm’ glei’! = I chumm glii’! (Bernertuuetsch)
Probably unrelated, but in Italian “Faccio un salto dal panettiere” (literally, “I’ll take a jump at the bakery”) means “I’ll just go to the bakery real quick” to indicate that the speaker will be back in a short time. Probably the most used equivalent would be “I’ll pop by the baker real quick”
Interesting. No, I didn’t know that expression, although I can understand and speak more or less rudimentary, UNidiomatic Italian:-) Thank you so much, I learned something.
“Bist du mit Auto gekommen?” is that correct German? or is an Artikel missing there?
No, that’s fine in colloquial speech.
Interesting idiomatic usage difference between for example English and German. We say, “Wann laeuft der Film Meine Lieder, meine Traeume?” = When is the film The Sound of Music PLAYING? (lit. “running”).
Good point, yes, “laufen” is used for shows or music “playing” or “being on”. It’s an extension of the device-idea, to my mind anyway.
Also how a song sounds, right? Like, “wie läuft das Lied?” “Oh, es läuft ‘bum bum bum-bum.’ ” (making sounds)
This does work, but you CANNOT qualify it by “wie” or a modal. It’s just about the song playing, not the song sounding.
Does that help?
Hmm, I guess I thought it worked. In English we might say. “How does that song go?” Meaning, I can’t remember the tune, help me. So what would be the right phrase?
Colloquially, people do say “Wie geht der Song” sometimes. But not “läuft”. That means “play/be on” in that context.
I appreciate the clarity you bring to explaining idiomatic uses of German words and expressions. These are especially difficult to grasp without complete immersion and time, so thank you!
Thank you :)
Yes, quite. Developing a native, at least near-native, feel for idiomatic flavoring is undoubtedly the hardest aspect of learning a foreign language!
I’d recommend constantly watching German broadcasts or teleplays, news programs and the like with German close captions, rather than subtitles in your mother tongue. This way, you’ll see as well as hear in natural context what the speakers are saying, therefore nearly eliminating the annoying need to translate what you’re hearing.
For example, I consider myself a relatively fluent Polish speaker, if not letter/e-mail writer, yet no Polish native speaker would ever confuse me for a Pole. Even my writing will always have a “foreign accent”.
As a life long German learner I always struggled with laufen vs. rennen, and you have clarified it all perfectly! Thank you for this excellent article (as usual) .
Karin,
In German, “laufen” can also be nearly synonymous with “rennen”, although in parts of Northern Germany, “Ich LAUFE zur Schule” means the same as “Ich GEHE zur Schule”, nothing whatsoever to do with “rennen”.
In Austria, where I lived briefly while a student in Vienna,
Austrians thought my German rather odd, as there, “Ich laufe….” can literally mean “I’m running” or “I run”, whereas I was merely using the verb to indicate a regular walk, not a race! Austrians would make a distinction between “Ich laufe zur Schule” and “Ich gehe zur Schule”.
I think “Schule” is not a good example to use here because “zur Schule gehen” has the second meaning of attending school, which interferes with the comparison heavily.
What does “Wir sind zum Bus gelaufen.” mean to you?
Nice point! Shouldn’t have missed that:-) Thanks.
“We walked to the bus stop.” Not being an Austrian, I’d never have thought of “We ran to the bus stop.” For the latter in terms of velocity, I’d have thought “Wir sind zum Bus gerannt/gerast.” or the like. More idiomatically, “Wir haben uns zum Bus beeilt”/”Wir sind zum Bus geeilt.” etc.
Hello,
Some typos:
“if you just start using them more” (if you just started using them more)
“many German learners missing out on a little bit” (many German learners are missing out on a little bit)
Now a question: you said we need a connector to a person, either bei, as in “wie läuft’s bei dir?”, or für. Can you give us an example where für is used?
Bis bald!
“laufen für” is closer to “thing is going for person”. So the focus is on the process.
– Es läuft nicht für Thomas mit den Frauen.
– Things are not going well for the Thomas when it comes to women.
This sounds like we’re examining how a process is going for particular entity.
“bei” brings us more close to the entity in the process.
– Es läuft nicht bei Thomas mit den Frauen.
The translation is the same, but this sounds more like we’re examining Thomas, with regards to a process.
Does that help?
Oh, quick follow up question about one correction:
“if you just start using them more” (if you just started using them more)
Do I HAVE to use the conditional “started” here? Because I used it in the first half of the sentence? If yes, then this is German usage creeping in, because in German you really don’t have to.
I see you made the change, but yeah, it really doesn’t sound right with “start.” If you switched the whole thing to indicative, it would work fine too, just with a slightly different vibe.
I’d say there are circumstances where you can mix conditional and indicative, but I think it would sound more natural with the clauses reversed:
The thing is that this sounds to me like you’re downgrading the likelihood of the outcome a bit: “If you start doing X, Y could happen.” With both verbs in the same mood, I think you sound more confident that this will be the outcome, even if the whole sentence is in conditional.
Does that make sense? I don’t think it’s purely a matter of right or wrong in English, just nuance and emphasis. Matching the verb moods is definitely the default, though.
Makes perfect sense, thanks!
Just for reference… would you agree that German is more liberal when it comes to this stuff?
Yeah, I definitely would – I think that applies to verb forms in general (tenses too).
I thought you might cover “läufts bei dir” which i’ve meant to look up for ages. I just did though and apparently it was Jugendwort des Jahres 2014.
Do you use it? I’ve seen it used so it doesn’t seem to be one of these words on the shortlist that never seems to catch on in the way others do.
I read it tends to get used quiet often sacastically – not sure if that is the dominant tone?
Do you mean the sentence “Läuft bei dir, wa?”?
That’s a slangy word to say that things seem to be going well. You can say it for instance if you’re friend invites everyone for dinner or goes on their third vacation for the year or comes around with yet another hot affair.
I do mention that in passing in the article, but I wanted to focus on the more mainstream use.
I’ve heard it without the wa, but the wa makes sense based on how i’ve heard it.
I know you mentioned the use with “bei” but it still seemed a bit unclear to me, especially as the usage seemed idiomatic -for example I’d considered, among other possibities it might mean “you seem really busy”.
Thanks for clearing it up anyway,
Oh, I didn’t mean a dig at you or anything :). I just wanted to say it so people who skimmed the article and might have missed it can go back to look for it.
Yes, “Läuft bei dir.” can also be a respectful “Wow, you got things going on.”
It really depends on context, but at face value, it’s positive, which you then can use sarcastically.
all good, thanks for clarifying