“With you or with you?”
Hello ihr alle,
and welcome to day 12 of the 2022 German Advent Calendar.
Actually, this would be the day for the traditional epic half time show, but BOTH acts actually just cancelled at the last minute! Taylor Swift… Harry Styles… thanks for NOTHING!!!
You’ll hear from my lawyers, you frauds!!
But not a big problem. We had a break from German over the weekend anyway, so it’s actually nice to start the week with some actual learning.
So today, we’ll take a look at something that has pooped up in the co… sorry… something that has popped up in the comments a few times, so I decided to share it for all of you here:
The Difference between mit and bei
And I don’t mean in general. That’d be a little too much and I actually have a done a deeper dive for both of them.
So if you want to check those out, here are the links:
Now, mit and bei are definitely similar but overall they’re distinct enough not to cause much confusion.
There is one context however, where with can be translated to both of them, and it’s not always clear which one to use.
I have gotten a question about this more than once on here, and there are also multiple discussion threads in the German language Subreddit, so this clearly is an issue. Not a big one, of course… some rasping and filing and we’re good :).
The context I am talking about is:
being with a person
And here’s a couple of examples to show illustrate the issue.
- Maria wants to stay with me.
- Maria wants to stay with me at the bar.
And now let’s look at how we’d translate those to German.
- Maria will bei /
mitmir bleiben. - Maria will mit / (bei) mir in der Bar bleiben.
Yes, you read that right.
In the second one, both options are possible, but mit is more common. And in the first one, ONLY bei works.
I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for a learner to come across something like that. I mean… looks rather arbitrary, right?
Luckily, there actually is some logic here. The key to it is understanding what the sentence is focused on:
the “where” or the “what”
The first sentence is clearly about WHERE Maria wants to stay. It’s completely unclear whether she wants to stay with me, because I have a spare bed, or because I have a panic attack. But “with me” is the “place” she wants to be.
The second sentence can also be about that.
- Maria will bei mir in der Bar bleiben.
If we phrase it like that, the focus of the sentence is that she wants to stay with ME.
Maybe she wants to stay because I’m really hot, or maybe she wants to stay because I just got dumped and she wants to help cheer me up. But “with me” is the “place” she wants to be, and “in der Bar” is just a tag on information about where I am.
And now let’s see what happens if we put in mit.
- Maria will mit mir in der Bar bleiben.
This means that I stay at the bar, and Maria wants to join me for that. It’s the activity of staying at the bar, that has the focus. The sentence is about WHAT she wants to do. She wants to share with me the activity of staying at the bar.
Maybe she wants to do it because I am hot, or maybe just because I am not drinking and can give her a lift.
So the first version, the version with bei is about WHERE Maria wants to be, the version with mit is about WHAT activity Maria wants to share.
And I think this way of looking at it helps with all situations where you’re talking about with a person and you’re not sure whether it is bei or mit.
Let’s do a tricky example.
- Stay with me!
- Come with me!
The first one will be bei, 100%. Because staying NEEDS a location, but the only one given is “with me”. So the sentence really is about WHERE you are… or should be.
The second sentence on the other hand will be with mit. And this time ONLY mit works. Because this sentence is clearly NOT about where you should be, but WHAT you do. You should join my going somewhere.
So there you have it. That’s the difference between mit or bei, bei or mit (putting this in for Google ;).
Let me know in the comments if you’ve run into this question before and if my approach actually helps clear it up, or if you have an example where it fails. Or some where it works :).
It’s always good to have examples.
Have a terrific day you all, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
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Ich Will heute Nacht bei Maria pennen….( at her place)
Ich will heute Nacht mit Maria pennen ( seems odd but i think it’s about as you said the activity, maybe in my place the penning thing is done:…I feel it’s directly refering to having sex)) right?
You wouldn’t really use “pennen” for sex, “schlafen mit” is the better pick there.
When you say that you can’t say “Maria will mit mir bleiben,” do you mean that this sentence is in all cases nonsense? Or is there some sense in which it could work?
I guess my confusion stems from that fact that “Maria wants to stay with me” is ambiguous in English – it could mean stay with me in a relationship, or continue to hang out with me in a bar, or stay overnight at my house, so I’m not sure which version you’re saying doesn’t work with “mit,” or whether you’re saying that none of them work with “mit.” Thank you!
I can’t think of a context where it sounds natural.
It’s not really nonsense, in that people would understand it, but it just sounds like a typical mistake a German learner would make and it sounds quite clunky.
As for the double meaning you mentioned… it’s the same in German.
This can be “at my place” or even “with me at a location” but also “in a partnership”.
At the core, there is a “locational component”, you’re talking about “WHERE” Maria wants to stay. So it’s not about sharing an activity.
Does that help?
Indeed it does – thanks.
EXCELLENT explantion!!! Thanks so much.
In the last example, if two men competed for Maria’s company, would you use “Komm bei mir?” — since the focus is on the person/’location’, not on the activity.
No, “kommen” is a directional verb, you need a destination of you are using it for a location.
bei can only answer “where at?”. For “where to” you need a different set of prepositions and in this case “.zu”
Fantastisch! Vielen Dank!
Thank you very much! So helpful. I have always struggled with this concept. I am definitely going to reread the mit and dabei articles.
This helps a lot!!!! You’ve done it again, Emanuel! :)
Camille
Nice, happy to hear that :)
Yes, I could probably manage a full membership if all the posts were this short.
Camille
Thank you . That has helped.
I’ll look at the longer version too to see about dabei.
cool article : )
Wir sage, “comst du mit?” Night bei.
Ja, das ist ja auch eine Aktion, kein Ort :).
Hi Emanuel!
How would you translate “with or without you”? Given that the two prepositions govern different cases, does it have to be “mit dir oder ohne dich”? Do you have to have two different pronouns? Can you get away with “mit oder ohne dich”? (Somehow I doubt it…)
Great question!!
In this case, the case of the preposition that’s closer to the noun/pronoun gets to rule, so that’s gonna be Accusative (from “ohne”)
And if you were to flip it around it would be Dative:
But the first version is definitely more idiomatic.
Vielen Dank!
And how about ‘She wants to stay with me (in a relationship)’? Is that also with ‘bei’?
Depends. If it’s a long term relationship that is like a family, with a common home, then “bei” would work, because there’s a locational component, but if it’s just a relationship where the lives are still separate, people would say “mit X zusammenbleiben”.
So I would likely say,
Ich moechte mit dir zu Hause bleiben.
or
Ich moechte bei dir bleiben.
Richtig, oder? Danke fuers teilen!
Technically yes, but you’d need a good context for the first version. It sounds like you’re specifically saying
I think if that’s really the message, then Germans would throw in a “mit dir zusammen”.
Back in German 007 they teach you early on, if you are into someone, pray for mit, and leave bei aside.
Wise advice!
Hallo,
Ich bleib’ beim Adventskalender to learn (and correct some typos in the process):
This means that Maria I stay at the bar (This means I stay at the bar)
Great article, it clarified this issue in just a few paragraphs. The other instance where I have problems with bei/mit is with the verb “helfen”… Hilfst du mir mit Deutsch lernen oder beim Deutsch Lernen?
Bis morgen!
As a rule of thumb, you could do a “action” vs “object” approach.
But with “helfen” people do use “mit” also for actions, and the other way around. It’s not really all that cemented :).
Sounds good! Prepositions are nearly as big a problem as separable verbs.
Same for me! I still every now and then have to check what preposition I need for an English verb.
This part of the learning journey really never ends.
Well, the English themselves don’t always know these things. For example that you “acquiesce in something”. Not “to”. (You “agree to something”, though…)
Americans are losing their prepositions. It’s really sad to me.
Camille
You must be English, John!
Collins dictionary (the first entry when you google this) says what I pasted below–so it seems you can use either TO or IN.
If you acquiesce in something, you agree to do what someone wants or to accept what they do even though you may not agree with it.
[formal]
Steve seemed to acquiesce in the decision. [V + in/to]
He has gradually acquiesced to the demands of the opposition. [V in/to n]
When her mother suggested that she stay, Alice willingly acquiesced. [VERB]
This is something that makes it even harder to learn because there are instances where you have to decide whether you’re learning British or American English (or another variant).
Yes, Anonmyous (unusual name…!) I’m British, and I taught English in France for 41 years. I had to accommodate American English (given that many of my students had lived in the US)… even when I felt it was totally WRONG.
: )
You’re doing a great job here, Emanuel. Where are you based?
I’m based in Berlin, but I travel regularly.
“anonymous” is the automatic user name that’s put in if the user doesn’t add one.
Similar to the bunny, but that is the pic that’s shown for all people who don’t enter an email, as these robot like thumbnails are based on the email address. Some trivia :)