“beide” vs “beides” – What’s the difference

Hello everyone,

And welcome to a series that has been dormant for so long, it actually almost got cast as Sleeping Beauty.
I’m talking of course about What is the Difference.
Most of you only know it from the dusty archives.
But now it’s back, young, wild and free, with a new episode.
And today, we’ll take a look at the difference between

beide and beides

beide and beides both translate to both. But of course they’re not interchangeable.
Like for instance in a simple sentence like “I like both.”, picking the wrong one can sound REALLY bad.

Now, there are plenty of videos about this question on German learning Youtube, Insta and TikTok and they do give useful advice, but I feel like most of them also have their blind spots, because the matter is actually a bit more complicated than it first seems.

Perfect for a nerdy deep dive that leaves you absolutely dazzled and confused. Like, in a good way.
You know, like… when you’re watching these black hole documentaries on Discovery Channel or an Effortless Skin Care Routine video on the Vogue Youtube channel and you’re just like “Wooooow, I understood none of this, but this was sooo fascinating.”

So are you ready to dive in?
Then let’s go.

Quick word on the origin first, because why not.
Beide and beides are of course related to both and they most likely ultimately tie in to the flabbergastingly ancient Indo-European root *ambhi-. The core notion of this was “from both sides, around” and it’s also the origin of words like ambiguous (“two sided meaning”), ambitious (Originally from the sense of “going all the way around”) , amphitheater (“around theater”) and amphibious (“both water and land”). And also of bei and by and the prefix be-, though the original notion is a bit less obvious there.

In beide and beides, the core theme is pretty visible and originally they’re basically the same word, just with different grammar endings. beides carries the iconic “s” for singular neuter.
And beide is basically a plural.

This is already important because it shapes the grammar. Specifically, beides goes with a singular verb, beide goes with the plural.

• Beides ist gut.
• Beide sind gut.

And as you’ll see, these notions of neuter vs plural are kind of reflected in the usage.

What we’ll do now is we’ll start with some easy rules or guiding principles for when to use which, and then make our way down to exception valley.

beide vs beides – Easy, Practical Rules

First up, we will NEVER need beides, if both comes before a noun. So in the role of an adjective or article. Or the fusion of the two – the mightly Adjecle. That’s kind of the Vegetto of my grammar Fan Fiction universe.
Anyway … erm… example.

• Ich habe beide T-Shirts anprobiert und beide sind zu eng.
• I tried on both shirts and both are too tight.
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Oh, depending on the case, you might have to use an ending.

• Ich habe beiden Einhörnern gesagt, dass ich keinen Schnaps habe.
• I told both unicorns that I don’t have liquor.
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Beides would not make sense here, because it’s pretty much singular pronoun, while we’re having plural articles here.

Next up, both NEVER translates to beides , if we’re talking about people.

• “Thomas oder Maria?”
  “Ich mag beide.”
• “Thomas or Maria?”
  “I like both.”
  (Do I need “of them” here?)
  
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Using beides in this example would sound super duper gooper wrong and some people might even be confused as to what you’re trying to say.
And that’s no wonder, because remember… beides basically presents like a singular neuter. Two people are neither singular, nor neuter, so beides is really out of place.

But this “rule” goes not only for humans, it also works for other living beings like animals or plants.

• Die Sonne auf dem Balkon hat fast meinen Zitronenbaum und meine Avocado verbrannt. Ich habe jetzt beide reingestellt.
• The sun on the balcony almost burned my lemon tree and my avocado. I put both inside now.
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• “Hund oder Katze?”
  “Ich verachte beide.”
  “Okay, äh… ich muss los.”
• “Dog or cat?”
  “I despise both.”
  “Okay, uhm… I gotta go.”
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And it actually doesn’t stop with living beings.
You ALSO need to use beide, if the two entities you’re talking about are “things of the same type”.
Like… two books or two parties or two pieces of cake or two ideas or whatever.

• Ich hatte zwei Kekse und habe beide gegessen.
• I had two cookies and have eaten both.
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Again, beides would sound wrong here. Not as bad as in the example with the people, but still wrong.
And again, it makes sense, because we have a well established plural: two cookies.

Cool.
Now let’s take a look at the other side.

And you pretty much always usually want to translate both as beides, if what you’re talking about is activities.

• “Wollen wir einen Film gucken oder ein Spiel spielen?”
  “Beides klingt gut.”
• “Should we watch a movie or play a game?”
  “Both sound good.”
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Now, little side note here … could I say “Both sounds good”? I feel like it kind of works, but I’m not a native speaker.
If it does work though, it can give you a “vibe-key” to what beides feels like. But yeah, let me know in the comments.

Anyway, could we use beide in the example?
The answer is: not really.

• “Wollen wir einen Film gucken oder ein Spiel spielen?”
  “Beide klingen gut.”… MEEEEEH
• “Should we watch a movie or play a game?”
  “Both sound good.”

This does not sound as wrong as using beides in an example with two people.
But it does sound fairly odd.

And the reason why it sounds odd brings us to the next section.
Quick recap first though:

1. If we have “both +noun” – use beide (with case endings)
2. If both refers to two living beings or two items of the same kind – use beide
3. If you’re talking about two activities – use beides

So let’s dig a little deeper.

beide vs beides – What’s really going on

You might have noticed in the previous section (don’t worry, if you haven’t, it’s easy to miss), that there seems to be a continuum of wrong. Like, in some examples, using the wrong version was super duper wrong, while in others it was just “meh”.

And the fact that there are different “gradients” of wrong is a hint for two things. Number 1: there is probably a gray area where both options, beide and beides, are okay.
Number 2: there is an underlying dynamic at work that we haven’t touched on yet.

Well, both these are true and in this section we’ll explore that.

Take this example:

• “Swimming or running – what do you prefer?”
  “I like both.”

Based on the guidelines we’ve learned so far, we should pick beides, because we’re talking about activities.

• “Schwimmen oder Joggen – was ist dir lieber?”
  “Ich mag beides.”
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This is correct. And just like in the first example we had with activities, using beide here would sound very “meh”.
Now, let’s modify it a bit.

• “Which type of sport do you prefer – swimming or running?”
  “I like both.”

We’re talking about the same activities as before in the same grammatical form.
So it should be beides again, right? And it does work.
The key difference is that now, also beide works.

• “Welche Sportart magst du lieber, Schwimmen oder Joggen?”
  “Ich mag beide.”
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Some speakers might use beides, others beide. Or the same speaker might even be using beides one day and beide another day.

So what’s going on here?
Well, the key to this is what I call the “Both what?”-test.
Or “Boff Wot?”, in some parts of Britain.

When you have beide in a sentence, as a stand alone I mean, the brain will subconsciously ask itself the question “Both what?”. And if there is no immediate answer that is not just a generic “things” or “activities”, beide will sound weird.

And the difference between the first and the second version of our example is that the second version explicitely establishes the noun Sportart.
With that, the brain has a super clear answer to “Both what?” and hence, beide feels right.
In the first version, we just had the actions swimming and running. And if you ask “Both what?” there, it’s not as immediate.
Like, if you have to start thinking or using a generic word like “things” or “options”, then that’s a strong signal that, beides is the idiomatic choice.

Let’s do a trial and see how it works. And I’m using an example that has NO activities in it, just to make sure.

• Heat or cold – what do you prefer?
  I like both.
• Hitze oder Kälte – was ist dir lieber?
  Ich mag ____ .

Hmmm, we have two nouns, heat and cold, and no activity. So if we follow some of the advice from Youtube or Insta, we’d be leaning toward beide.
But let’s use our test. Ask youself “Both what?”
Chances are you’re starting to think, like “Both temperatures… both weather conditions…. both uh…. “
And THAT alone is already the perfect clue that beides is probably going to work fine.

• “Ich mag beides.”

Could we use beide as well? Yes, it’s not too awkward, but I find beides more natural sounding.

Another one.

• “Summer or winter, what do you prefer?”
  “I like both.”
• “Sommer oder Winter, was ist dir lieber?”
  “Ich mag _____ . “

If you’re having difficulty to make a call, then you’re spot on, because this is an example that lives straight up in the middle of the gray zone. So beide and beides both works fine.

If you use beide, the brains thinks more in terms of “seasons”, whereas if you use beides, it’s more about “the circumstances” of summer and winter. Summer and winter as abstract concepts, in a way.

And that’s kind of another angle to look at it, actually. beide is about concrete entities while beides is about “concepts” or concepts of entities.

Like here:

• “Wollen wir heute Italienisch essen oder Koreanisch?”
  “Ich mag beides, also entscheide du.”
• “Should we eat Italian today or Korean?”
  “I like both, so you decide.”
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To me, beides sounds MUCH better here, because the whole thing feels to me to be about the “concepts” of eating italian and eating korean. And we didn’t establish “food” or “cuisine” as a noun.

This whole lense of specific singular entities (beide) vs two concepts (beides) is quite hard to actually put into words though, and it’s also kind of vague or matter of debate. Like… I feel like it only really makes sense, once you actually already KNOW which one to use.
The “Both what?”-test is much better, in my opinion.
So let’s do one last example together:

• “Star Wars 1 or Star Wars 2?”
  “I like both.”
• “Star Wars 1 oder Star Wars 2?”
  “Ich mag ____ .”

What happens if you do the “Both what”-test?
I think most of you IMMEDIATELY had the word “movies” in your head. No thinking needed.
Well, that’s a sign that beide is the better option. And it’s the only correct choice here, actually. Beides would sound wrong, though I think that might also have something to do with the fact that we’re dealing with “names“. And those tend to act a bit more like persons.

• McDonald’s and Burger King – both are perfect if you want to quickly gain weight for little money.
• McDonalds und Burger King – beide sind perfekt, wenn man für wenig Geld schnell zunehmen will.

Cool.
Now, there are actually a whole bunch of fringe cases and borderline exceptions that we could go over.
But I feel like we’ve actually done enough and have reached the limit of what’s productive in one session. Better to stop here and let our subconscious digest it a big.

That’s also why I have decided I’ll only do a short overview quiz now, with the key points, and do a more substantial practice session in the coming weeks.

If you felt good in the first half of this article and overwhelmed after the second… don’t worry. I think that’s normal.
The key takeaways really are the three guidelines that I laid out:

1. If we have “both +noun” – use beide (with case endings)
2. If both refers to two living beings or two items of the same kind – use beide
3. If you’re talking about two activities – use beides

And then, the fact that there’s a huge gray zone, where there’s not really a clear cut rule. And then “Both what?“-test and how it can help you.
Wow, that sounds a lot already :).

But yeah, if you want to recap that, just take the little quiz I have prepared for you.
And of course leave all your thoughts and questions in the comments and we can try and clear it up there together. And the bigger exercise will then do the rest, because ultimately… this is something that needs to be “felt” more than “thought”.

So yeah, I really hope you enjoyed this, have a great week and I’ll see you next time.