Hello everyone,
And welcome back!
I hope you’re doing great and are ready for some frustration because today, we’ll do… drumroll…
“beide” vs “beides” – The Exercise
And it’s going to be just as much fun as being a toddler trying to walk and falling over and over and over. And then you cry and throw a fit but no one is really looking, so you just try again, boiling with anger.
Oh, good times.
Seriously though, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the difference between beide and beides and a I promised to do a proper exercise for it. So that’s what we’ll do today, but first, I actually have a couple of off topic things.
Quick Update on the Prefix Verb Dictionary/Card Game
I don’t really have a newsletter system set up over there yet so I’ll just use this channel here to give you updates.
Recently, after one of you asked us about it, we have added the “value” indication to the entries there now, so you can see how useful a meaning of a prefix verb is.
Also, we’re working on a couple of improvements to navigation and UI at the moment, and one in particular that I think is pretty cool. It’ll basically let you change the prefix of a verb with one click, so you can navigate and explore even faster.
But maybe most importantly, I have finaly completed a new set of verbs – the family of greifen.
So now we have 23 base verbs there forming 510 prefix verbs.
Progress is a bit slower than I would hope, unfortunately. The main reason why it’s taking so long sometimes is that I create all translations, definitions and examples by hand and for the more obscure meanings, it sometimes takes a while to even come up with something.
But I want to keep doing it that way, because I really want the dictionary to be reliable and idiomatic all the way.
But yeah, little by little :).
If you don’t know the prefix verb dictionary project yet, you can check it out here:
And if you’re interest in the card game that we’ve made for prefix verbs, you can find a little more info here:
My German Prefix Verb Card Game
Cool.
Moving on.
Potential Topic – The German Elections
Many of you are probably somewhat aware that we’ll have general elections soon in Germany. On the 23rd of February, to be precise. And rarely has it been so heated and controversial.
Now, Germany has this thing called a Wahl-o-Mat, where you go through some 30 odd policy positions and say what you want and it’ll tell you which of the many parties lines up with your positions the most and in what areas.
And I was thinking that we could maybe do something about German politics ahead of the elections. Like, we could for instance go through the questions together and I’ll give you some more context and my personal thoughts.
We can also analyze the German in the questions of course and get a bit of exposure to highly dense, political German, all from the cushion of English :).
I just don’t want to do this if the majority of you doesn’t care, so here’s a little poll ;)
Curious for the results.
I am kind of excited to do something about the elections, but you’re the boss.
All right, but now let’s get to the topic.
“beide” vs “beides” – The “Rules”
If you haven’t read the article about the matter or if you want to reread it before diving in, you can find it here:
“both” in German – “beide” vs “beides”
But I’ll give you a quick summary here as well.
We basically talked about two approaches you can take. The first one is a simple, rule based approach.
- If both is before a noun, you need beide(n)
- If you talk about people and other living beings, use beide (including brand names)
- If you have two items of an established noun, use beide.
- If at least one of the options is an activity, use beides.
This works pretty well and should get you to 80% in daily life. Not in this quiz though, because it’s not just tricky. It’s tricky platinum pro max.
The other approach we established in the article is what I call the “Both what?”-test.
If you need to translate “both”, you basically ask yourself “Both what?” and if you don’t IMMEDIATELY have an answer in your head, that’s a sign that you need beides.
Like… it’s not about whether you can come up with an answer. That’s always an option, and you can of course always say “things”.
It’s about the answer coming immediately without effort.
Here’s an example:
- “Which of these two coffee machines is magical?”
“Both.”
If you ask “Both what?” here, you’ll IMMEDIATELY have “coffee machines” in your head. You could basically just plug it in behind both. And that’s a sign you need beide in German.
And now a counter-example:
- “Do you want to do the dishes or clean the bathroom?”
“I’ll do both.”
If you ask “Both what?” here, you DON’T immediately have an answer in your head. I mean except “things” maybe. And that’s a clear sign you need beides.
So… these were the two approaches we talked about.
And then, what’s also important for you to know is that beide is always a plural, so it doesn’t go with a singular verb, while beides is a singular and goes with a singlar verb. EXCEPT if it’s in a sentence like this: “Beides sind [noun]”.
I know that quite a few of you felt a bit confused about the “Both what?” test. I think that’s partially because it feels wishy washy or subjective. And it is. The thing is, there’s a gray area where both beide and beides are possible.
This exercise is focused on these borderline examples and that’s what might make it a bit frustrating, beacause you won’t just breeze through it.
The point of it is more that you start building a feeling for the difference between beide and beides and that you develop and intuitive relationship with the “Both what”-test.
That’s why I have also added an explanation for each answer, so you can learn and recap as you go through the quiz.
“beide” vs “beides – The Quiz
I’ll give you 15 questions. Each question is an English sentence or dialog with both in it and you have to decide which German option to use.
I use English for the question because some of you like to use this for translation practice, BUT if you want to see the German version with ____ , just click “hint”.
Viel Spaß :)
So, how’d you do?
I really hope it wasn’t too difficult, but if you scored badly, don’t worry about it too much. The quiz was HARD and what’s more important than your score is that you understood why the answers were the way they were.
If that’s NOT the case, please do let me know in the comments and I’ll try to clear things up.
And then, you can take the quiz again in a couple of days and see if you’re feeling more comfy the second time around.
But let me also say this – in the grand scheme of things, the difference between beide and beides is not a big deal. When in doubt, just say beide.
And that’s it for today. Like I said, if you have any questions or thoughts, just leave me a comment. –
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
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It’s funny, the idea behind “beides” seems simple enough. It’s like “alles,” but for two things. “Alles” takes all of the options that were mentioned (or everything in a frame of reference), bundles them together as one thing, and points at the whole thing. “Beides” does the same thing, but you’re limited by definition to two things. Two shoes, but one pair of shoes. The devil is in the details.
The difference between “beide” and “beides” seems like this. Take this example:
We could go swimming, kayaking, or paddleboarding.All of those things sound good. (Pointing at each option individually, every one sounds good)That all sounds good. (The options form one big cloud, and you point at the whole thing)
Maybe seems obvious, but I had to think of something similar in English for it to really sink in.
I find it works well to use “beides” as the default option, and only use “beide” when there’s a good reason to. The main reasons seem to be:
People/living things (and maybe things that can be seen as living or personified)Right before a nounAfter a noun that was just mentioned, as long as you’re clearly dealing with two examples of the same specific thing (two wines, two ideas, two magic spells).
For the situations where I’m not quite sure, it seems to work well to try this:
If the English version makes sense when you plug in “both of those things” or “both of those options,” then “beides” is probably a good choice.
Great approach and great formulation.
I’ll stick this comment so everyone gets to benifit from it!
This example finally makes it click for me. It feels like beide “includes the what” in its construction, whereas beides is the only standalone both without a concrete reference to the object (the “Both what?” test). Thank you for the quiz.
Yeah, sounds like you got it. It’s hard to verbalize, but once you get it, you kind of know you have it down :)!
#12 in the quiz…the answer is beides sind, but i thought beides was singular??
It is, but in this case, it’s NOT the subject.
We’re looking at an “equation”-situation.
– A is B.
In German, both sides are nominative, but the more defined side gets to rule the verb.
– Das ist ein Apfel.
– Das sind zwei Äpfel.
“beides” is just a generic pronoun here, like “das”, and it gets “defined” by the sentence. Like… “beides” gets a noun assigned in this sentence, it’s not really there to refer back to a noun.
Does that help?
Question 12 really broke my still forming logic. Having read the theory post I decided to treat “beides” as strictly dual inanimate, and beide as explicitly plural, which approach served me reasonably well until the 12th question. I chose beide sind intuitively and also because it irked me to see beides with a plural verb. The tautology of diseases can be avoided by mentally putting a different descriptor there, such as “both conditions are diseases” “both things are diseases”, which also seems to fit better seeing that in and on itself high bp is more of a symptom or comorbidity rather than an outright malady.
The AI allows both (beides, heh) albeit with different nuances, so I have to accept the grammar as is without trying to reinvent the wheel.
Maybe it’s indeed best to think of “beides” in this particular configuration as a “both these things are…” condensed into one word.
For the first few questions with beides being the correct answer I got them wrong, primarily because I was coming up with an answer to “both what” and so I was getting frustrated. But I realized the challenge isn’t to try to find an answer to that question that fits. :) So I tried to be a little less categorical and for me it seemed to work, as I got more correct later in the quiz.
The one that threw me was the disease one, but your explanation here was very good. This is not “both diseases” end of sentence. And that makes a difference.
Conversationally I think I’m still going to get these wrong a lot until I get far more fluent, but when translating I think I have a good chance of getting it right most of the time.
Great, happy to hear that. And don’t worry about conversation too much. It’s not an “ear-sore” kind of mistake :)
Hallihallo Emanuel!
Ich habe in einem anderen Beitrag von dir einen Kommentar gesehen, wo du gefragt wurde “was sagst du lieber “eben” oder “gerade” ? ” Und du hast geantwortet: Ah, ja. Ich verwende da beides.
Nun, als ich nur die Frage gelesen habe, habe ich versucht, an diesen Post mich zu erinnern und die Antwort selbst zu geben. Ich habe aber gleich direkt an “Beide Ausdrücke” gedacht. In dem Fall hätte ich “Ich verwende da beide”.
Würdest du mir verraten, was an meinem Gedankengang falsch ist?
Liebe Grüße
Daran ist nix falsch. “beide” ist auch richtig und klingt gut.
Ich glaube, ich habe “beides” verwendet, weil für mich persönlich (unterbewusst) kein Nomen etabliert war. Ein gutes Beispiel für einen Grenzfall.
I’m unable to get the pdf although I’ve signed in.
Hi, your account says that your membership expired end of December.
You can still login, because the account still exists, but you don’t have an active membership at the moment.
If you renewed recently, please send me an email, so I can look into why it didn’t register properly.
After much thought I won’t leave a query. It did have pacing up and down between questions. It’s a like the occasional squash match that I lose, but I still very satisfied after match.
Uhh. I think I might actually have done better before reading the guidelines and going on pure instinct. The “both what?” test really scrambled me.
By the time I was done I couldn’t keep the guidelines in my head anyway.
It might be nice to have an additional quiz with simpler, more intuitive questions, to ground our understanding of the basic notions.
Also it might just not be time for me to learn this, which is good to know!
Every time people talk about politics in a humane and adult way that isn’t just meme-jabbing back and forth, the World Heals. It feels insane to me how unserious everyone is right now. Would you consider writing about it in English and German in alternating paragraphs, like your emails, or is it tiresome to do that? I love material like that, and there isn’t a huge amount. I think it’s underrated as learning material because if you use it in schools, there’s no “hiding” the correct answers, so it isn’t helpful for people without intrinsic motivation. But in this new age of self-motivated learners, it’s so helpful.
In “both what?” is the determining factor perhaps that the category the choices are in has to be explicitly mentioned?
Well, that’s not really the case though. If I point at two types of cake, you can say “Beide.” and if I say “Which winter activity to you prefer – riding your snowboard or hiking with your snow shoes?”, people would still say “beides” because the noun “winter activity” is so “cerebral” and artificial that it gets washed out by just the verbs.
I have tried to come up with some sort of definition based rule, but however I am phrasing it, I pretty much immediately can think of a case where it doesn’t apply.
My hunch would be that you’re overthinking the “Both what”-test. As soon as you even think for a millisecond, just go with “beides”.
I agree
That was very helpful. I got most of them wrong at the beginning, but then it started making sense and the rest were right.
Perfect, that’s great!
Maybe you can try again in a few days and see how much stuck.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and the “both what” test bugs me. It seems to have its limitations, or maybe I don’t fully understand how it’s supposed to be used (thus my questions farther down the comment section). There are several questions where the explanation says there’s no intuitive answer when you ask “both what?”. But for me there is. For example:
Those aren’t things I have to think about. The answer is just there, and judging by the comments, I’m not alone. Maybe those things register as similar enough for English speakers, or at least the overarching category is obvious. Apparently it’s different in German. It seems more like “nope, those are not two separate instances of the same specific thing, so obviously they’re different.” Which I guess isn’t really a surprise, because German likes to be specific. After all, it likes things like this:
– Wir sind durch den Tunnel durchgefahren.
Because one “durch” just isn’t enough :)
As far as I inderstand it I think for the “both what” thing to work 1) the actual word has to have been explicity mentioned the moment before.
E.g.”which beer do you want – Sterni or Kindl?”
Emanuel can correct me if I’m wrong but here “beide” would work as the category “beer” has been explicity mentioned in the proceeding sentence.
2) and they have to be concrete things rather than abstractions like working conditions.
So if 1) applies then it doesn’t matter what it is.. can be an abstraction too.
Your beer example is correct. Using beides would sound off.
Yeah, I guess I have to admit that the “Both What”-test is more subjective than I thought. I would NEVER ever come up with “nationalities”, but that’s also because “nationality” is not something you are but something you have in German. So it’s not “triggered” in this case, since the verb is “to be”.
Same for “types of alcohol”. I would find it really weird if someone were to actually say “beide Alkoholsorten” in this exchange. Feels like going out of ones way to be specific for no reason.
And again for the third one – Vertragsbedingungen is not a word that just “pops in”.
Part of this is most likely just personal difference between how spontanuous the brain is, but I also think that maybe part of it has to do with the fact that German, as a whole, is more verb oriented while English (at least to me) seems more noun focused. When in doubt, German phrases things as actions, while English uses gerunds or participle based adjectives a lot more, for example.
It does seem like there’s a verb for pretty much everything, especially prefix verbs. If verb meanings are like colors, German has a lot to paint with. But I’m trying to really feel what you’re saying. If you take something like this:
– Darauf bin ich nicht vorbereitet.
How verb-y does that feel? Does it feel like an action at all, or just a description?
And with this:
– Sollen wir uns Montag oder Dienstag treffen?
Does the verb feel any less present if you rearrange the sentence? Say like this:
– Wann sollen wir uns treffen? Am Montag oder am Dienstag?
Gerunds tend to feel a lot like verbs to me in English. Like this:
– Doing the dishes isn’t so bad. I don’t mind it.
That’s a noun, grammatically, but it doesn’t really feel a whole lot different than “I’m doing the dishes.”
So what I mean is that in German, many things are phrased as “normal, boring” side sentences, so the verb gets used as actual conjugated verb.
– What I wasn’t aware of going in was just how much nagging was going on.
– Was mir nicht klar war, als ich angefangen habe, war, wieviel genörgelt wurde.
This is a bit of an exaggeration, and you can rephrase it in German a little to make it less complicated, but we have two actual conjugated verbs in English while we have 4 in German.
– The guy living next door is an idiot
– Der Typ, der nebenan wohnt, ist ein Idiot.
In English here, the verb is “depersonalized”, a side form, reduces down to its core idea, while in German it gets to actually be a verb, it gets to have its own time to shine.
Wow! A monkey could have done better than I did on this quiz. It is not that the answers don’t make sense, but I came up with some alternative logic that clearly was wrong. Is there anyway to breakdown these more complicated ones, so as to recognize a pattern that I can just link to beide or beides instead of getting stuck in a “could be this” but then again “could be that” loop). And finally, more help for when beides goes with a plural would also be helpful.
Could you give me one example where you had this mental back and forth and maybe what the thoughts were?
Then, I can maybe see a pattern :)
Re: “beides sind”… this basically comes when it’s followed by a plural noun.
– Beides sind Auto.
– Beides sind gute Ideen.
You cannot say in English that Thomas and Maria both can’t drive. You have to say, “Neither Thomas nor Maria can drive.”
Can I make it work with a semi colon?
Thomas and Maria; both can’t drive?
I feel like I have heard this type of phrasing from native speakers.
You could say “Both Thomas and Maria are incapable of driving”
You definitely might hear it from a native speaker, but it’s the kind of thing that would come out, for example, in a list of things you’re saying about both Thomas and Maria:
It wouldn’t sound unnatural, but it’s not correct, just a sort of thing where you’re in a “both” groove and you don’t slow down to pick the right phrasing.
Are you a hard worker or are you an efficient worker ?
Interested if this is beide or beides. On one hand “worker” is explicitly mentioned which would suggest “beide” but then the idea of “a hard / efficient worker” is quiet abstract so I’d be tempted to go for beides
“Beides bin ich.” or simply “Beides” work the best here.
On the other hand, “Beide meiner Cousinen arbeiten bei
Schering” – Both [of] my cousins work for Schering.
“Hallo, Claudia und Daniel! Nun, was macht Ihr zwei beiden?” – Hey there, Claudia and Daniel! Well, what are you both doing?
Great question, the answer is “beides”.
And the reason is actually the indefinite pronoun. I wasn’t aware of this until someone brought up some doubts in the comments here and that’s when I realized that indifinite pronoun often calls for “beides” because you actually don’t have two discrete instances of something but just concepts.
Almost certainly being thick here, but why is it singular?
What do you mean by “it”?
12/15 second attempt … first attempt was not good…
Presumably if we altered this the answer could be “beide sind” ?
“Which days are you free next week? Monday or Tuesday?”
“Both are fine for me.”
Yes! If you establish the noun “days” in the question, then “beide” is more idiomatic.
Great quiz, thanks! Just one note, Riesling is white grape variety and to my knowledge even the rare red clone still yields white wine :)
Oder?
I know :). Riesling is like the “go to” white wine in Germany. If you don’t know, you just say Riesling.
I couldn’t resist putting it in and I actually expected half the comments to be about that, but nope. Either no one drinks any wine in the audience or everyone was too worn out from the quiz to notice.
for the renting question, why isn’t it beides sind? Aren’t there two options?
“beides” is singular.
The only instance where you find “beides sind” is when it’s followed by a plural noun.
– Beides sind gute Autos.
Here, we have Nominative on both sides and the more concrete one rules the verb.
Ja, genau!
for the first question, we don’t usually say “you were three people” but rather something like “weren’t there three people there?” or something like that. but otherwise great!
You know that meme where the guy is pouring from a huge bottle of olive oil? That guy is me and the vat of olive oil is international politics so bring it on with all your spicy takes!!!
I feel everyone is very trepidatious with the polarized state of the world but you’ve lightly mentioned some of your politics in the past and i didn’t find any of it offputting. I understand why some/a lot of readers would rather this be a little politics-free corner of the internet where they can just focus on German learning (and if that’s the way the votes break then that’s the way the voting breaks) but politics is everywhere already and this is definitely a topic I’m keenly interested in, but that’s just me
As the poll looks now, I’ll probably do one post about it. I will definitely focus it on the language and the objective reality (or my best attempt at objectivity, in good faith). But I’ll also not pretend like I have no opinion at all.
Actually, when people have different opinions and they argue their point in good faith, there’s not as much heat, I find.
What’s the bigger problem is the culture of “owning” the other person with, scoring a goal. When that’s the primary goal, then it’s not a political exchange of ideas anymore (which is what a society wants and needs) but a dunk contest (which is a case for couple’s therapist).
I know that there are readers with hugely differing opinions here, and that’s great.
I’d wager though that 99% of us here want honesty and truth, no matter from where. We yearn for it, we’re starved, and because we’re starved, we sometimes eat shit that looks like what we want on first sight.
And we’re all put off by lying and manipulation. So we all have a pretty strong common denominator, and I don’t think things will escalate in the comments :)
Surely ALL of us are baffled by the question “How can anyone be stupid enough to believe THAT? (the view we oppose). We are desperate to understand how they come to their conclusion.
So I would love to hear what Germans are thinking about today’s politics, and why.
Speaking only for myself, I would prefer not to see a discussion of politics, in Germany or anywhere else. But it’s your blog and I won’t presume to censor it. I can always skip a post if I’d rather not read it.
Totally :).
The poll is leaning yes, but I’ll keep it on the objective side, as a window into what matters at the moment in Germany and what are the stances.
Thank you! I appreciate that.