“Certainly not certain”
***
Hello everyone,
day 2 of our Advent Calendar, and we’ll start the season with a little bit of a reality check for many of you.
Yeah, I know. Not pleasant. But it’s necessary.
So are you ready?
Then here it goes:
You’re probably using “bestimmt” wrong
I know that many of you are now like “That can’t be me. I use it as certainly, so I think I’m good. Or … am I?”
Well… you’re not.
Because that is exactly the mistake I am talking about.
bestimmt does NOT mean certainly.
At least not in the sense of 100% certainty.
The origin of bestimmt is the verb bestimmen, which is about determining, defining and it covers territory from determining in the sense of calling the shots to making determinations about reality.
- “Ich will Nudeln und keinen Reis.”
“Ich koche, also bestimme ich, was es gibt.” - “I want pasta and no rice.”
“I’m cooking, so I’m determining/saying/ what we eat.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Menschen wollen ein selbstbestimmtes Leben leben.
- People want to live a self-determined life.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Das Alter eines Einhorns kann man anhand der Hornlänge bestimmen.
- The age of a unicorn can be determined based on the length of the horn.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
I actually have an article on Stimme and its family, so I’ll leave a link below if you want to learn more.
But yeah, the core idea of bestimmen is determining reality and so it would make perfect sense if bestimmt would mean certainly. Like… something is “determined”. It is set.
And dictionaries do list certainly and definitely as a translation, but the thing is… in normal daily conversation, it does NOT express that. No particular reason… it just happened to shift.
It expresses “high likeliness”.
- Thomas ist bestimmt in der Bar.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This does NOT mean that Thomas is definitely at the bar. It means that Thomas is PROBABLY at the bar.
bestimmt means that you consider it very likely that something is the case,
but you specifically do NOT mean 100%.
And in some contexts, that can make a huge difference.
Like… for instance you and a native speaker agreed on a business meeting on Monday. The native speaker then says it again, as a sort of summary.
- “Wir sehen uns dann Montag.”
“Bestimmt!!”
Here, you wanted to say “Definitely!!”, but to the native speaker it sounds like “Probably.” and in this context, it’s REALLY confusing, because you JUST agreed on the date and now you say “Probably.”
And the same goes for sicher, by the way, though it’s less extreme.
- “Wo ist Thomas?”
“Der ist sicher noch in der Bar.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Again, this does NOT mean that he’s definitely still there. It means that, according to you, there’s a really really high probability that he’s there. Maybe 90% certainty. But NOT 100%.
Anyway, so what to use for 100% certainty if not bestimmt and sicher?
The best options in my opinion is auf jeden Fall and definitiv.
- “Wir sehen uns dann Montag?”
“Definitiv!“ - “We’ll meet on Monday then.”
“Definitely.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Kommst du heute vor um 8 nach Hause?”
“Auf jeden Fall.”
“Are you going to come home before 8 today?”
“Definitely/For sure!”
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And if you want a more colloquial option, you can use Hundert pro, which is a shorthand for 100%.
- “Meinst du Thomas ist in der Bar?”
“100 Pro.“ - “Do you think Thomas is at the bar?”
“100 percent!!”
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
All three options are really common and useful and you should definitely add them to your active daily vocabulary.
And do keep using bestimmt, as well!
Just don’t use it for 100 certainty and instead think of it as probably.
And that’s it for today.
Let me know if you knew about this or you’ve made this mistake before and if maybe a native speaker ever acted a bit confused :).
And of course let me know any questions you might have about any of this.
Have a great day, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
further reading:
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Natürlich would also work here for 100%_
Only if the context is right.
If you always see each other on Monday, and the person asks “Will we see each other next Monday”, then you can say “natürlich”, because it’s already an established or agreed upon thing.
It#s like “Of course.”
It’s not really the word I’d chose if my focus is on communicating 100% certainty.
Sorry I didn’t comment for a while. My laptop broke & I took a while to replace it. I will be completing all the Emanuels in my inbox. I’ve also been making good use of the Handelsblatt. I was wanting to get your comment on what I thought was a mistake. The sentence is as follows:
Shouldn’t “Wirtschaftspreises” be just “Wirtschaftspreis“?
Yup, great eye!
Is that your reading level?? This is such a difficult sentence.
I was at one point memorizing and reciting everything, but after I got to reciting two pages of the newspaper, it became a bit time consuming. Now I keep a frame of four sentences in memory, which I recite 10x in the morning and 10x in the afternoon. Each day I discard the first sentence & append a new sentence (& decipher) & recite. It’s become quite a fun thing to acquire the new sentence. I told you about my Native Learning Mode formula. It gives me the improved powers of recall.
Wow, that is true dedication!! You’re the David Goggins of language learning. Nice method! Not sure it’s for me, but it sounds like it might be super effective.
It’s kind of the same thing in English with “I’m sure he wants to go” or “We have to meet up for sure.” It means the same as what you say here.
I learned to replace “ganz bestimmt” with “definitiv” or “auf jeden Fall” early on when people told me it’s often used sarcastically. Which was a shame for me because I really like the phrase “ganz bestimmt.”
“It means the same as what you say here.”
I have to disagree here. If that were true, it wouldn’t sounds so off when English speakers use “bestimmt” for these sentences. Think of “bestimmt” as “probably”. The vibe.
No, I think the reason for that is that most people see the translation “certainly” and then they don’t read blogs like this to learn all the subtleties :)
Subtleties are hard in a foreign language, and the fact that the same subtleties exist in your native language doesn’t make them any easier because the lines are drawn in different places, there is very rarely a 1:1 translation that applies in every case.
But in this case it does sound exactly the same as you described. If I said, “I’m sure he still wants to go,” that means something like “I feel 90% sure in my heart, but of course I have no certainty about it because I’m not him and I haven’t talked to him about it recently, but I want to reassure you.” Isn’t that the same?
Hmmmm, the vibe doesn’t match for me. I mean, “auf jeden Fall” does not factually mean 100%. It just means that I am assuming this to be true.
I think it’s the same for “I’m sure.”
Yeah, I guess people, when pressured, will say that’s they’re not 10000% percent sure, but the fact that they initially choose to say “sure” means they’re convinced enough to use a 100% label.
When people in German choose to use “bestimmt” then that’s because they specifically do not want to do that. It lives between “I believe” and “I’d say” and “probably”.
Or to tackle it from another side… if a learner walks away with “bestimmt is like I’m sure if the latter is used for assumed but not known reality”, then their resulting use of “bestimmt” will sound off.
I realize it gets a bit messy when using percentages like I did in the article :).
I’m curious how you would translate the “I’m sure he still wants to go”? It’s definitely not “auf jeden Fall.” Which btw (“definitely”) is the main word I would use when I actually want to show more like 100% certainty. Then it would be for a sentence like, “I definitely want to go” because I can be more certain of my own feelings, haha.
The only time “sure” has a feeling of certainty for me is when someone asks, “Are you sure?” and you say, “Yes, I’m sure.” Then it would be “Ich bin mir sicher” I guess. Now, if you said, “Ich bin mir sicher, dass er gehen möchte” is that the same feeling as the English translation? Maybe that’s a better translation then.
Yeah, “Ich bin mir sicher,…” maps very well to “I am sure…”.
Though I do feel that Germans might take it a bit more literally than English speakers. Or at least I do.
I would say it depends on the person’s tone, and whether they use a qualifier before “sure”.
“sure”, “absolutely sure”, “quite sure”, “fairly sure”, and “pretty sure” can mean a range of things depending on the tone.
“I’m quite sure”… that can mean anything from “I’m 90% certain” to “I don’t actually know, but my gut tells me it’s more likely than not.” and the same is true of “pretty sure”.
And there’s also a difference between:
meaning:
or:
meaning:
Yes, isn’t it funny that when we say, “I’m sure he wants to go”, in fact we’re usually expressing some level of uncertainty about it; we imagine that he wants to go, or it would make sense that he would want to go, but it’s unconfirmed and therefore not definitive. For that you’d have to say, “I know he wants to go.” Fun stuff :)
Wait, so is “I’m sure he wants to go” more or less synonymous with “I think he wants to go”?
Good question. There’ a difference to my ear. I’m an English speaker from Canada and if I hear someone say “I’m sure he wants to go”, there’s a feeling that the speaker is making an educated guess about it, but is not certain. There’s also a bit of a “vibe” of the speaker attempting to reassure the other person, who might be having doubts.
On the other hand, “I think he wants to go”, to my ear, has less certainty in it than “I’m sure he wants to go”, and none of the “reassurance vibe.” It’s more just stating a fact about what you yourself think, and maybe hedging a bit, like the vibe would be “I wouldn’t bet money on it, though.”
Emphasis will also change the nuance so:
I’m sure he wants to go. (Someone else has expressed doubts)
I’m sure he wants to go. (increased certainty, increased reassurance)
I’m sure he wants to go. (he wants to go but he might not be able to go)
Similarly,
I think he wants to go. (someone else thinks otherwise)
I think he wants to go. (decreased certainty, I’m doubting myself)
I think he wants to go. (but he hasn’t committed to going probably for reasons
unrelated to what he wants, ie. money, schedule, ability)
So interesting! And I hope that’s clear. Of course, context can also change the way these statements are understood, but paradoxically I believe that (1) “I’m sure he wants to go”, actually contains the meaning of “but I don’t know for sure” ;) and (2) “I think he wants to go“, states a fact about what you think, with even less certainty than (1).
Now I’m off to purchase a membership, because this is so much fun :)
All right, maybe we need to add some skin to the game to make it more graspable for me.
If someone says to you
– I’m sure it’s that way.
Would you go or would you not go? And would you then, if it was the wrong way, say “Dude, you said you were sure” or would you say “Oh well, you communicated that you’re not 100% so it’s okay.”
For me, it’s clearly the former. If someone tells me they’re sure about something that involves me, they better be 100% sure, or word it differently. Might be my German brain or my personal “truth OCD”. I have had several arguments with my girlfriend because she uses “I’m 100% sure” when she just “feels” it to be true but she actually doens’t know, but for me the distinction between someone being 95% and 100% sure is vast because I’m quite full of myself when it comes to making judgements about reality :). So I tend to listen to what I think, unless the other person KNOWS better.
Sorry for the rant :D… but yeah… “I’m sure it’s THIS way.” if you think it’s THAT way – would you yield or would you discuss?
Oh and:
(1) “I’m sure he wants to go”, actually contains the meaning of “but I don’t know for sure” ;)
That makes my brain short circuit :).
Another nice one of those paradoxes for me is this:
– A coke with more ice.
– A coke with a lot of ice.
To me, the second one should contain more ice even though “more” is the “more”-form of “a lot”.
I think that In English, if someone, in the context of giving directions to someone else, is 100% sure that the directions are correct they would be unlikely to say, “I’m sure it’s that way”, because yes, paradoxically (and weirdly) there TENDS to be a tiny flavour of “I’m not 100% certain” when you say “I’m sure…” If one is really 100% certain then one just confidently gives the instructions and sends the person on their way. Mucking around qualifying it with how “sure” they are about it, introduces some inkling of uncertainty about the matter, however small. And depending on context, of course.
So, just for fun let’s introduce some context: If someone says “I’m sure it’s that way”, perhaps this is because the lost person has expressed a doubt in the directions that have been given, or some other person has expressed a different opinion, and there has been some discussion about the matter. In this case, the lack of certainty comes from somewhere other than the speaker, and in this case since the stakes are high (the person will not find their way if the directions are bad) I agree with you that the person who says “I’m sure it’s that way” should be 100% certain. However, if I’m the person who’s lost, and the directions end up being wrong, I probably won’t be entirely shocked, exactly due to that bit of uncertainty that TENDS to get injected when a person states that they are sure of something. It wouldn’t be O.K. exactly (that the directions were rubbish) and that I’m still lost, but it wouldn’t be entirely shocking either.
It’s funny that your girlfriend says she’s 100% sure for something that’s more of a feeling. My partner finds it unreasonable if I say “You always forget your keys”, when I actually mean “You very often forget you keys”, and he’s really unimpressed when I explain that “always” and “never” are most often used idiomatically in spoken English.
And really, your coke should have a lot more ice ;)
Tschüss!
My partner finds it unreasonable if I say “You always forget your keys”, when I actually mean “You very often forget you keys”, and he’s really unimpressed when I explain that “always” and “never” are most often used idiomatically in spoken English.
LOL, I can relate with your partner!!
I do get the hyperbole, German does do that with “nie” and “immer” as well, but I dislike it and depending my mood, it can trigger me.
Same with “The coffee is cold.” in a bar, when the is in fact not cold, but just not hot enough for the person.
I’ve had that happen to me multiple times when I was working as a bar tender and I always had this urge to say “If it’s cold, then how come you can’t hold the cup”.
“If it’s cold, then how come you can’t hold the cup”.
Excellent retort! :)
How about sicherlich then? Is it just a synonym of sicher?
Pretty much, yes. I think people sometimes use it if they want to make sure that “sicher” is not understood as “secure” in a given context.
– Sicher bist du zu Hause.
This could be “probably” or “safe”.
– Sicherlich bist du zu Hause.
This only means “probably”.
Very helpful, thanks!
Great reading, really informative. I’ve always used the adverbial “bestimmt” as “definitely, ” never as certainly. Can “auf jeden Fall” e er mevermean “at any rate”?
Can you give me an example for “at any rate”?
Okay.
“She doesn’t think I’m reliable, and nor does he. At any rate, I do not care at all!”
Hmmm tricky.
Depends on what you want to express there with “at any rate”. To me, it feels a bit more like “anyhow” or “be that as it may”, so the focus is NOT on marking 100% certainty and as such, “auf jeden Fall” wouldn’t fit here, unless it’s a callback to you already saying that you don’t care.
“wie dem auch sei” and “so oder so” would be options, I think.
Just curious … how does ‘doch’ fit into this space?? To me, it feels to roughly equivalent to “fer sher.”
And by “fer sher” you just mean “for sure” right?
yes, but in a really casual sense
Doesn’t really fit in here.
The words here are about quantifying certainty.
“doch” is not about that. It’s about (re)affirming a statement within a field of tension of “yes” and “no”.
Have you read my article about it, by any chance?
No, but I certainly will. Thanks.
I was confronted at a dinner party by Germans about my false use of “bestimmt” once, which was quickly followed by a hint that I was mixing up “eigentlich” und “tatsächlich”. Oops!
I had asked for other suggestions for this and they said “fix” and something else I don’t remember so well, it was a short-hand for “auf jeden fall” … auf jeden fall.
“auf jeden” is the short version, but that’s a bit slangy :).
Actually, younger people also say “safe” a lot in this context.
Whoa what’s the difference between “eigentlich” and “tatsächlich”? I have always used those interchangeably!
Check my article on “eigentlich”. That should clear things up.
You’re probably using “bestimmt” wrong
Auf jeden Fall, but not nearly as much since you told me I was using bestimmt wrong!
Schuldig!
Bewährung!!
Sehr hilfreich. Danke. Ich habe seit 30 Jahren das Wort “bestimmt” falsch verwendet (und falsch verstanden)!
Yea…Tag eins, äh.. zwei! ich habe definitiv für/auf diesen Tag gewartet.
Ganz bestimmt benutze Duo Lingo “ganz bestimmt” ähnlich als auf jeden Fall. (Voyager below). Das ist aber auch Wahr bei den Übersetzungen von DeepL.
“Ganz bestimmt benutze Duo Lingo “ganz bestimmt” ähnlich als auf jeden Fall. ”
Nice examples why it’s probably best for learners to just stay away from “bestimmt” if they want to express actual certainty ;).
The “ganz” makes it more certain, but it’s deliberately NOT 100%.
“definitiv” passt am besten in diesem Kontext.
Oh, “auf diesen Tag gewartet” ist richtig.
Und “ähnlich WIE” nicht “als” :)
My statement is an opinion.Right? I don’t KNOW that Duo Lingo only uses it in that way. Maybe I haven’t seen all the uses. Are opinions 100% sure even when ganz is used? Duo Lingo verwendet ganz bestimmt ähnlich wie auf jeden Fall die ganze Zeit. I habe nicht nur “bestimmt” in D.L benutzt….aber…wer weiß, vielleicht habe ich…
NEVER MIND – just read your response to anonymous below. Thanks!
Ohhh, I thought you wanted to express a fact that you’ve seen on Duolingo and made the typical mistake non-native speakers make. A faulty presumption :).
I feel like it’d be better to just use “bestimmt” in your context. Or, if you want to go all in, use “auf jeden Fall”. After all, you don’t have to actually know it 100%. You just decide to DECLARE it as 100% with “auf jeden Fall”.
I’d say:
“bestimmt” = “I’m pretty sure”
“ganz bestimmt” = I’m super sure
“auf jeden Fall” = I’m 100% sure / I know
Very eye-opening at the same time as confusing. Who would have thought that bestimmt und sicher don’t mean certainty? What is with ganz bestimmt then? Definitely probably?!
“ganz bestimmt” is just even more likely than “bestimmt”, but there is a reason why you’d choose that instead of “auf jeden Fall”. They’re not the same.
– Thomas ist ganz bestimmt in der Bar.
– I’m really really sure that Thomas is at the bar. Where else would he be. He’s always there Monday noon.
– Thomas ist definitiv in der Bar.
– Thomas is definitely at the bar.
People chose “ganz bestimmt” if they DON’T want to use “auf jeden Fall” or “definitiv”, because there’s a tiny little residual doubt in their mind and they’re not ready to fully commit to the statement.
Does that help?
Totally. Tiny but crucial difference in statements like: Ich habe ganz bestimmt den ganzen Schololadenkuchen nicht gegessen. Aber Thomas hat definitiv das ganze Bier getrunken.
If you were a translator, and had to translate this paragraph from a book, how would you put it, so that English readers get that difference? Coz there is no literal translation of ganz bestimmt, that’s just one of those insider-only German words, right?
Nice example. I’d actually idally want some more context. Specifically the dialogue before this point, so I know what the stance and attitude of the people is and why the person is saying what they’re saying the way they’re saying it.
What makes it tricky is that the person uses “ganz bestimmt” for something that they 100% KNOW. To me, that’s a bit odd, so I’d try to mirror that with a slightly off base choice of words in English:
– Rest assured, I didn’t eat the entire chocolate cake. But Thomas absolutely did drink the entire beer.
Something like that maybe.
This site is the only place where you get this kind of help — what a native speaker “hears” — time after time. Thanks.
Auf jeden Fall. For me it is also the interactivity with Emanuel. YDG isn’t ‘faceless’ and it also isn’t a personality driven persona trying to get people to ‘like and subscribe’ by the dozens/hundreds/thousands. Its the right balance.
I’m really happy to hear that!
Ever since doing this, I every now and then feel like “Oh, I should do instagram”, but I just never “feel” it!
I think this kind of personality selling burns you out pretty quick and it’s so easy to trap yourself in a persona very early on that you then have to stay in.
Thanks for this clarification.
Coming from Duolingo I got used to seeing “ganz bestimmt” being translated as “definitely” and “certainly”, and also it being a synonym for “auf jeden Fall”.
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really make a difference, but native speakers (for the most part) don’t use them synonymously. If they opt for “ganz bestimmt”, there’s a reason why they didn’t just want to say “definitiv”.
The exception is when it’s used as a stand-alone, but even then, there’s a slight difference in quality to me.
Papi, Papi wird der Weihnachtsmann dieses Weihnachten wirklich kommen?
Ja mein Sohn, er wird auf jeden Fall hier sein.
Stimmt das auch wirklich Papi?
Ok, also ich weiß nicht genau, wann er kommt, aber er kommt auf jeden Fall erst, wenn du schlafen gehst.
Mmmm Papi. Wenn du “auf jeden Fall” sagst, meinst du normalerweise “fast auf jeden Fall”. Du solltest dich lieber vergewissern, dass er auf jeden Fall kommt.
Mein Sohn, wenn du wach bleibst, kommt er ganz bestimmt nicht!
Ich schließe meine Augen Papi, wenn ich definitiv die Schlittenglocken auf dem Dach höre.
Hör zu, mein Sohn… wir haben diese Unterhaltung jedes Weihnachten in den letzten 32 Jahren geführt….Das ist definitiv das letzte Mal…..
SCHLAF JETZT ODER DU BEKOMMST DEFINITIV, HUNDERT PRO, AUF JEDEN FALL KEINE GESCHENKE!!!
“Ich schließe meine Augen Papi, wenn ich definitiv die Schlittenglocken auf dem Dach höre.”
Das “definitiv” funktioniert hier nicht wirklich. Würdest du hier “definitely” benutzen?
“Hör zu, mein Sohn… wir haben diese Unterhaltung jedes Weihnachten in den letzten 32 Jahren geführt….Das ist definitiv das letzte Mal…..”
LOLOLOL. Der kam unerwartet XD!!
Gut gemacht!
As I could never remember what “bestimmt” means, this article was doubly helpful. :D
Hmmm — perhaps “likely” is a possible translation of “bestimmt”….
Feels a bit too formal for me.
– Thomas ist bestimmt in der Bar.
– Thomas is likely at the bar.
They don’t really have the same tone, at least to me. The German version is way more casual.
What about “das Stimmt”? what’s the correct (colloquial) use of that phrase?
Thanks again, Emmanuel. You rock.
Camille
“Das stimmt.” means “That’s true. /That’s correct!”
More on that is in the article on “die Stimme” :)
Hundert pro wichtig!
Danke Emanuel, diese Tatsache wüsste ich GAR nicht!
Also, sehr wichtige Infos..alle Deutschlernende sollten diesen Artikel bestimmt..eh, auf jeden Fall lesen.
“wusste” nicht “wüsste” ;)