Hello everyone,
And welcome to our German Word of the Day.
Nice, first sentence is done.
I wonder if they know that I mean “our” in the sense of “me and you readers as a a community”. Or should I write your Word of the Day?
I’m not sure actually, what I’ve been using.
Man, one sentence in, and I’m overthinking already.
Time for the topic.
Today, we’ll…. no, let’s do that again.
This time, we’ll take a look at the meaning of
borgen
borgen,
borgen… borgen.
Getting today, and giving back morgen.
Tomorrow,
to borrow.
borgen is to borrow. That’s simple enough.
But that’s not where it ends.
In English, one side borrows, the other one loans or lends.
The German borgen works both ways.
- Ich habe dir Geld geborgt.
- I loaned you money.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich habe mir Geld geborgt.
- I borrowed some money.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Wow, the German examples are almost the same.
Just one letter to blame, in fact.
mir and dir.
The dir makes sense. I’m lending YOU money.
But the mir?
I’m puzzled for a second.
Then I remember – German has this weird thing for self references.
Like when English is saying “Getting myself a beer.”
German does that a lot. And I don’t mean the beer.
Though it does that too.
Ich borge mir Geld.
I’m borrowing money “for myself”.
Do we have to use it? Technically no.
It’s very idiomatic though, so you definitely should.
Two more examples might be good.
If you want to stop hitting the wall in German – Join as a member!
As a member, you can study as much as you want and find lots of information you won’t find anywhere else. Not in class, not in a textbook and not Duolingo or Youtube.
You’ll also get pdf-download, progress tracking, note taking, comment notifications and all practice tools.
Already a member?
Log in here:
Wow, thank you so much ChatGPT. This is amazing feedback. I’m very happy some bot made you read this, just so you can spam a link to a cryptopage at the end, which I amazingly removed.
Just recalled in slang for either of the above expressions “borgen” or “leihen”, we sometimes use “auspumpen”.However, this is extremely regional, perhaps from Northern Germany or Berlin, no doubt influenced by English.
I know this as “pumpen” and “anpumpen”. Never heard “auspumpen” that way.
In all likelihood it’s flat wrong, probably misspoken slang, e.g. “Alter, pump’ mir mal ‘wat Knete aus, bin total pleite!”
Danke, Emnuel! Das war eine guten Unterricht. Ich hatte keine Ahnung von der großen Familie dieser Verben. Das war großartig!!
Thank you so much to everyone who generously supported me! Because of your kindness, I can now learn German and finally speak properly with my sister in Germany. This means everything to me—being able to rebuild our connection after so many years apart. I promise to study hard and make the most of this opportunity. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!
another great illustration / meme!
Hey y’all! Thank you so much for your donations! They allow me to be a member and learn along side y’all dispite being dirt poor. Happy learning!
Thanks to everyone who donated helping sponsor my membership and others’, because of your generosity i now can learn german easily and effectively, also special thanks to Emmanuel for creating this amazing website and for giving me the opportunity to use it!
If you check a book out of the library, is “ausborgen” the go-to word you would use?
And would you use it for things you can’t really give back, like food? I found this example in a news article about things neighbors can do for each other:
I’ve never “borrowed” an egg from a neighbor, so it’s hard to say, but in books, it seems like you don’t necessarily give an egg back. It seems more like neighbor gives me an egg today, I give neighbor a screwdriver tomorrow. Unless the neighbor is a kangaroo, then all bets are off.
If you check a book out of the library, is “ausborgen” the go-to word you would use?
I think I would use both, “ausborgen” and “ausleihen”. Maybe for the library more “ausborgen”, but I was thinking back to DVD rental days and there, I think I used “ausleihen”.
But I think all the “official” text in the library is based on “leihen”.
And I would also say the “geliehene Buch”, not the “ausgeborgte Buch”.
Oh, and anything online like “renting” a movie on Amazon “””prime””” , I’d definitely use “leihen”.
Maybe “borgen” has a hands-on down to earth feel and the “aus” is just more fitting for things that you take home from the library for a few weeks, while “borgen” by itself is more for getting a drill from your neighbor.
I think a HUGE part of this might be idiosyncrasies though. That’s why I didn’t talk too much about nuances in the post because I am not sure how far what I “feel” about the use can be generalized. And it’s very granular stuff, so I didn’t want people walking away with a sense of that they have to remember and apply that. It’s not worth the energy, frankly.
– Blumen gießen, ein Ei ausborgen, gemeinsam Kaffee trinken
This is a great example. We do use “ausborgen” like that for food. In a flat share for instance you could say that you “borrowed” a bit of someone’s butter. I personally don’t talk that way, but it does feel natural when I hear it.
It’s left open as to whether the person plans to give it back or not.
Of course not the same egg, in the example. But the person might well give back a six pack of eggs a week later.
Let’s put it this way: if you know at the moment of asking that you DO NOT plan on giving it back, like… if that thought is not in your head, you would not use “(aus)borgen”.
Have you read the Känguruh-Chroniken, by the way?
Yeah. The audiobooks have a pretty steep learning curve, for me anyway, but I dig the humor, the writing style, and how he reads it.
Just a small correction, this should be
Unless maybe they normally do rent them, but something happened so they can’t right now. Like the unicorns stole them all or something. And the same thing for “verleihen.” It only works one way, cause it’s always true.
Interesting topic. I’d been hoping for more info on “borgen”, and I got a kick out of “oafishly ancient” :)
Oh, what info were you hoping for? I’m happy to gather everything in the comments here.
Thanks for the feedback on my progressive. I feel like mistakes with that have been more frequent recently, so the universe is basically telling me it’s time to pay attention :).
I was mostly wondering how casual it sounds. Normal casual, super casual, something you could get away with using at work.
And then how common it is. And if it’s a word that’s just nice to have, or are there times when it really is the best fit.
It just has this interesting sound, and I was hoping to see some more examples so I could maybe move it off the passive pile at some point.
I’d say it’s just “normal”. Maybe with a slight lean toward casual. At work, it depends on the context. If you’re talking formal business finances, then maybe “borgen” is a bit too humane sounding, but if you ask your coworker if they can give you their desk fan for a day, then yeah… borgen is fine.
And I would definitely say it’s for the active pile. I use it much more than “leihen” and “ausleihen”, but it basically comes down which of the two base verbs you like better – “borgen” or “leihen”.
In your example..
.. shouldn’t the last “der” be “den”?
Sorry I see my misunderstanding now. “Der Geschmacks-Nobelpreis” is actually the subject in the passive construction.
“Borgen” scheint mir Sueddeutsch, “leihen”, Standard-Hochdeutsch!
I’m from Berlin region and to me it feels like the opposite. So maybe it’s not so regional after all :)
I always wondered how bergen got its meaning and the only thing I can imagine is rescuing a lost hiker on a mountain :D
“Bergen” = to conceal, hide
Hello,
Only one typo:
“go to sauna” (two instances) (go to the sauna)
Really useful article, as it has so much useful vocab. I do have a question – I failed the quiz question about the apartment – how would you express the notion of lending an apartment, as in, I’m out of town and lend my apartment to a friend for a few days?
Bis bald!
Other typos:
“uninsured” should be “uninjured”
2 instances of “save” should be “safe”
Oh wow, the uninsured vs uninjured one could be really confusing. Thanks for catching that!
Wow, great question!!
Me personally, I would NEVER ever get the idea to use “leihen” or even less so “borgen” for that.
I would say “jemandem die WOhnung überlassen”, or even more likely “ich lasse jemanden bei mir Wohnen” or something like that.
If you take money, you can use “untervermieten” as well.
Super-confusing that you have translated Koechin as ‘his’ in the example. Took me a while to work out what was wrong, but glad that I was able to spot the mistake!
+1
Damng, this was a really confusing mistake. It’s fixed now. Sorry for the confusion!!!
“Lebensfreude verbürgt” is the slogan of my adopted Heimat in NRW. Clang! The penny drops.
Wow, this is the weirdest, least cool state slogan I have ever heard :D. I’m not even sure what it means. I mean I know what they mean, but it’s just weird to me.
Possibly related to “Buergschaft” as in the expression “gegen Buergschaft” = on bail?
Yeah, but what exactly are they trying to say? That they vouch for “joy of life”? Can I sue them if I don’t get it? Who is the guarantor? The ad team that came up with this should be fired, imo.
I agree! The etymology is unclear.
“…in what I think was awe and envy.” So viel Glück haben die gut Bestückten.
In my experience it’s the native German speakers who have more of a problem speaking English distinguishing the use of borrow and lend. They often say something like “Can you borrow me the book.” For native English speakers of German, we could get away in almost all situations with just using borgen – as long as we remember to add the dative reflexive (which should be pretty obvious). Adding von… makes the intent even clearer.
Ich borge ihm das Buch. I’m lending him the book.
Ich borge mir das Buch (von ihm). I’m borrowing the book (from him).
You suggest too that the “mir” in the second case is very idiomatic but I suppose it’s not a great sin to overlook it. However without the “von ihm” could it be ambiguous if not for context?
Not a great sin, but a small one for sure. If you have the mental capacity to put it there, then I highly recommend doing so.
“von ihm” is indeed ambiguous and Captain Context will have to clear up wither we’re talking about the owner of the book or the creator.
And as a native German speaker, I’ve found in my experience that English speakers frequently can’t distinguish “leihen” from “ausleihen” from “borgen”!
Ich bin normalerweise zu spät Kommentare anzugeben, aber ich habe einen Fehler gemerkt. Ihre Snowboarder war “uninjured” start “uninsured”. Vielen Dank für den Artikel. Übrigens, gibt es eine Beziehung zwischen PIE *bherg und Burgen und Bürger? Die Bürger borgen sich Hamburgers aus dem Burg auf dem Berg?
Es gibt zwei Indo-Europäische Wurzeln “*bherg”, die sich nur um ein paar Akztente unterscheiden.
Eine davon hat die Idee “hoher Punkt, Turm” und die andere hat die Idee “keeping save”.
Es ist nicht ganz klar, wo “Burg” da dazugehört, es passt irgendwie zu beiden und die Quellen, die ich nutze sind nicht klar, insofern erwähne ich diese Verbindung normalerweise nicht, denn ich will nichts falsches erzählen.
“Bürger” ist eine Zusammensetzung aus “Burg” und “wehren” (to defend). Aber auch hier würde die Idee von “safe-keeping” natürlich Sinn machen.
Geilometer! :D