Hello everywann
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll take a look at the meaning of:
wann
The English words if and when have 5 possible translations in German wenn, falls, ob, als and wann. From the perspective of a German native speaker all those are very clearly distinct from one another. So mixing them up can REALLY confuse people or alter the meaning of the sentence. It is pretty messy, I have to admit.
But with the German is Easy wenn-falls-ob-als-wann-Miniseries, there’s no problem anymore. In the series, we have taken a detailed look at each word and what the difference is to words it could possibly get confused with (here are the links: wenn, falls, ob, als)
And for those of you who don’t want to read everything, I have prepared this beautiful and helpful mind map ….
So, today we’ll have lots of fun cause it is time for wann.
Wann is likely a translation when. In fact, it is ONLY a translation for when. It has nothing to do with if. So the main question is this:
What is the difference between wann and wenn? How do I know which is the correct translation for when?
And the one crucial thing to understand is this:
“Wann” is a question word asking for a point in time.
Examples:
- Wann kommt der Bus?
- What time does the bus come?
- Seit wann lernst du Deutsch?
- Since when have you been learning German?
- Bis wann musst du arbeiten?
- Till what time do you have to work?
- Von wann bis wann geht der Kurs?
- From when till when is the course?
Just like all other question words, wann can of course also be used for indirect questions… like this one.
- Hey Chef, wann hatten Sie Sex mit der Sekretärin ?
- Hey boss, when did you have sex with the secretary?
Wait, is that’s indiscreet. Indirect would be this:
- Thomas hat seinen Chef gefragt, wann er Sex mit der Sekretärin hatte.
- Thomas has asked his boss when he had sex with the secretary.
This is an indirect question – a question that is kind of reported. It’s hard to describe so let’s just look at examples.
- Ich möchte wissen, wann der Bus kommt.
- I’d like to know at what time the bus is going to come.
- Thomas fragt Maria, wann genau sie nach Hause kommt.
- Thomas asks Maria when exactly she is going to come home.
- Ich werde meinen Chef fragen, bis wann er morgen im Büro ist.
- I will ask my boss, till when he is going to be in the office tomorrow.
Cool.
So far we’ve learned that wann is THE question word for time so whenever we’re dealing with a question that asks for a point in time, direct or indirect, wann will be our man.
Now what about this:
- I know exactly when the bus comes.
- Ich weiß genau, wann der Bus kommt.
Clearly, this is not a direct question. And it isn’t an indirect question either. Heck, there is not the slightest notion of question in there. I already know everything.
So why exactly do we have to use wann here and not wenn? Well, we could say knowing something and not knowing something are two side of the same coin and the sentence like some sort of an anti question.
- I know when it’ll come.
- I don’t know when it’ll come.
- I wonder when it’ll come.
- I ask when it’ll come.
So, if that logic makes sense to you, then you can stop reading here. But there’s actually another way to look at it that makes the decision pretty darn simple…. and it has to do with grammar.
Grammar – making things simple
You see… a wann-clause as part of longer sentence is always kind of the object of the verb.
For those of you who have read the post on the box-model: a wann-sentence is the what-box. So… when I want to ask for a wann-sentence I would ask what?, and when I want to ask for a wenn-sentence I would ask when – or wann in German.
Wait, whaaaaaaat? I ‘m confused too. Quick let’s pop some Exampladine 20mg and see if that helps.
- Ich sage dir, [wann ich zu dir komme.]
- I tell you, [when I am planning to come over to your place]
- Ich sage dir [meinen Namen.]
- I tell you [my name.]
You can see that my name and when I am planning to come over to your place have the same function…they are the [something] in to say something. Let’s do the same with to know something.
- Thomas knows [when to leave Maria alone.]
- Thomas weiß, [wann man Maria in Ruhe lassen sollte.]
- Thomas weiß [viel über Deutsch.]
- Thomas knows [a lot about German.]
So whenever your when-sentence can be replaced by a thing, then you need to use wann in German and you do NOT need to bother with meaning.
And you know what is really cool? We can use this logic even for direct questions. Imagine a very noisy street…
- “Excuse me, when does the bus go?”
“What?”
“When does the bus go?” - “Entschuldigung, wann fährt der Bus?”
“Was?”
We used the question what to ask for the wann-sentence :).
And what does a wenn-sentence answer to? It answers to when or in box-speak… it is a when-box. It cannot be replaced by a thing, but by a point in time.
- I’ll write you when I have finished my work.
- Ich schreibe dir, wenn ich meine Arbeit fertig hab’.
- I’ll write you tonight.
- Ich schreibe dir heut’ abend.
Just like before you can see that the wenn-sentence has the very same function as the simple word tonight.
And now a combination:
- When I have finished work, I will call you and tell you when I will be at home.
- Wenn ich mit der Arbeit fertig bin, rufe ich dich an und sage dir, wann ich zuhause bin.
English relies on context here to make clear what the speaker means with when, but German uses two different words for two different functions. So that might be the reason why synonyms like as soon as or at what time are more common in English while German has a tendency to just use wenn. Another nice example with both words in one sentence is this German idiom:
- Wann, wenn nicht jetzt?
- When, if not now?
or the slightly different version:
- Wenn nicht jetzt, wann dann?
- If not now, then when?
You can use these whenever someone is hesitant about doing something while you think now is just as good as any other time.
There are 2 other phrasing with wann that are worth mentioning. The first one is dann und wann, which translated to every now and then or other similar expressions.
- Dann und wann esse ich Sushi.
- Every now and then I eat Sushi.
There are other ways to say this in German. For example ab und zu or hin und wieder those are more common than dann und wann.
And then there is wann anders.
- Heute schaffen wir das nicht mehr aber kein Problem, wir machen das einfach wann anders.
- We won’t be able to do it today, but no problem; we’ll just do it some other time.
- Das muss ich dir mal wann anders erklären.
- I will have to explain that to you some other time.
I am not sure as to whether this is a regional thing of northern Germany but I say it quite a lot. The “official” word would be ein andermal but wann anders just has more of a punchline character so I think that’s why people use it.
And finally there is the irgendwann which means at some point.
- Ich hab’ irgendwann letzte Woche deine Schwester gesehen.
- I have seen your sister some time last week.
- Irgendwann will ich mal nach Neuseeland.
- I want to go to New Zealand at some point.
- Hast du morgen irgendwann (mal) Zeit?
- Will you have time tomorrow at some point.
Oh … and to be super-turbo-comprehensive, wann is also often used as whenever.
- Ruf an, wann du willst!
- Call, whenever you want!
Alright. So to wrap this up here is the rule. Wenn answers a when-question, wann asks one. And because that sounds confusing, here is a different rule.
If you want to translate a when-sentence, then :
Use wann, if you can replace the when-sentence with a thing, the direct object of a verb. Or if it is a direct question.
So… that doesn’t seem too complicated. But all good things are 3 so here is one last way to tackle the issue. Try to replace when with at what time . If this works, use wann in German.
And this is it. We’re already done for today. I know it sounds crazy but there is nothing more to say. If you think of anything… like… say…. questions or … hmmm… uhm…. suggestions, just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.
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What is the right one: ich schreibe dich or ich schreibe dir ? (See the examples). Sorry I am a beginner in German and in English too ! Thank you Emanuel for all your work. It is very nice and helpfull !
MNP
Oh God, thanks a billion :)… it is “Ich schreibe dir…” … I think I originally had “Ich rufe dich an” and then I decided to go with schreiben because the an would have been at the very end in the second version while it would have come right after dich in the first… and I wanted to avoid that so I changed it to schreiben and then… well I really should prove-read. Thanks again. That would have been confusing for a lot of people :)
*proof-read ;)
Lame bedeutet blöd oder doof.
Ohhhhh :)
Another awesome blog. excellent job!
I have just two questions…
in a past blog, (I believe it was on da compounds, not sure though) anyway, you wrote something to the extent of
Ich freue mich darauf wann heute die Sonne scheint. But doesn’t “Wann” only work in a question, or am I completely wrong…
also I thought I’d piont this out…
Ich sage dir, wann zu dir komme.
I tell you, when I am planning to come over to your place.
In English “I tell you” sounds weird, too direct and kind of bossy. But “I will tell you…” (or even better “I’ll tell you”) sounds like 100 times nicer. another example of this would be “ich nehme (etwas)” when ordering food in English “I take (something)” sounds weird, but I’ll take is totally fine. Does it sound weird in German if I say “Ich werde dir sagen, wenn…”? let me know, I’ve always been a little confused about the laxness of the tenses in German.
You’re totally right that wann would be wrong in said sentence. Even wenn would be weird by the way because it actually means:
I am going to look forward to (whatever) once/when/as soon as the sun is shining.
So it should be:
Ich freue mich darauf, dass die Sonne scheint.
Which is only a valid statement if you know for fact that it is going to happen… but I digress.
I was trying to find the example but I couldn’t. If it is out there somewhere, then it is a mistake of mine.
Then about the directness… a lot of people say that Germans are really direct and blunt at times and I never really understood why they would think that considering we are using du/sie which English doesn’t but I guess it is all those small things like the stuff you pointed out that makes us sound sooooo in the face. But Germans are really really lax about the tenses especially the future.
“Ich werde dir sagen…” actually sounds a bit aggressive … or maybe not aggressive but it sounds overly determined … like a fanatic. I am over-exaggerating of course but I would never say that.
I would probably insert a “dann” or “noch” or both into these kind of sentences because that makes the difference between the mere description in present tense of what you are doing and a statement about what you are going to do.
“Ich sag dir dann noch, wann ich Zeit hab'”
So whenever there is an indication of time that is in the future… use present tense! Even here:
In 100 Jahren gibt es vielleicht eine Kolonie auf dem Mond.
In this example future is not wrong and it doesn’t sound aggressive because you are not directly addressing someone but I would find it odd and unnecessary anyway and if I were to read it off a page I would switch on the irony voice.
sorry to dig up an old post but i just want to check because i get confused with expressions like “Bescheid sagen”.
would it be right then to say “sag mir Bescheid, wann du kannst” to mean “let me know, when you can” (as in when you can do it) and “sag mir Bescheid, ob du es machen kannst, wenn du kannst” to mean “when you can” (as in when you know/can, in a temporal way)? And if so, does that mean you could say something like “sag mir Bescheid, wann du kannst, wenn du kannst”? if that makes sense. thanks for your help! your articles are always really really good :)
Oh no worries about “old”…. it doesn’t really matter because language doesn’t change that fast :)… so… as for the first example, you’re totally right.
The second one is grammatically perfect, too. It is a bit confusing though as there are 2 “cans” in it and I don’t know if they are different ones. But assuming that the first “can” is about “machen” and the second is about “telling” then I would perceive the wenn-part as more of an “if” actually…
– If possible, let me know whether or not you can do it.
If I wanted to have the clearly temporal “when” I feel like I would use “sobald” (as soon as) or “wann immer” (whenever), depending on context.
For the third example it is the same. Again, I would perceive the wenn-part to be “if”…
– If you can, let me know when.
And I actually have to force my brain to see anything different in it :)
ah okay cool, that makes more sense thanks! so, just on that, and on wann meaning whenever, as in your example “Ruf an, wann du willst”; this seems to me to be filling the “when” box. is it just then that wann is used for the “what” box and for “whenever”? and if so, how does one distinguish between that and “wenn auch immer”? sorry for all the questions! thanks again! :)
Yeah, you’re right. In this example I would perceive it as the when-box. IN a conversation with enough context and the right melody it could also be used as a “what”-box… then the “and tell me” part would be implied. But I don’t think people do that very often since the “when-boxiness” is very strong. In general a wann-sentence can be always be a what-box, because it is a piece of information. And those are what-boxes for verbs like “tell, say, let someone know, etc…”. Which box it is, or better, as what kind of box people perceive it, depends on the verb and what other boxes are there… specificllay… “Is a what-box needed?” and “If so, is it there already?”. “Anrufen” doesn’t need one. Just like “schlafen”. But “sagen” does. It wouldn’t work without one.
– Ich sage.
– I say.
I would be like “WHAT? Tell me what you are saying?”. We WANT a what-box. Now let’s see what happens if we put in a wann-sentence
– Ich sage, wann ich es weiß.
The wann-part could be a when-box or a what-box and here people will perceive it as a what-box because otherwise the sentence would be incomplete. Like… okay… nice when-box but who care… telll us WHAT you’re saying. It is like
– Today, I say.
Today is very “when”-y but here things fall into place if you hear it as the answer to “what are you saying?”
Hope that helps :)
I didn’t understand the last bit of your question by the way… “wenn auch immer”… did I write that somewhere? Because it doesn’t really exist.
ahh okay, that makes a lot of sense, thank you so much for taking the time to answer that! it really helps :)
and no don’t worry you didn’t write “wenn auch immer”; i’ve just seen it around the place but it must just have been a typo :) thanks for clearing that up!
Guess what… I just kind of wanted to double check on “wenn auch immer” so I went to Google n-gram and whatayaknow… “wenn auch immer” actually occurs 6 times MORE often than “wann auch immer”. So I was like “Ohhh… is that just my dialect?”. And I was thinking that “wann auch immer” would make sooo much more sense because it is also “was/wer/wen/wo/wie…”… all question words basically.
So then I went to see some life action examples and … turns out that “wenn auch immer” is part of the very common phrase
– “wenn auch immer noch”… and that means something like
– “(even) if still”
Here’s how that would be used…
– Mein Deutsch ist schon besser, wenn auch immer noch nicht gut.
And there is also “wenn auch immer mehr/weniger/kleiner….”… so the phrase is actually “wenn auch” meaning “even if”… and then comes “immer” combined with something else … clustering can be pain sometimes :D
ah so maybe that was in fact where i was getting it from haha. and i suppose really, to me at least, “wenn auch immer noch” can be broken down into the second usage where it is clustered so “wenn auch”/”immer noch”: “Mein Deutsch ist schon besser, wenn auch es immer noch nicht gut ist”. unless that has a different sort of feel for you and the “wenn auch immer noch” is more of a set phrase? interesting anyway, thanks again for looking into it!
Slight correction for the structure…
– Mein Deutsch ist schon besser, wenn es auch immer noch nicht gut ist.
You can think of “wenn auch “+ something as a shortened sentence…
– Wenn auch nicht Pizza so gab es doch was Italienisches.
– If not pizza, there was something Italien to eat. (dunno if this is a proper translation)
The “immer noch” is optional, anyway :)
Oh I see now yes that’s quite useful thank you, it also clears up for me the difference between wenn auch and auch wenn so thanks! Also I was wondering if you’re still planning on doing a book because I’d definitely be interested in it!
Yes, I am. I had this kind of crazy idea in mind for a while but I think I am not ready to do that just yet … or maybe ever. So I kind of kissed that good bye for now, which is good because it freed me for a more realistic thing. The first one is gonna be for beginners though, and I bet by the time I’m done, you’ll be B2 already :)
haha I see, oh well I’m sure it will still be a very interesting read. Good luck with it!
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Don’t you see that the explaination looks complicated? The only thing I got is that WANN means what is the time, asks about a specified point of time. And when it is used as a a clause it implies “I know (exactly) when this/that it took place). Am I right? On the other hand, you neglected WENN ..Why?
It’s been a while since I’ve written this so yeah… possibly it is a bit complicated. However, you got the main ideas right. As for “wenn”… there is a whole post dedicated to it, so I kept it short here. I have a feeling you won’t like that one very much though, because it is quite theoretical.
what a confused writing style. I couldn’t understand what the difference was at all. Heck half the time I couldn’t understand the English either!
Since you’re not the first one to say it, there’s probably something to it. I went over the first part and straightened it a bit, but I don’t have time to do the whole thing. On the surface, the difference is that “wann” is a question word and “wenn” is not. I think what throws you off (writing style aside) is the second part, with all the talk about boxes and stuff. That probably seems complicated. I put it in because the simple notion of “wann is a question word” doesn’t help you much in a sentence like “Thomas knows exactly when to leave her alone.”
In a sentence, “wann” and “wenn” parts constitute completely different elements in German. “wenn” introduces a temporal-phrase, a phrase that gives information about when something happens. Wann introduces an object-phrase, a phrase that gives us information about the verb in the main sentence. Those two functions are fundamentally different, even though English uses “when” for both of them, and only if you’ve understood this you’ll be able to get everything right and also know why it is wann and not wenn in a given context.
Maybe this helped clear it up a little, or at least clear up why the post is so grammar and theory heavy. Anyway, if you found the writing style confused then this blog is certainly not something you’ll enjoy :)
:) I did appreciate the quick reply! My earlier comment was rude. Sorry. Learning German is driving me up the wall and over it.
I’m a beginner learner in German, but I think it’s helpful to think that ‘when (wann)’ is substitutable with ‘what time(s)’ when the German translation is ‘wann’, but isn’t substitutable when the translation is ‘wenn’.
Yeah it is :)…. that’s actually pretty much it. I think I just wanted to take the chance and introduce some way of analyzing stuff (boxes/looking at what it answers to) and how it can helps to figure out differences. That’s I didn’t just stop after a third :)
Thanks, that really helped me! I thought “wann” was only used in questions and “wenn” in statements, but it seems I was wrong! Being a native french speaker, I realised “wann” is used when you can say “quand est-ce que” in french (last example: Quand je vais finir de travailler, je vais t’appeler et te dire quand est-ce que je vais être à la maison.) (not sure if you understand, but you speak french too, right?). Anyway, thanks for all your great articles! I am just a beginner, but they are helping, for sure :)
My French is definitely super rusty so I was trés heureux to see that I could understand your sentence :)
But I didn’t know that you could actually use “est-ce que” this way… I would have just said “quand je”
Hi thank you for the brilliant explanation :)
Here’s a sentence from my Kurs Buch:
“Ich kann fahren, wann ich will.”
So he’s talking about the Vorteil of traveling with Auto.
I think wenn should be used here instead of wann?
Confused…
Hope you can help me =)
Nice example! You could use either here. With “wenn” it would be more like
– If I want to drive/go by car, I can”
with “wann” it’s more like
– I can drive/go by car whenever I want to.
The basic message is the same, it’s just the tone or the perspective that’s a little different.
Hope that helps.
Danke :)
Hi, I have a question about this sentance “Wenn sie isst, trinke ich.” I don’t understand why ” trinke ich ” and not ” ich trinke ”
Thanks :)
In a normal German sentence, the verb is always in the second position. So there’s 1 element and then comes the verb. That element can be one word or a whole side sentence. What matters is that it is one piece of info
– [Wenn sie isst] trinke ich.
here, position 1 contains the information about “when?”.
If it’s not clear, then exchange it with a different answer to “when”
– Morgen esse ich.
As far as structure goes, this is exactly the same.
For more info about this, check out the posts on sentence structure and the box model.
Hope that helps.
Hallo! I just wanted to say that I have been looking for your blog for quite a while now (I didn’t remember what it was called xD), and I’m very glad I’ve found it because although it may be a little confusing at times, your blog really helps me to understand the complexity that is German, and in an entertaining way as well, which is mainly why I like this blog hehe :D So thank you for everything that you have shared x)
Okay, back to why I commented in the first place: May I just point out that when I opened the, um… mind map, apparently you put down ‘furniture’ instead of ‘future’? xD Just wanted to let you know xD
Damn it ;)… you really notice details. That’s good.
Thanks for the great feedback and if something is too confusing… just let me know in the comments and I’ll try to straighten it out.
I’m excited about the program- it looks really good.
Glad to hear that!
I don’t really quite understand the difference between wann and wenn. Help?
I see wenn is used with immer and jedes mal?
Yes, but don’t use that as a memory help. In the right context, you can have “wann” after those, too.
– Ich vergesse immer/jedes mal, wann mein Kurs anfängt.
– I always forget, when/at what time my course starts.
Think of “wann” as “at what time” and of “wenn” is “if, when” for the cases where “at what time” doesn’t fit. Does that help?
(the article is a bit too long)
Danke
Hello, thank you for the time you are investing in this site.
One comment. Few days ago, my german teacher left me this algorithm:
1) is it a question (direct or indirect) ? Yes -> use wann. No -> go to step 2
2) is the “thing” “completed” (she used the word vergangen)? No -> use wenn. Yes -> go to step 3
3) how many times it happened? Just once -> use als. Only once -> use wenn
what do you think
It’s a fine system:). If you feel good about it then use it.
So how do you say “It’ll get better when the bus comes”? “Es wird besser, wann der Bus kommt.” ??? This is a conjunction, not an adverb. It links two whole separate clauses with two verbs that aren’t modal or a complex past tense. But it refers specifically to time. I think you should use wenn here, but I’m not native and not sure. Don’t want it to be misunderstood as “if”!
Your feeling is correct, “wenn” is the proper choice here :)
Oh I must confess that first I needed to get the basic distinction between these two words to build my self-reliance on this topic, for only then to try and understand this much more intricate analysis which
Emanuel so brilliantly makes here and in the other posting about ‘wenn’ – and which grows in complexity with each new discussion brought about by most of the comments!
Please, I hope you understand my intention with this, Emanuel, as I would never try to downplay your excellent work, quite the opposite: I´m just admitting my own limitations for such intricacies, without first getting a previous foundation, so I can try to follow the complex analysis you´ve made here, which is, of course, very clever and actually helps us to develop our own capacity of analysis.
Vielen Dank, lieber Lehrer!
Here is my tip of a wonderful link for those who feel the same way about the need of a basic distinction as the foundation for more complex analyses on the distinction between “wenn” and “wann”:
https://courses.dcs.wisc.edu/wp/readinggerman/als-wenn-wann/
Thanks for the great link!! And thanks (as always) for your great and kind words. No need to sugar coat it… the article is a bit nerdy and complicated. I think I went so into depth because I felt like the basic distinction just wasn’t enough material for a whole post.
But I’m really glad to hear that it helps with building analyzing skills, because I believe that maybe the most important and beneficial thing a teacher can do is to empower the student, make them feel like “they’re up for the challenge”.
Sorry for the broken line and any other mistakes I might have overlooked but realized after my comment was posted! Oh, I so wish there were an edit button, smile.
I have one and I rarely use it :)… shame on me!
Where can I go to learn the difference between when to use the direct and indirect pronoun?
In this example sentence: “Wenn ich mit der Arbeit fertig bin, rufe ich dich an und sage dir, wann ich zuhause bin.” I am unclear on why we use dich and dir differently when both seem to be the object of the action.
Dictionary says “jmdn. anrufen”, which implies accusative. You are the direct object of the verb “to call someone”. Ich sage dir etw., on the other hand, means you receive something, which is what I am telling you. You, as the receiver, are a dative (indirect object) while what I am saying is the object of the verb (accusative)
Perfect!
That’s because they have different roles. “mir” is NOT the direct object for “sagen”… the information in the part after is.
Check out my article on Dative and accusative for more details. That should clear it all up
https://yourdailygerman.com/german-cases-accusative-dative/