“dürfen goes to Aschram”
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Hello everyone.
and welcome back to the epic calendar, day 14. And today, it’s time for a new episode of You Heard it Here First.
In this series, we talk about new trends in the German language that textbooks and courses and even the Youtube teachers haven’t picked up on yet.
Now you now might be like “Wait, I don’t remember reading anything like that here. Is this the first ever episode?”
And it’s true… it’s not really a series yet. But there’s at least one article that fits right in and that’s about the absolutely insane and still increasig new use of halt (I’ll leave a link below).
And today, I want to tell you about a REALLY new and trending use of a very familiar verb that has a non-zero chance to actually hit mainstream.
I’m talking about:
A new use of “dürfen”
Or maybe we should say “A new age use of dürfen” because that’s kind of what it is.
So let’s take a look.
The “normal” core meaning of dürfen, that most of you probably know, is about having permission.
- In dieser Bar darf man rauchen.
- In this bar, you can/are allowed to smoke.
The translation is often can but the point really is that you have permission to smoke.
And now let’s look at an example for the new usage.
Imagine you’re at a team meeting and the team lead is not happy with the speed at which you complete certain tasks. And now here’s how he or she says it:
- Das ist zu langsam, das darf ab jetzt schneller werden.
- This is too slow, it has permission to get done faster from now on.
Let’s do a couple more examples:
- “Warum bist du denn so traurig?”
“Mein Freund hat mich betrogen.”
“Dann darfst du jetzt rausfinden, ob du mit ihm zusammenbleiben willst.” - “Why are you so sad?”
“My boyfriend cheated on me.”
“Then you now have permission to find out whether you want to stay with him.”
- Jeder, der sich von mir getriggert fühlt, darf bei sich selbst gucken, denn ich bin nur der Spiegel.
- Everyone who feels triggered by me has permission to look at themselves, because I am only the mirror.
Did you get the gist of what’s going on here?
People in these examples are replacing the words müssen (to have to) or können (may, be able to) or sollten (should) with the word dürfen.
It’s not mainstream yet, but it’s REALLY common among the people who consider themselves “more on the new age spiritual side” and I feel like it’s slowly seeping into everyday life. At least I have heard it in real life this year multiple times when before I only ever heard it online.
So yeah… my prediction is that it’ll become more widespread.
But where does it come from?
I’m not entirely sure about the origins – it’s probably a mix of “non-violent communication” and ideas of “your thoughts shape your reality” and “manifesting your life“.
The way we speak influences the way our life is and one aspect where we’re being “not nice” is when we talk with too many musts and have tos. I must do this, I have to do that.
And the idea is to try to shift perspective and see life as opportunities rather than obligations and one way is by manipulating our language and not saying (or thinking) müssen.
Like… instead of saying “Ugh, I have to get up early”, you could say “Okay, tomorrow I get a chance to be up early and see the sunrise”.
And in German, the verb of choice at the moment seems to be dürfen.
Why?
Well, I think the most important reason is… get ready… a sense of permission slip from the universe.
You see, the new age spiritual community LOVES to talk about the universe and how the universe has a plan for you and guides you. And everything that happens to you, happens for you and for a reason, so you can always look for the growth opportunity.
So if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and you have to wait 6 hours to get towed , you don’t “have to wait” for 6 hours to get towed. You have a permission of the universe to sit in silence and enjoy being in nature.
Or if your partner cheats on you, you have the once in a lifetime chance to look what that has to do with you and how you contributed to it.
Yeah… I know this sounds absurd. I guess you can tell that I am not the biggest fan.
See, in principle, I have no problem with any of these ideas. I’ve actually also tried using dürfen for internal self talk and it did feel different and nicer than the same with müssen. Like…
- I have to find this or that about myself.
- I have the opportunity to find out this or that about myself.
The second one feels more inviting, at least to me.
But the problem with dürfen is of course people are taking it WAY to seriously and use dürfen in situations where it’s REALLY out of place and artificial. Like…
- Wir wohnen hier zusammen, also darf sich jeder darum kümmern, die Küche sauber zu halten.
- We’re living together here, so everyone has permission/ the opportunity to keep the kitchen clean.
Even when using “opportunity” here, it doesn’t sound natural, not to mention using permission.
Some people do talk like that though. They’re trying REALLY hard to avoid using müssen, and in my view, if you try REALLY hard to avoid something so normal like an obligation or necessity – you have a big fat problem.
And also, there’s a certain irony about dürfen.
Because dürfen is about permission, and so all these free spirited, spiritual, often libertarian leaning people who talk about “leaving the matrix” and stuff like that, are at the same time absolutely embracing a word that is ultimatly about HUMAN made hierarchy and authority and they’re imposing 1984 style rephrasings on themselves.
And last but not least… I find this use of dürfen a bit passive-agrresive at times.
Like… a manager telling the team that the quality of the work “darf” improve?
That would trigger me quite a bit.
But of course… mY tRiGgEr. ‘
It’s my invitation from the universe to look at why it triggers me so hard.
In fact, I think “invitation” might be the best match for this use of dürfen.
- Team – Ihr wart zu langsam. Das darf ab jetzt schneller werden.
- Team – you were too slow. This is your invitation to be faster from now on.
Anyway, that’s it for today :)
Let me know in the comments… wait… hold on… in the comments darf be written, if you’ve come across this new dürfen already and also if you have similar new age rephrasings in your mother tongue :).
Have a great day, and I’ll see you tomorrow!
Bis dann!
Further reading:
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
zB Lehrer zu einem Schüler: Du darfst ab jetzt viel fleißiger lernen! Sonst darfst du dieses Jahr wiederholen, Junge! richtig?
Danke, Lieber Emanuel.
OMG, that’s exactly the type of use that I meant that is taking it toooooo faaaar :)! Awful!!
I’ve heard people at school using dürfen when I didn’t expect it and I think it was similar to what you’ve described, but… The new age hippy theory breaks down somewhat because one of those people was my old school Austrian workshop teacher who calls us Mädels und Burschen. He’s a great guy, but doesn’t seem very new age hippy to me…
Is it possible that it’s just an Austrian thing that has somehow made its way to Berlin through new age people?
Austrians also use mögen in a funny way to give an instruction, I don’t know if that’s also standard in Germany… For example, my supervisor saying “magst du die Putzmaschine fahren?”. Eigentlich fahre ich sehr ungern die Putzmaschine, aber sie hat es nicht als Frage gemeint obwohl es als Frage betont wurde.
“Is it possible that it’s just an Austrian thing that has somehow made its way to Berlin through new age people?”
Absolutely not. I have a quite close eye on the spiritual community and this use is definitely born from trying to avoid “müssen” and rephrasing everything as an “invitation”.
That said, it’s of course possible that Austrian uses the words a little differently and has done so for a time.
I’d need some examples though to really tell.
This using “magst du” when basically giving an instruction is something I also know, but more from the “private sector” i.e. relationships.
It sounds a bit southern to me, but I think it’s fairly common in Bavaria.
You could try out a “Magst du mir das Gehalt erhöhen” some day :)
Haha! It was at Hofer… She had no control over that whatsoever :’)
That was in Salzburg so it would make sense if it’s also used in Bavaria.
Ok I’m gonna listen for it and post next time I hear it! I think that teacher comes from either Niederosterreich or Steiermark.
This is hilarious. I’m pretty new age and I was just telling my student in her music lesson that she “has permission to truly count the quarter rests”… and it really is new age nonsense, it’s as if maybe some part of her is too insecure to really inhabit the silence and her sense of rhythm etc… but of course she ignored them again and I switched my tactic to scolding, it wasn’t a choice at all. I’m so amused it’s being taken up in the German vernacular, it’s very illuminating of the mindset and also I can really see how dystopian and passive aggressive it would be. I’ll have to see if I catch myself doing it more in my lessons. I also say people are “invited” to do mandatory things, like “you are invited to observe the dynamics,” I think I say that more often
Well, the thing is, in some contexts, for some people, they really do not “allow themselves” something, so phrasing it as permission CAN be a effective psychological tool.
It’s just when it becomes dogmatic that it turns into … well… not a problem, but just a weird fad.
Thinking more about this, I think the best match for the “dürfen” version is definitely “you’re invited”
– You’re invited to truly count the quarter rests.
I think it sounds less weird than permission, but also artificial
When I was working as a counsellor in England, during the training there was the suggestion that we could often replace “I ought to” with “I could”, which I think is very similar.
I think it can be useful for self talk when something genuinely is an obligation we are putting on ourselves: “I really must send a Christmas card to every single person who has ever sent me one” feels a bit less pressing when you say, “I could send a Christmas card to every single person who has ever sent me one”.
It sounds like the German durfen is in danger of getting seriously overused though.
I think “could” instead of “ought to” comes from the same lane of thinking. And like I said… it’s not complete nonsense, but as usual, people have to overdo it then.
And “darf” sending a Christmas card… that’s one step further. Like
– I’m invited to send a Christmas card to every single person who has ever sent one to me.
Makes my toe nails move a little.
omg this article made my life way easier, knowing why is getting used and how it started makes much more sense…
I also heard it used, in a context wehere I would have just use müssen or können in Deutsche Unterricht and I was like? Wait what?? Tbh it confused the shit out of me for a while, so much that I avoided using it because I was thinking that I was missing out on some German flavours :D
Jetzt kann ich wieder darf benutzen
Oh wow, you actually heard it in real life? That’s awesome :). And in German class of all places, that’s really strange.
– Dein Satzbau darf noch besser werden.
That would be an example for a use that I find over the top and out of place.
Du kannst nicht nur, sondern auch darfst ;)
California has 2 such substitutes for should/must.
You “might want to” check yourself. = mildly sarcastic, basically a command.
You “might just want to” give it a try. = open-ended, supportive.
Oh yeah, I hear those a lot. They’re WAY more mainstream than this weird “dürfen” though and also, their angle is “good advise” so it’s a different avenue in terms of tone.
Hi Emanuel, I’m loving the Advent calendar again this year!
This post made me laugh, because my husband sometimes says, for example, “you have my permission to find us a good movie on Netflix for tonight” instead of asking “would you do it” or “please do it.” Of course he would say he’s being ironic, but it always triggers me a little anyway, and I push back: “I have your permission?!?” And he realizes he’s being an Overlord instead of a partner. It’s hilarious that bosses are doing the same thing in German these days.
Since you mentioned being triggered, there’s something similar my girlfriend used to do for a while… she would say “Do you want to call XYZ” for instance, and it was a call that SHE had to make to some government agency or something. So she would phrase an question for help as a “do you want to” and that triggered me quite a bit because I found it super manipulitive and always answered “NO! I do not want to.”
She’s from Bulgaria and apperantly, it’s normal to ask that way, but in German it just sounds super duper weird and I always was like “Why don’t you just ask for my help, what’s with the hiding?”
I do like rather blunt direct communication though :).
“You have my permission”… that one seems so over the top that it only can be ironic :D. But yeah, words do carry energy.
I think it’s probably fairly regional or personal/cultural, but you definitely have some of that in English. I’ve sometimes had to rephrase stuff I’m telling my kids to do because they’ll take “Do you want to put your coat on before you go out in the snow?” or “How about you clean up these toys?” literally as suggestions of voluntary activities.
Your kids are very wise :).
Hey Emanuel, thanks again for a very interesting Advent learning experience!
I have always associated Dürfen with “may” in English. We learned as children that “can” is related to ability while “may” is related to permission.
And I think the “new” use is almost directly translatable with may or may want to.
Emanuel can correct me if I’m wrong, but my guess is that using dürfen like this comes across a bit different from “I/you/we may…” in that the English version sounds more like the *speaker* is the one giving the permission. (“May” can also sound like an expression of possibility: “I may go to the gym after work tomorrow”).
“may” doesn’t really match in terms of vibe, artificiality, age of use and tone.
“have the opportunity” is a better match here.
Nah, the tone and vibe doesn’t really match, especially not with “may want to”.
Generally, English and especially British English are way more “on the polite side” than German, so oftentimes people talk around and actually pretty blunt message.
I’m Canadian, our conversations are full of passive “polite” phrases. Germans seem to be getting lit to this trend.
Yeah, English is overall way more into “beating around the bush” than German. Especially British English. I have heard some really passive aggressive ways to word “what I want is: ” but I can’t recall them.
Is it possible that instead of a new meaning, it’s a really old one? ‘Darfn’ in Yiddish means ‘to need,’ so approximately what this new usage of ‘dürfen’ means.
German also has bedürfen with that meaning (I think the article on dürfen on here covers that word family too if you want to search). The two verbs are pretty clearly distinct in meaning.
No, the usage is new. Maybe it does line up with a super old usage that it had, but no person using this type of “dürfen” thinks of it that way. They think the invented a really cool trick.
Ich glaube, in diesem Fall schließe ich mich dem Club des Haters dürfen ein.
(Danke Universum, für diese erstaunliche Möglichkeit! Ich bin unwürdig!)
Semi-seriously, though, it’s a little 1984-ish, and comes across as some species of hideous pseudo-passivity: on the surface it *sounds* like someone is granting you something, but in reality they’re taking a giant, stinky dump on you via a (re|de)flecting of responsibility, and an implicit assumption that if something seems off it’s a matter of adjusting your perspective, your expectations, your (lack of) receptiveness to the beautiful things that are on offer. Oh, du armer Mensch, if only you were capable of being open to the
misery/mystery/Mist-ery.Sounds very close to the English usage of “gets to” which is used by a similar crowd, which is a shortened form of “gets the opportunity/chance/blessing to”
You don’t HAVE to wake up early, you GET to wake to early.
Then you now HAVE to find out whether you want to stay with him -> Then you now GET to find out whether you want to stay with him
Yeah, very much like that – and the “get to” usage invariably sounds ironic to me, which makes this kind of dürfen sound that way to (I think I’ve heard it IRL but wouldn’t swear to it in court).
Ah, I didn’t know that. IT feels a bit too colloquial for me though, simply because “get” is just so common and dürfen has this fake softness to it.
Maybe something like this:
That seems like a good match for a sarcastic “and now we get to pay for water” (because the boss had the bright idea to give our water dispenser to the other department).
This is quite common and it’s definitely meant in a sarcastic way, so this is NOT really the same “dürfen” as the one I decribed in this post.
Someone say this thing, but NOT being sarcastic… that’d be an example for it.
– … This is our invitation to pay 25 cents per 0,5 bottle, as an energy exchange with the vending machine.
That was very interesting! I haven’t noticed it anywhere yet. We have these same people in English obviously, but I don’t think the influence on the language has been that extreme. I can’t picture a boss saying something like that. And if they did, it would definitely be both intended and received as sarcastic.
Just to make sure… it’s not like it’s common boss talk. It’s still niche, but the use has been increasing at least in my bubble recently.
How would you describe “darf” here?
That seems like “that can’t be true” or “I can’t believe it”. I thought it was maybe a different use of “darf” than “das darf ab jetzt schneller werden” or “hier darf man nicht rauchen”.
Maybe it’s best to think of it as a set phrase and leave it at that?
Almost forgot to answer this one!!
This is NOT the same “dürfen”. The phrase as a whole is indeed kind of a fixed expression. YOu can also take out the “doch”.
but that “dürfen” here is a standard “nicht dürfen”, which means “must not”.
And “Hier darf man nicht rauchen.” …. this is a classic “dürfen” where there really ins’t permission somewhere.
Thank you Emanuel, and thank you to the people who support this great guy to make German easier to understand! Due to financial reasons, Emanuel believed that, with a little help from his side, I can and will be able to speak and connect the dots easier.
Thank you for believing in me and I am looking forward to your next articles!!
All the best to everyone and don’t give up!
Willkommen Diana!!
I miss the good old days of the calendar when I would wake up in the morning around 8am, have a coffee and read the article while I was in bed. Now there is this overview on the homepage it appears much later…. we used to be able read the article first thing in the morning now it doesn’t appear till midday… Bring back the old calendar! ; )
But anyway, this sort of reminded me a bit of certain uses of the word lassen (like by a king to his servants)
Oh yeah, the good old days :).
This spam issue is a pain in the behind, it’s the third time in three weeks actually, and I am afraid this time the sending service won’t resolve it so easily. I’m spending so much time this year with shit like recaptcha and all that, it’s annoying :/. Mercury retrograde, it must be.
As for the articles… I am still scheduling them to post around 7 am Berlin time. But I sometimes don’t manage to update the homepage till noon.
I think I’ll remove the overview page for now and have the most recent post show up there, at least until the email crap is resolved.
You can also go to the day prior and then, above the comments, use the “next article” button to reach the most recent one (if it is already up).
Hello everyone,
I’ve just started learning German. I wanted to join this beautiful and useful site but could not due to financial reasons. I want to thank Emanuel and the people who support this site for supporting me. You are so thoughtful.
Willkommen!!
Ich freue mich, Emanuel, dass du bist die Stimme der Realität! =)
Camille
sehr Intressant, danke.
Hallo,
Wenn ich Typos korrigieren darf:
“leavingthe matrix” (you forgot the space)
Yeah, get it, but not quite einverstanden with this New Age stuff, it’s just another form of authority and I don’t trust blindly in any form of authority, old-fashioned or of a different ilk, like exaggerated PC stuff… but that’s me… (and the “”darf” improve” would piss me off as well)
Bis Morgen!
Yeah, I know what you mean about a new form of authority.
In a few days, I’ll recommend something that you’ll love a lot, I think. It basically showcases exactly that… human tendency toward seeking authority figures doesn’t stop just because someone thinks they’re spiritual.