The meaning of “entweder … oder … “

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Week.
And this time, we’re in for some tag team action, because today, we’ll look at the how to say either or in German.

entweder … oder…

Overall, the usage of “either …  or” and “entweder … oder” is pretty similar, but there are a few small differences that we need to talk about.
Nothing big.
Just a couple of cute little quirks.
You’ll be like “Awwwww, look at that tiny difference. So cute.”

But let’s start with some “normal” examples.

• Das Paket kommt entweder heute oder morgen.
• The package will come either today or tomorrow.

• Wir haben hier kein Lager, also entweder Pils oder Schwarzbier.
• We don’t really have Lager here, so either Pils or dark beer.
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• Corona-Tagebuch, Tag 151:
  Liebes Tagebuch, ich weiß nicht was ich heute Abend machen soll. Ich könnte entweder Netflix gucken oder Deutsch lernen.
• Corona- Diary, day 151:
  Dear diary, how are you today? I don’t know what to do tonight. I could either watch Netflix or learn German.

As you can see, it works just like in English. So the words entweder and oder are put right in front of the two options A and B.

• entweder A oder B
• either A or B

So far so good.
Now, let’s get to the differences.

“entweder oder” and “either or” – Differences

The main differences we need to talk about have to do with word order.
Take a look at this example:

• I can either read or sell the book.
• Ich kann das Buch entweder lesen oder verkaufen.
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

In German, the noun Buch is coming before the entweder oder section while in English, it comes after it.

The reason is this infamous “verb at the end”- thing that German has going on. Most of you probably know what I mean.

Sometimes, courses and textbooks treat this “verb at the end”-feature as some weird quirk of German. But in actuality, it’s a fundamental structural difference between German and English that, once you understand it, can help you understand many aspects of German sentence structure and word order.

Essentially, every German sentence has a verb slot at the end. That is the verb’s “home”. In English, this is completely different. The home of the verb is near the front, where it also “goes to work”.
The German verb also works near the front of the sentence, and the the slot at the end might empty, because the verb is “at work”. But as soon as the verb has more than one part, one part will take the shift at work and the rest gets to go “home” and chill at the end.
I have talked about this in detail in other lesson, so if you want to explore that further there is plenty of stuff waiting for you.

But now, let’s get back to our examples. If we take the sentences separately, they look like this:

• Ich kann das Buch lesen.
• I can read the book.

• Ich kann das Buch verkaufen.
• I can sell the book.

You can see that in German, the two verbs lesen and verkaufen get to hang out at the end because the modal verb können (can) has the shift “at work”.

And if we now contrast these two verbs with entweder oder, of course that block also stays at the end.

• Ich kann das Buch [entweder lesen oder verkaufen].
• I can [either read or sell ] the book.

If you’re a beginner and this is giving you some mild anxiety, don’t worry.
You don’t have to nail this right away. If you use entweder oder and you mess up the word order a bit, it’s usually not a problem. You will be understood.

Anyways, another difference that is worth mentioning is the word order if we’re contrasting entire sentences with either or; so if either stands at the very beginning.
Here’s an example:

• Either you do your homework or I’ll post your baby pictures on Instagram.

And the difference, or let’s say the quirk of German is that entweder can actually either work just like in English, so in German terms, it takes position zero. Or it can also be position 1, which then means the verb comes right after it in German

• Entweder [0] du [1] machst [2] deine Hausaufgaben, oder ich poste deine Baby-Fotos auf Instagram.
• Entweder [1] machst [2] du [3] deine Hausaufgaben, oder...

In case you’re wondering why I’m starting to count at zero in one version and at “1” in the other –  in the second version, position zero is basically empty.
You see, in German, the “working” verb is in position two and there is one element before it. Can be the subject, but doesn’t have to be.

And a few select word can be put into position zero, like und, aber and oder. And entweder, but entweder can ALSO be put into position 1.

• Entweder du machst deine Hausaufgaben, ….
• Entweder machst du deine….

Both versions are proper German, they mean the same and they’re both used in daily life, so you can basically pick your favorite.

And just to make sure… oder is NOT that flexible. oder in our example is definitely a position zero.

• … Hausaufgaben, oder [0] ich [1] poste [2]…
• … Hausaufgaben, oder [1] poste [2] ich… NOPE!!!

Here’s another example for the same type of structure.

• “Was machst du nach der Arbeit?”
  “Hmm, entweder gehe ich heim oder ich trinke ein Bier.”
  “Hmm, entweder ich gehe heim oder ich trinke… “
• “What are you doing after work?”
  “Well, either I go home or I go have beer. “
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Again, both versions work and sound natural, so take your pick :).
Cool.
Now, we’re almost done, but there is one big fat potential trap door we need to address.

“either” as a Standalone Word

Since entweder… oder means either.. or , and oder by itself means or, it’s natural to file entweder as either.
But entweder is ONLY used in the combination entweder… oder; never by itself.
A standalone either is NOT gonna be entweder, and that would actually be really confusing.

In phrasings like  “I don’t either” it is expressed as auch nicht. Which literally means  ‘as well not’.

• “Ich rauche nicht.”
  “Ich rauche auch nicht.”
• “I don’t smoke.”
  “I don’t either.”
  Lit: “I do not, as well.”
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

And in the sense of  both or either one, the most common translation is beide(s/n/m/…). Though in some contexts you might see another option.

• “Willst du Pasta oder Reis zu deinen Kartoffeln?”
  “Beide sind okay für mich.”
• “Do you want pasta or rice with your potatoes?”
  “Either one is okay for me.”

And that’s it for today :).

This was our look at how to say either or in German.
As usual, if you have any questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment.
I hope you enjoyed it and see you next time.

further reading:

• neither… nor in German
• German Word Order (Part 1)
• The Position of “nicht” (Part 1)