By: Emanuel|68 Comments| Updated:
February 15, 2026
Hello everyone,
And welcome to a new episode of the Summer of Bliz, I hope you’re doing great and are rea… “Uhm, Emanuel, Bliz kind of looks like Blitz, and you’re German, so… erm… Summer of Bliz is a bit weird.” But why? It’s a mix between “bliss” and “quiz” because we’re doing quizzes in August and they’re… oh… ohhhhh, I just got it. Yeah, not the best name. Damn it! Why is it so hard to find a catchy name. I mean… I could call it Quiz-August, but that’s so lame. Or Quizummer, but that’s kind of weird looking. Or Sweat’n Guess, maybe? Or Quiz Summer 24. Yeah, let’s go with that for today. So welcome to a new episode of Quiz Summer 24! Last week, we did a quiz on machen and its prefix versions and because I feel like you enjoyed that a lot, I have decided to do another one, before we switch topics.
So today, we’ll do a quiz about
“lassen” and its prefix versions
And as usual, it’s not just a simple question and answer setup. I’ll also give you a bit of explanation along with each answer, so you know what’s going on and why. Because I feel like we learn best when we get the information in a “time window” where we actually need it. So… are you ready to jump in??
Then, LET’S GO!!
Now, I have prepared 14 questions this time, which I feel like is the maximum before it starts to get draining or arbitrary. I mean, the goal is that you take this quiz once or twice and actually learn information from it. So if there’s too much going on, it becomes kind of arbitrary and disjointed. This is different from a kind of pattern drill exercise, where you try to “automate” something. For those, a huge number of questions is nice. But for taking in new info, less is more.
Thing is, lassen and its prefix versions are actually a HUGE topic and way too much to cover all of it effectively in this one such quiz. So we’ll not talk about ALL aspects of lassen and we won’t cover ALL prefix versions and ALL their meanings.
We’ll focus on the core idea of lassen and how it informs the meaning as well as the most important prefix versions. And r-versions. Never without those :). If you want to dig deeper after this, I’ll leave you some links to my material below the quiz.
But now, without further ado, time to get active! Viel Erfolg und viel Spaß!!
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“lassen” can have a lot of translations in different contexts, but there are two main ones. Which of the following three is !! NOT !! a translation for lassen.
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Question 2 of 14
2. Question
lassen has a wild range of uses – to let, to leave, this weird passive thing that textbooks are talking about, and more. But actually, with a bit of mind yoga, we can see that they’re all based on one core theme; a pretty damn Zen core theme.
Which could that be?
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Question 3 of 14
3. Question
We just leaned that the core theme of lassen is non-doing. The various meanings of “lassen” are basically different takes or perspectives of that theme.
Which of the following ideas is NOT a variation of that theme?
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Question 4 of 14
4. Question
Now, English has this very very very very very common invitational phrase: “Let’s [do it/go/eat….].”. Which also exists in German with lassen. Not as common, but still common enough.
Lasst uns anfangen.
Let’s start.
The thing some of you might be wondering is:
This phrasing sounds inviting, enticing and active and it’s about DOING something. Right? So how does it fit the core notion of non-doing that we identified. What’s going on here?
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Question 5 of 14
5. Question
Now, let’s get to the prefix versions and the first one we’ll look at is one that stays very close to the core themes of lassen:auflassen.
Which of the following contexts would be expressed with auflassen.
(MULTIPLE ANSWERS POSSIBLE)
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Question 6 of 14
6. Question
Let’s do another one like just now, this time with anlassen.
Again, below are a bunch of contexts, and you have to pick the ones that would have anlassen in a translation?
(MULTIPLE ANSWERS POSSIBLE)
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Question 7 of 14
7. Question
All right. Now, suppose I’m working at home, and my cat REALLY wants to enter the room I am working in and is meowing in front of the door. But I know that all she is going to do is hop on the keyboard and sit there, so I don’t let her enter.
Based on what you’ve seen so far, which of the following words is the most likely to be idiomatic in this context in German?
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Question 8 of 14
8. Question
Now that we’ve seen a few normal prefix versions and r-versions in action, let’s do a round of match up :).
Match the verbs with the context they’d be used in!
(Drag and drop into the empty fields. You can adjust multiple times.)
Sort elements
rüberlassen
rauslassen
auslassen
überlassen
letting an old lady cross the road
letting the cat outside
skipping breakfast
leaving the movie choice to your friend
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Question 9 of 14
9. Question
And now, let’s do a round of opposites :). Well, not the real opposites. Counterparts is probably the better word. So… match the verbs with their counterparts.
Sort elements
zulassen
reinlassen
auslassen
auflassen (window)
rauslassen
anlassen (heater)
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Question 10 of 14
10. Question
The ones we dealt with so far are probably the most useful and most common prefix versions. But there are more. Of course. Here are a few less common ones for you to match up with a fitting context.
Sort elements
vorlassen
weglassen
zulassen
hierlassen
letting someone go first in the line at the cashier
not adding butter to your sauce
not allowing someone to treat you some way
asking at the gym if you can leave your stuff overnight
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Question 11 of 14
11. Question
And now let’s do some of the more abstract ones. Hooray! I’ll give you a context, and you’ll pick the verb for it.
Maria left me (broke up with me).
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Question 12 of 14
12. Question
The next context is “letting someone go” at work. In the sense of “firing”. Which of the following words would fit?
Maria was fired on Tuesday.
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Question 13 of 14
13. Question
And one last one! This time, the context is rain letting up (getting less).
The rain is slowly letting up.
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Question 14 of 14
14. Question
And now, let’s wrap this up with a short, random recap matching round :).
(Drag and drop into the empty fields. You can readjust)
Sort elements
leaving your partner (breaking up)
to fire
letting inside
not taking off (clothes)
verlassen
entlassen
reinlassen
anlassen
Correct
Incorrect
And? How did you do? Even if you didn’t do that great, what matters is how you do when you take it again in a couple of days. The goal is not a great score today. The goal is a better score tomorrow. Which also of course means, please please do let me know all your questions in the comments, even if you think they’re basic. I’ll clear them all up!! So… I really hope you enjoyed this and I’ll see you in the comment section. Have a great week and bis nächstes Mal.
Ist egal. Beides sind KEINE Bedeutungen von “auflassen”.
Was du meinst ist “rauflassen” (let someone come up).
RuthE
I was just wondering if the English word to let as in to rent is related. I realized that the legal terms lessor (the person renting his property out)and lessee (the person renting, or leasing the property) sure reminded me of lassen. It feels like it might fit, though I need some more practise.
Wie im Lied “Es gibt nur ein Berlin, es gibt nur ein Berlin…”
Zoe
Hi Emanuel, I just wanted to pop in and say thank you for creating this site. I’ve only found it recently but It’s quickly become one of my favorite study tools for my IB German SL B’s. It really is wonderful.
Thanks for this. I was about to go onto Youtube and look at some videos about riots in England, then your email arrived. Saved me, actually. When I see references like “Der Berliner Dialekt” or “Die Berliner Mauer”, I notice the “Berliner” is not in the same declined form as an adjective. Is there a “rule of thumb” for this?
Lol, I know exactly what you mean about the draw of “irritainment” or “doom-scrolling” :). Also good on you that you didn’t go back to it right after!
As for “Berliner”… I never really thought about it, but these things always stay the same. It feels a bit like a name, a brand maybe.
– Ich sehe den berliner Fernsehturm. – Ich trinke das kalte berliner Bier. (Accusative, definite Article) – Berliner Bier schmeckt gut. (Nominative , no article.) – Ich träume von berliner Bier (Dative, no Article)
And that goes for all “local brands” like that… the ones with “-er” that is. If the region is branded with “-isch”, then it gets the normal adjective endings.
I’ll have you know I complete 2000 deep volleys on the squash court before I entitle myself to a single quart of beer. But further to that, I don’t have the German fortitude which allows them to drink beer all day without falling over.
In many of your previous emails, your salutation has been “Hallo, ihr Lieben”. Now if “ihr” is second person, nominative, plural, and “ihr” + “Lieben” are nouns in apposition, surely they should agree in case and number? So should it not be “Ihr Liebe [Menschen], hallo”?
From what a remember we were taught this is a thing with specific place names. i believe mostly german place names. I‘m pretty surei‘ve also only ever seen Berlin as Berliner.
das Pariser Schloss die New Yorker Subway der Instanbuler Flughafen der Wiener Schmäh das Münchner Bier das Osloer Opernhaus der Kreuzberger Kindergarten
It’s definitely not limited to the region or Germany, but trying to come up with examples I realized that there seems to be a VERY complex system behind it when it works and when it doesn’t. I think I’ll have to check German.stackexchange for that. I don’t think I can deduce a rule by myself :)
Ps.: I thought it only works with two syllable places but then Istanbuler Flughafen shouldn’t work. That’s when I gave up!
Schelten means more “to scold” and is rather formal! In current practice, at least I would use, say, schimpfen, really “to bawl someone out” and is both conversational as well as written.
Wollte nur meinen Senf da d’rein mischen, ‘tschuldigung:-))
Last edited 2 years ago by Markus Juenger
Kanishk
greetings everyone!!!! ive just been offered a scholarship to this website for a year because of your support! i really can’t express my gratitude in words. thanks a lot everyone, you are truly helping a noble cause! can’t wait to join you all once im financially independent and hopefully not as broke :)
You’ll get there! I’ve quite a few examples from people who had sponsorships at some point and then years later tell me they now have a well paying job in Germany or whereever. If they can do it, you can do it.
Ivy
For those who paid extra, thank you so much!! You really made a difference and are so kind. When I have the ability to do so, I would definitely give back to the community. Thank you again for everything!
fallblue
Thank you so much for sponsoring my membership! This support is a huge boost for my German language learning journey. I’m really enjoying the experience and making great progress. Vielen Dank for this opportunity!
RuthE
I really like this method. I’m learning this MUCH better than trying to memorize it.
Why auflassen for leaving one’s hat on, but anlassen for one’s shoes?
This was a great learning quiz. I think the amount of questions, your responses to the answers, etc were really well done. I knew what I knew, and I learned by the process. I will do another pass tomorrow to see what stuck. Keep them coming!
On another note, we really really need to have a talk about what to wear the next time Ms Schmidt asks you to do an interview on E.G. Or, was that part of the gag of being a real Berliner? Watching you invert the mug for the last drop in der Kaffeetasse (as she spoke to you) almost had me spit my coffee out. :)
Hahaha, that’s my usual summer attire these days :). And that sip… originally, I wanted to drink the coffee in the office, but we didn’t have time and left for the shoot. And I just took it with me.
“Good to the last drop” was a slogan for Folgers Coffee company here in the US back in the 1970s. If the coffee is good, you want it all :) And, I guess if New York has the Soup Nazi, then Berlin has the grump in the Fleischer. It was also interesting to hear your answer about how you change the word based on the rhythmic structure of the sentence. That is something that in all of the various sources I see/read/watch/hear no one else talks about, but I believe is so important for language (which you stress often). Always good stuff!
Yeah, I think quite a bit of grammar evolution is based on what rhythm people vibe with more. Syllables they don’t vibe with will just disappear over time, for example. And rhythm is a KEY to learning grammar, at least it can be. Case in point the adjective -e that I am preaching everyone should just add without though. Simply because it constitutes a whole syllable and makes the rhythm German all of a sudden. Or the rhythm of the ge-form compared to the rhythm of the English.
– I have SAID – Ich hab’ geSAGT
English has actually shortened it to
– I’ve said.
Which is basically two emphasized syllable.
– Ich hab gesagt.
This (if pronounced without special focus) is unstressed stressed unstressed stressed. Becoming aware and attuned to the difference in meter can help a great deal, I think.
Or also “I said” in the simple or preterite past. I guess because I learned American English at home from my father, I learned to use the simple instead of the more common British past participle form as in “I’ve said to you earlier this morning…..”
Both forms are of course correct, only the American is more familiar to me even prior to studying in the US.
I would say “I’ve” isn’t usually stressed. It can be, of course, like when you want to emphasize something (I’ve said it, not him).
But a lot of times, it takes a back seat to “said.” Take this example:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
The rhythm usually looks something like this:
I’veSAID itbeFORE andI’llSAY itaGAIN.
All caps is stressed, and bold + all caps is the most stress. Those syllables are louder, longer, and the pitch stands out too. The parts in lowercase have less stress (sometimes almost none) and can get squished together when you say them.
If you squint a little, you can see a rhythm that shows up decently often in English. da DA / da DA / da DA. Here’s an example from a poem:
The land was ours before we were the land’s.
And an example from my email inbox:
We had a miscommunication.
You can see from the last example that it isn’t always perfect.
In the first example, note how the “I” in “I’ve” basically isn’t there. Like he thinks it, but doesn’t say it. That can happen. Kind of like how “ich hab gesagt” can sound more like ‘ch hab gesagt.
The second example starts at 4:57. If you listen until 5:02, you can hear an “I’ve” that has more stress.
Oh, I loved this! I love discussing these things, actually :)
– I’ve said it.
I don’t think I agree with you that “I’ve ” is unstressed. It is LESS stressed than “said” for sure. They’re not on the same level. However, the I has some stressed quality to it.
– I have said it.
What’s important is that I don’t mean “stressed” in a way of “given conscious emphasis by speaker”. I mean within the meter of the sentence.
– aufgegangen.
Here, as far as I know, “ge” is considered unstressed while “gang” is stressed even though it is WAY less than “auf”.
And I think it’s the same for “I’ve said”. Or let’s take another conjugation:
– We can go!
To me, these are three regional centers of emphasis in a row, which do have their internal hierarchy, but there is no real “unstressed” syllable there.
– Wir können gehen.
Here, both verb endings are unstressed to the point that they’re barely audible.
Maybe it’s my German wired brain doing some serious top down processing here when it comes to how I analyze emphasis.
About “miscommunication”… to me. only “mis” has a stress an “ca”. There are three unstressed syllables in between. You can try by mumbling them.
The main stress is on “go” (it’s the most important word), there’s some stress on “we” (also somewhat important), and “can” is unstressed because it’s the least important word. It’s basically a function word here.
It gets the least amount of air time, and the pronunciation is pretty different from the “full” version. You can have a “c” (unaspirated!) and an “n” with a schwa in between. A short, quick sound.
Or the vowel can be left out completely, and you just have this blip of a sound that sounds vaguely like an “n.” What happens is you get in position to say a “c,” and then you make an “n” right after in the exact same place. It’s kind of like an “ng.” I do that a lot.
It’s not a conscious decision, it just feels like the right rhythm in that context. I don’t think I would ever give “can” anything close to a full pronunciation here.
I would only do that if I wanted to set up some kind of contrast:
We CAN go, but…. (I don’t think it’s a good idea).
Now the “c” is aspirated and the vowel is like “pan.” That also comes out automatically. It’s a different context, so it needs a different rhythm. You just hear it and do it so much that you don’t need to think about it.
“Miscommunication” has three stresses that look like this:
MIScomMUniCAtion
Here’s a dictionary entry, which is maybe easier to read than my ransom note text. This mark ‘ shows the main stress, and the low marks , show the secondary stress.
“Mu” doesn’t have the main stress. That does fall on “ca.” But it’s noticeably stressed, and it’s one of the defining sounds in the word. If it wasn’t there, it would sound really weird and might even be hard to understand.
It’s a sound that doesn’t exist in German, so it could be harder to hear. You have (1) the “y” that blends into the “m,” (2) a different “y/j” sound than German, and (3) a different “u”. It’s somewhere between “Kuh” and “über.”
I’ve said it before
This is a harder one to pin down because it can vary a fair amount. Sometimes it gets a noticeable amount of emphasis, sometimes almost none.
I’d say “I’ve” usually gets more stress than “it.” Which if function words were a pack, “it” would be the one that gets to eat last. So it gets de-emphasized a lot.
But stress is relative, and “I’ve” has relatively little. You can tell because the vowel can get muddy, more like a schwa. It can be left out almost entirely. Or there might be just a hint of a “v” (but different than “I said”).
In general, I think stress/rhythm tends to be more even and predictable in German, compared to English.
But it’s noticeably stressed, and it’s one of the defining sounds in the word.
I know I’m not a native speaker and shouldn’t argue but I will anyway :). I do doubt that. I am pretty sure if I say “miscommmmication” in spoken English people will understand me and the “mu” does in fact not really matter all that much. The brain will fill it in, so long as the “co” is there.
Maybe we’ve stubled across a subtle yet significant difference between German and English here.
To me, the word “communication” has one main emphasis (“ca”) and if I had to pick a second one, it would be “con”. I actually have a bit of a hard time giving “mu” more weight than “co”. Which syllable is for you more “weird” to give overly strong emphasis to – “co” or “mu”? Like, if you had to overdo it?
For the verb “communicate” it’s different for me. I hear and feel the main emphasis on “mu”, but for the noun, nope. I don’t feel it. Which doesn’t mean, it’s not there, but my German language brain doesn’t register it at all.
I checked for German “Kommunikation” and that is marked as having only one emphasis (on “tion”), so that’s probably how I hear thing.
Which syllable is for you more “weird” to give overly strong emphasis to – “co” or “mu”? Like, if you had to overdo it?
“Co”, no question. Hitting the second syllable hard just sounds wrong (misCOMmuniCAtion). If you overemphasize “mu,” it sounds off, but it’s less offensive to the ears and gut feeling.
For the verb “communicate” it’s different for me. I hear and feel the main emphasis on “mu”
That makes sense because it has the main stress, which makes it longer, louder, and overall easier to hear. The secondary stress is on the last syllable. Very different from “Kommunikation”.
I can see how “miscommunication” would be harder because it’s buried in a bunch of other syllables. Plus the vowel is in this weird space (if you’re not used to it) where they’re all kind of high up and you don’t have to open your mouth much. The vowels in “co,” “mu,” and “ni” are all in roughly the same space. You open your mouth again for “ca.” Not sure if Bulgarian is similar, but German doesn’t have that, I don’t think.
Also, “mu” is a palatalized sound, and native German speakers tend to have some trouble with those. Unless they have a second native language that’s Slavic or Slavic/Romance. It’s not quite as jarring (for lack of a better word) as the problems with “u” like in “under,” but it’s pretty noticeable to me.
If someone left the “u” out of miscommunication, I would probably understand it, but it might take a second and it would sound weird. One of the things about English being a lingua franca is you get used to people saying things all sorts of different ways :)
I hear a strong emphasis on “miss” and then three unstressed syllables before “ca”. I really don’t find “mu” to be outstanding in any way, neither length, nor volume, nor clarity or pitch.
Example 2:
here, I do perceive an emphasis (albeit slight) on “mu”. The pitch goes up and it’s got a bit more oomph, but it carries over to “ni” as well and I feel like he had a slight “hiccup” in his prosodic choice there. I feel like he purposfully didn’t want to have the same meter/melody as for “perception” and “interpretation” which had a STRONG emphasis on the panultimate syllable, so here, he wanted to mix it up, but felt a bit self conscious about it too. That’s what I hear anyway :).
The “miscommunication” is pretty flat, but I do agree that “co” does not have “more” emphasis that “mu”. They’re one flat line to me.
Interesting. It’s not a huge difference, but I don’t hear it as a flat line.
I think German tends to stay more in one line. Which can be kind of hard to learn, for me anyway.
If you have an app like Spectroid, you can usually see how there are smaller peaks and valleys (changes in pitch) and not so many bright spots (where it gets louder).
Last edited 2 years ago by coleussanctus
pmccann
First of all: my respect for those achieving full marks the first time through is pretty much unbounded! I managed 23/27, but that number felt etwas schmeichelhaft, in the same way that trying on a pair of jeans that are marked 34″ but actually fit me feels flattering when my “non-aspirational” waist size is 36″. (Yeah, waist sizes are still given in both inches and centimetres here, so I’m still more attuned to the former, a full 50 years after the metric system was adopted! Similarly with heights: saying someone is 6’4″ tall is still more immediately evocative than saying they’re 1.93m tall. On the positive side of the ledger this tortoise is happy to report that weights measured in kg managed to kick the hilarious versions measured in “stones” and “pounds” from my mind a couple of decades or so ago.)
A couple of small corrections… ================== This is different for a kind of… => This is different *from* a kind of…
aber ich lasse mich auf das Experiment ein. => aber ich lasse mich *nicht* auf das Experiment ein. (?) [[ There seems to be a missing negation somewhere in there, given the English version it’s translating ;-) ]]
“I’ve said it many times already.” (non-specific time frame) vs. “I [just] said it to/told you this morning.” (specific or closed time frame)
While we’re on the subject, the English “simple past” is not completely equivalent to our “Praeteritum”, since the latter still is mostly confined to writing or formal utterances, whereas the English is used in everyday speech as well, at least as I learned it.
Yes I did. Sorry about that, I really should have been more careful as I realize it’s distracting to the original thread post(:-
Elsa
Hallo,
Only one typo: “Which also of course mean” (Which also of course means)
I got 3 wrong, one of them being the zen-one… But I don’t get how lassen can mean “not change” when we think of sentences like “Ich habe meinen Wagen reparieren lassen” or “Das Ehepar hat sich scheiden lassen”. Same goes for “Lass mich rein” or “Lass mich in Ruhe”, where a person is actually asking someone else to change something… confused now…
Glad you asked as many others are probably having the same question!!
“Lass mich in Ruhe” is the easiest so let’s start with that. The person is asking to be left in peace that the person was in before the interaction.
“Lass mich rein” is about permission, which is a twist on the idea of “not preventing”. “allowing, letting” someone do something removes tension, restraint.
And then last but least stuff like “Ich lasse mir die Haare schneiden” or “Das Ehepaar lässt sich scheiden.” Again, the origin here is “permission”, “stopping resistance”. Think about what you do when you get a haircut – you do nothing. And now think about what you’d do if someone on the train started cutting your hair – you’d do SOMETHING.
And if you’re wondering why this has shifted toward basically “telling” someone to do something? Well, I think that’s in part coming from the royal courts.
– He may be quiet.
A king saying that does not mean permission, it’s an order, just phrased in a “snob” way.
Ich lasse meinen Anzug richten.= I’m having my suit mended. Wir haben im Park Drachen fliegen lassen.= We went kite flying.. Lassen Sie ihn nur hereinkommen! = Just have him come in!
What each of the above sentences has in common is that another agent becomes in control of the action.
stee pedro stee
The quiz was excellent, length-wise, material, esp. when multiple answers are in play. Totally throws you off, in a good way. Found that experiencing the words (being canned, being dumped) burns them deeper in the brain than any logic can. ;0
As an aside…
Was a treat seeing you on Easy German. Instead of specific words or phrases, we learned that you are in fact the Berliner dialekt!
Seriously – back in the day, I’d see Knorke written cross an orange bin, then try to recycle it, but people’d be like: “Don’t ever say that again.”
At 6AM though, when color-coded workers combine at the corner cafe, and the smoking babushka takes their orders, that’s when one might hear bits of olde Berlineric.
I hope you reappear real soon now on their channel. Kari and team consistently produce such positive and alluring lessons,
Still once in a while the yang requires some yin.
xv
Loving these quizes! I added one prefix version too many to one of the mutiple choice ones but I still got 27 /27 (13 out of 14 answered correctly)…
Yeah, you don’t get -1. I don’t think the system allows for it. The alternative is a “all or nothing” counting mode where you have to pick ALL correct choices to get one point, otherwise it’d be zero.
Carl
Thanks! I really appreciate these no-stakes quizzes as a learning tool. I happened to get 25/27 on this one, but I was learning along the way–you helped me think things through to get the correct answer. Even though I got a high score initially, I’ll probably take the quiz again in a few days, to let the knowledge sink into my brain more.
I got 17/25 on the previous quiz, for “machen” and its prefixes, and took it again the next day with an almost perfect score. As you say, the idea is to get a better score the next time!
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In Frage 5 haette die Option (allerdings falsche) lauten sollen “Letting someone come up” anstatt “Not letting someone come up”, oder?
Ist egal. Beides sind KEINE Bedeutungen von “auflassen”.
Was du meinst ist “rauflassen” (let someone come up).
I was just wondering if the English word to let as in to rent is related. I realized that the legal terms lessor (the person renting his property out) and lessee (the person renting, or leasing the property) sure reminded me of lassen. It feels like it might fit, though I need some more practise.
I just checked on Etymonline.com and you’re right!
“lessor, lessee” and also “lease” belong to this family.
Correct indeed. However, to rent is of course lexically unrelated to to let, even if they have the same semantic meaning.
Many English speakers frequently will confuse English rent (Miete, Hauszins) with German Rente (state pension)!
Ich freue mich die Herausforderung ihre Unterrichts. Es ist ein bisschen zu schwierig!
Ich gehe nächsten Monat nach Deutschland und ich wäre nicht motiviert, deutsch zu lernen, wenn ich dieses Blog nicht gefunden habe! Danke Emanuel :)
Wow, das freut mich!! Viel Spaß und gute Reise!
Wohin gehst du denn? Als waschechter Berliner (mit Havelwasser getauft!) kann ich natuerlich die deutsche Hauptstadt nur herzlichst empfehlen:-)
Viel Vergnuegen,
Ja, Berlin is beste :)
Wie im Lied “Es gibt nur ein Berlin, es gibt nur ein Berlin…”
Hi Emanuel,
I just wanted to pop in and say thank you for creating this site. I’ve only found it recently but It’s quickly become one of my favorite study tools for my IB German SL B’s. It really is wonderful.
Freut mich, vielen Dank :)!!
Thanks for this. I was about to go onto Youtube and look at some videos about riots in England, then your email arrived. Saved me, actually. When I see references like “Der Berliner Dialekt” or “Die Berliner Mauer”, I notice the “Berliner” is not in the same declined form as an adjective. Is there a “rule of thumb” for this?
Lol, I know exactly what you mean about the draw of “irritainment” or “doom-scrolling” :). Also good on you that you didn’t go back to it right after!
As for “Berliner”… I never really thought about it, but these things always stay the same. It feels a bit like a name, a brand maybe.
– Ich sehe den berliner Fernsehturm.
– Ich trinke das kalte berliner Bier. (Accusative, definite Article)
– Berliner Bier schmeckt gut. (Nominative , no article.)
– Ich träume von berliner Bier (Dative, no Article)
And that goes for all “local brands” like that… the ones with “-er” that is.
If the region is branded with “-isch”, then it gets the normal adjective endings.
– Ich mag auch bayrisches Bier.
I’ll have you know I complete 2000 deep volleys on the squash court before I entitle myself to a single quart of beer. But further to that, I don’t have the German fortitude which allows them to drink beer all day without falling over.
In many of your previous emails, your salutation has been “Hallo, ihr Lieben”. Now if “ihr” is second person, nominative, plural, and “ihr” + “Lieben” are nouns in apposition, surely they should agree in case and number? So should it not be “Ihr Liebe [Menschen], hallo”?
That’s so tech CEO of you :D.
Kidding, I wish I was that disciplined.
Great question about “ihr Lieben”… I had to look that up, and I found the perfect explanation, so I’ll just link it here instead of paraphrasing it:
https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/52004/ihr-kleinen-monster-how-come
In a nutshell, it’s an exception :).
Berliner Kindl Schultheiss ist aber auch nicht schlecht LOL
Stimmt. Schön herb!
From what a remember we were taught this is a thing with specific place names. i believe mostly german place names. I‘m pretty surei‘ve also only ever seen Berlin as Berliner.
You see this working here:
Brandenburger Tor
Hallesches Tor
Schleisisches Tor
das Pariser Schloss
die New Yorker Subway
der Instanbuler Flughafen
der Wiener Schmäh
das Münchner Bier
das Osloer Opernhaus
der Kreuzberger Kindergarten
It’s definitely not limited to the region or Germany, but trying to come up with examples I realized that there seems to be a VERY complex system behind it when it works and when it doesn’t.
I think I’ll have to check German.stackexchange for that. I don’t think I can deduce a rule by myself :)
Ps.: I thought it only works with two syllable places but then Istanbuler Flughafen shouldn’t work. That’s when I gave up!
Schmäh – interesting word, not heard this one before!
It’s something southern for sure, and I ONLY use it for Wiener Schmäh.
There’s the verb “schmähen”, that’s where it comes from. And verschmähen, which might be the most “common” of them.
Hmm, a buddy of mine from Graz told me some time ago that his city has its own “Schmaeh” too.
Guess the Wiener Schmaeh is the more famous:-)
Oh, that would make a lot of sense that all the bigger cities have their own Schmäh :D
I quite agree.
Perhaps there are no rules…only exceptions…a lawless place where anything goes….
German language is basically burning man, but in boring.
Is it common to use anlassen in the sense of, jemanden grob oder hart anlassen.
I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. Where did you hear that?
in Bezug auf das Wort schelten
Never heard that used and I am not sure I would get it in context. Are you sure you’re not talking about “angehen”?
Schelten means more “to scold” and is rather formal! In current practice, at least I would use, say, schimpfen, really “to bawl someone out” and is both conversational as well as written.
Wollte nur meinen Senf da d’rein mischen, ‘tschuldigung:-))
greetings everyone!!!! ive just been offered a scholarship to this website for a year because of your support! i really can’t express my gratitude in words. thanks a lot everyone, you are truly helping a noble cause! can’t wait to join you all once im financially independent and hopefully not as broke :)
You’ll get there!
I’ve quite a few examples from people who had sponsorships at some point and then years later tell me they now have a well paying job in Germany or whereever. If they can do it, you can do it.
For those who paid extra, thank you so much!! You really made a difference and are so kind. When I have the ability to do so, I would definitely give back to the community. Thank you again for everything!
Thank you so much for sponsoring my membership! This support is a huge boost for my German language learning journey. I’m really enjoying the experience and making great progress. Vielen Dank for this opportunity!
I really like this method. I’m learning this MUCH better than trying to memorize it.
Why auflassen for leaving one’s hat on, but anlassen for one’s shoes?
That’s because German makes a distinction between “on” as in “on top” and “on” as in “on the body”.
– pants, shirts, shoes, etc…. an
– hats, headphones, hood, basecap… auf (beacuse they’re “on top”)
– glasses … here, some Germans use “an”, others use “auf. I’m team “auf” :)
Hope that helps :)
Maybe auf = (slightly archaic) “upon”?
I had the same question!
This was a great learning quiz. I think the amount of questions, your responses to the answers, etc were really well done. I knew what I knew, and I learned by the process. I will do another pass tomorrow to see what stuck. Keep them coming!
On another note, we really really need to have a talk about what to wear the next time Ms Schmidt asks you to do an interview on E.G. Or, was that part of the gag of being a real Berliner? Watching you invert the mug for the last drop in der Kaffeetasse (as she spoke to you) almost had me spit my coffee out. :)
Hahaha, that’s my usual summer attire these days :).
And that sip… originally, I wanted to drink the coffee in the office, but we didn’t have time and left for the shoot. And I just took it with me.
“Good to the last drop” was a slogan for Folgers Coffee company here in the US back in the 1970s. If the coffee is good, you want it all :) And, I guess if New York has the Soup Nazi, then Berlin has the grump in the Fleischer. It was also interesting to hear your answer about how you change the word based on the rhythmic structure of the sentence. That is something that in all of the various sources I see/read/watch/hear no one else talks about, but I believe is so important for language (which you stress often). Always good stuff!
Yeah, I think quite a bit of grammar evolution is based on what rhythm people vibe with more. Syllables they don’t vibe with will just disappear over time, for example. And rhythm is a KEY to learning grammar, at least it can be.
Case in point the adjective -e that I am preaching everyone should just add without though. Simply because it constitutes a whole syllable and makes the rhythm German all of a sudden.
Or the rhythm of the ge-form compared to the rhythm of the English.
– I have SAID
– Ich hab’ geSAGT
English has actually shortened it to
– I’ve said.
Which is basically two emphasized syllable.
– Ich hab gesagt.
This (if pronounced without special focus) is unstressed stressed unstressed stressed.
Becoming aware and attuned to the difference in meter can help a great deal, I think.
Or also “I said” in the simple or preterite past.
I guess because I learned American English at home from
my father, I learned to use the simple instead of the more common British past participle form as in “I’ve said to you earlier this morning…..”
Both forms are of course correct, only the American is more familiar to me even prior to studying in the US.
I would say “I’ve” isn’t usually stressed. It can be, of course, like when you want to emphasize something (I’ve said it, not him).
But a lot of times, it takes a back seat to “said.” Take this example:
The rhythm usually looks something like this:
All caps is stressed, and bold + all caps is the most stress. Those syllables are louder, longer, and the pitch stands out too. The parts in lowercase have less stress (sometimes almost none) and can get squished together when you say them.
If you squint a little, you can see a rhythm that shows up decently often in English. da DA / da DA / da DA. Here’s an example from a poem:
And an example from my email inbox:
You can see from the last example that it isn’t always perfect.
Here are a couple examples from Youtube for “I’ve said it before.” Example 1 (male). Example 2 (female).
In the first example, note how the “I” in “I’ve” basically isn’t there. Like he thinks it, but doesn’t say it. That can happen. Kind of like how “ich hab gesagt” can sound more like ‘ch hab gesagt.
The second example starts at 4:57. If you listen until 5:02, you can hear an “I’ve” that has more stress.
Oh, I loved this!
I love discussing these things, actually :)
– I’ve said it.
I don’t think I agree with you that “I’ve ” is unstressed.
It is LESS stressed than “said” for sure. They’re not on the same level.
However, the I has some stressed quality to it.
– I have said it.
What’s important is that I don’t mean “stressed” in a way of “given conscious emphasis by speaker”. I mean within the meter of the sentence.
– aufgegangen.
Here, as far as I know, “ge” is considered unstressed while “gang” is stressed even though it is WAY less than “auf”.
And I think it’s the same for “I’ve said”.
Or let’s take another conjugation:
– We can go!
To me, these are three regional centers of emphasis in a row, which do have their internal hierarchy, but there is no real “unstressed” syllable there.
– Wir können gehen.
Here, both verb endings are unstressed to the point that they’re barely audible.
Maybe it’s my German wired brain doing some serious top down processing here when it comes to how I analyze emphasis.
About “miscommunication”… to me. only “mis” has a stress an “ca”. There are three unstressed syllables in between.
You can try by mumbling them.
– miscommucation
– mismmmnncation
– miscom___cation (pause)
I don’t think you could leave a stressed syllable out that easily.
All that said – I am riffing here. I have not read anything about how this works in a LONG while, so it’s very much my personal “truth” only.
So the stress here would look like this:
The main stress is on “go” (it’s the most important word), there’s some stress on “we” (also somewhat important), and “can” is unstressed because it’s the least important word. It’s basically a function word here.
It gets the least amount of air time, and the pronunciation is pretty different from the “full” version. You can have a “c” (unaspirated!) and an “n” with a schwa in between. A short, quick sound.
Or the vowel can be left out completely, and you just have this blip of a sound that sounds vaguely like an “n.” What happens is you get in position to say a “c,” and then you make an “n” right after in the exact same place. It’s kind of like an “ng.” I do that a lot.
It’s not a conscious decision, it just feels like the right rhythm in that context. I don’t think I would ever give “can” anything close to a full pronunciation here.
I would only do that if I wanted to set up some kind of contrast:
Now the “c” is aspirated and the vowel is like “pan.” That also comes out automatically. It’s a different context, so it needs a different rhythm. You just hear it and do it so much that you don’t need to think about it.
“Miscommunication” has three stresses that look like this:
Here’s a dictionary entry, which is maybe easier to read than my ransom note text. This mark ‘ shows the main stress, and the low marks , show the secondary stress.
“Mu” doesn’t have the main stress. That does fall on “ca.” But it’s noticeably stressed, and it’s one of the defining sounds in the word. If it wasn’t there, it would sound really weird and might even be hard to understand.
It’s a sound that doesn’t exist in German, so it could be harder to hear. You have (1) the “y” that blends into the “m,” (2) a different “y/j” sound than German, and (3) a different “u”. It’s somewhere between “Kuh” and “über.”
This is a harder one to pin down because it can vary a fair amount. Sometimes it gets a noticeable amount of emphasis, sometimes almost none.
I’d say “I’ve” usually gets more stress than “it.” Which if function words were a pack, “it” would be the one that gets to eat last. So it gets de-emphasized a lot.
But stress is relative, and “I’ve” has relatively little. You can tell because the vowel can get muddy, more like a schwa. It can be left out almost entirely. Or there might be just a hint of a “v” (but different than “I said”).
In general, I think stress/rhythm tends to be more even and predictable in German, compared to English.
I know I’m not a native speaker and shouldn’t argue but I will anyway :).
I do doubt that.
I am pretty sure if I say “miscommmmication” in spoken English people will understand me and the “mu” does in fact not really matter all that much. The brain will fill it in, so long as the “co” is there.
Maybe we’ve stubled across a subtle yet significant difference between German and English here.
To me, the word “communication” has one main emphasis (“ca”) and if I had to pick a second one, it would be “con”. I actually have a bit of a hard time giving “mu” more weight than “co”.
Which syllable is for you more “weird” to give overly strong emphasis to – “co” or “mu”? Like, if you had to overdo it?
For the verb “communicate” it’s different for me. I hear and feel the main emphasis on “mu”, but for the noun, nope. I don’t feel it. Which doesn’t mean, it’s not there, but my German language brain doesn’t register it at all.
I checked for German “Kommunikation” and that is marked as having only one emphasis (on “tion”), so that’s probably how I hear thing.
“Co”, no question. Hitting the second syllable hard just sounds wrong (misCOMmuniCAtion). If you overemphasize “mu,” it sounds off, but it’s less offensive to the ears and gut feeling.
That makes sense because it has the main stress, which makes it longer, louder, and overall easier to hear. The secondary stress is on the last syllable. Very different from “Kommunikation”.
I can see how “miscommunication” would be harder because it’s buried in a bunch of other syllables. Plus the vowel is in this weird space (if you’re not used to it) where they’re all kind of high up and you don’t have to open your mouth much. The vowels in “co,” “mu,” and “ni” are all in roughly the same space. You open your mouth again for “ca.” Not sure if Bulgarian is similar, but German doesn’t have that, I don’t think.
Also, “mu” is a palatalized sound, and native German speakers tend to have some trouble with those. Unless they have a second native language that’s Slavic or Slavic/Romance. It’s not quite as jarring (for lack of a better word) as the problems with “u” like in “under,” but it’s pretty noticeable to me.
If someone left the “u” out of miscommunication, I would probably understand it, but it might take a second and it would sound weird. One of the things about English being a lingua franca is you get used to people saying things all sorts of different ways :)
You know, I realized I wrote a lot, but I haven’t asked any questions. What do you hear when you listen to this?
Example 1 (starts at 0:52, I recommend listening until 1:06)
Example 2
Example 1:
I hear a strong emphasis on “miss” and then three unstressed syllables before “ca”. I really don’t find “mu” to be outstanding in any way, neither length, nor volume, nor clarity or pitch.
Example 2:
here, I do perceive an emphasis (albeit slight) on “mu”. The pitch goes up and it’s got a bit more oomph, but it carries over to “ni” as well and I feel like he had a slight “hiccup” in his prosodic choice there. I feel like he purposfully didn’t want to have the same meter/melody as for “perception” and “interpretation” which had a STRONG emphasis on the panultimate syllable, so here, he wanted to mix it up, but felt a bit self conscious about it too. That’s what I hear anyway :).
The “miscommunication” is pretty flat, but I do agree that “co” does not have “more” emphasis that “mu”. They’re one flat line to me.
Interesting. It’s not a huge difference, but I don’t hear it as a flat line.
I think German tends to stay more in one line. Which can be kind of hard to learn, for me anyway.
If you have an app like Spectroid, you can usually see how there are smaller peaks and valleys (changes in pitch) and not so many bright spots (where it gets louder).
First of all: my respect for those achieving full marks the first time through is pretty much unbounded! I managed 23/27, but that number felt etwas schmeichelhaft, in the same way that trying on a pair of jeans that are marked 34″ but actually fit me feels flattering when my “non-aspirational” waist size is 36″. (Yeah, waist sizes are still given in both inches and centimetres here, so I’m still more attuned to the former, a full 50 years after the metric system was adopted! Similarly with heights: saying someone is 6’4″ tall is still more immediately evocative than saying they’re 1.93m tall. On the positive side of the ledger this tortoise is happy to report that weights measured in kg managed to kick the hilarious versions measured in “stones” and “pounds” from my mind a couple of decades or so ago.)
A couple of small corrections…
==================
This is different for a kind of… => This is different *from* a kind of…
aber ich lasse mich auf das Experiment ein. => aber ich lasse mich *nicht* auf das Experiment ein. (?) [[ There seems to be a missing negation somewhere in there, given the English version it’s translating ;-) ]]
“I’ve said it many times already.” (non-specific time frame)
vs.
“I [just] said it to/told you this morning.” (specific or closed time frame)
While we’re on the subject, the English “simple past” is not completely equivalent to our “Praeteritum”, since the latter still is mostly confined to writing or formal utterances, whereas the English is used in everyday speech as well, at least as I learned it.
Did you mean to post this under pmccann’s comment? Because it’s not really related to this one.
Yes I did. Sorry about that, I really should have been more careful as I realize it’s distracting to the original thread post(:-
Hallo,
Only one typo:
“Which also of course mean” (Which also of course means)
I got 3 wrong, one of them being the zen-one…
But I don’t get how lassen can mean “not change” when we think of sentences like “Ich habe meinen Wagen reparieren lassen” or “Das Ehepar hat sich scheiden lassen”. Same goes for “Lass mich rein” or “Lass mich in Ruhe”, where a person is actually asking someone else to change something… confused now…
Bis bald!
Glad you asked as many others are probably having the same question!!
“Lass mich in Ruhe” is the easiest so let’s start with that. The person is asking to be left in peace that the person was in before the interaction.
“Lass mich rein” is about permission, which is a twist on the idea of “not preventing”. “allowing, letting” someone do something removes tension, restraint.
And then last but least stuff like “Ich lasse mir die Haare schneiden” or “Das Ehepaar lässt sich scheiden.”
Again, the origin here is “permission”, “stopping resistance”.
Think about what you do when you get a haircut – you do nothing. And now think about what you’d do if someone on the train started cutting your hair – you’d do SOMETHING.
And if you’re wondering why this has shifted toward basically “telling” someone to do something? Well, I think that’s in part coming from the royal courts.
– He may be quiet.
A king saying that does not mean permission, it’s an order, just phrased in a “snob” way.
Let me know if this helps :)
Yep, it did indeed help, thank you :)))
“Lassen + vb.” = to have something done
Ich lasse meinen Anzug richten.= I’m having my suit mended.
Wir haben im Park Drachen fliegen lassen.= We went kite flying..
Lassen Sie ihn nur hereinkommen! = Just have him come in!
What each of the above sentences has in common is that another agent becomes in control of the action.
The quiz was excellent, length-wise, material, esp. when multiple answers are in play. Totally throws you off, in a good way. Found that experiencing the words (being canned, being dumped) burns them deeper in the brain than any logic can. ;0
As an aside…
Was a treat seeing you on Easy German. Instead of specific words or phrases, we learned that you are in fact the Berliner dialekt!
Seriously – back in the day, I’d see Knorke written cross an orange bin, then try to recycle it, but people’d be like: “Don’t ever say that again.”
At 6AM though, when color-coded workers combine at the corner cafe, and the smoking babushka takes their orders, that’s when one might hear bits of olde Berlineric.
I hope you reappear real soon now on their channel. Kari and team consistently produce such positive and alluring lessons,
Still once in a while the yang requires some yin.
Loving these quizes! I added one prefix version too many to one of the mutiple choice ones but I still got 27 /27 (13 out of 14 answered correctly)…
Yeah, you don’t get -1. I don’t think the system allows for it. The alternative is a “all or nothing” counting mode where you have to pick ALL correct choices to get one point, otherwise it’d be zero.
Thanks! I really appreciate these no-stakes quizzes as a learning tool. I happened to get 25/27 on this one, but I was learning along the way–you helped me think things through to get the correct answer. Even though I got a high score initially, I’ll probably take the quiz again in a few days, to let the knowledge sink into my brain more.
I got 17/25 on the previous quiz, for “machen” and its prefixes, and took it again the next day with an almost perfect score. As you say, the idea is to get a better score the next time!
Awesome, danke für das tolle Feedback!!