Hello everyone,
and welcome to the second part of our German Word of the Day
lassen
In part one, we learned that that core idea of lassen is essentially, not putting in energy, not doing something. And this idea is then modified in various ways like not changing something or not preventing something.
If you haven’t read part one, you can find it here
Today, we’ll look at all the swarm of prefix-versions and not only that. We’ll also say a few words about the past tense of lassen.
Originally, my plan was to pretend as if there wasn’t anything to say but… well… there is and I figured you deserve the truth. Which like many truths these days is pretty harsh and sobering.
Oh man… please 2020, let us have a normal fall, okay.
“Did you say fallout? No pr…”
I SAID FALL! AUTUMN… gee, this year.
Anyway, let’s jump right in.
.
And we’ll start right of with the past.
Using “lassen” in past tense
So, here’s the past as we know it in a nutshell: for each and every verb there are two options to build the past, the spoken past and the written past.Which one is used for a verb depends mainly on convention. The written past is just a form of the verb itself and, for the useful verbs, it often includes a vowel change. For lassen that would be ließ
- Er ließ das Fenster auf.
- He left the window open.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The spoken past of lassen is built with haben, which make sense because it’s not a movement, and the ge-form is gelassen.
- Du hast das Fenster aufgelassen.
- You left the window open.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
By and large, the spoken past is more common for lassen and the written past would actually super strange in the second example.Like… ließest, ließst… I don’t even know how to spell it. Anyway, so… so far lassen looks like an average Joe verb. Nothing special.
The tricky part comes in when we combine it with another verb. Which is something that happens quite freaking often with lassen.
- Ich lasse dich schlafen.
- I let you sleep.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Based on the rules we know, the past form should be this:
- Ich habe dich schlafen gelassen.
But it’s not. The proper form is this:
- Ich habe dich schlafen lassen.
- I let you sleep.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
We’re using the infinitive, the dictionary form, instead of the ge-form. The official jargon term for that is “Ersatzinfinitiv” (substitute infinitive) and this phenomenon doesn’t only occur with lassen but also with the modal verbs and a few others like sehen or hören.
And there’s no neat, logical reason for it and linguists have struggled to explain it. It’s likely that it has something to do with the meaning and function the ge-prefix once had (which I’ll talk more about in the book I am preparing to keep working on).
But whatever the original reason may be, today it’s basically right because it sounds right. It’s a rhythm thing, you know.
If you use the ge-form you’ll be understand, it just sounds odd, or wrong, because of the different rhythm.
So try to get a feel for the specific flow….
- Ich habe mir die Haare schnei–den lass-en.
(vs. schnei– den- ge–lass-en.
(the blue ones have an emphasis)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Anyway… here are some examples:
- “Did you really paint your room pink.”
“Nah, I didn’t do it after all.” - “Hast du wirklich dein Zimmer pink gestrichen?”
“Nee, ich hab’s dann doch sein lassen.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Wir haben uns gestern schick Sushi kommen lassen.
- We ordered ourselves some fancy Sushi yesterday.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Warum hast du die Marmelade offen stehen lassen?
- Why did you leave open the jam?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Oh … and what would we be without exceptions, of course. There’s a few instances where both versions sound okay.
- Ich habe das Glas fallen (ge)lassen.
- I dropped the glass.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich habe mein Portemonaie auf dem Tisch liegen (ge)lassen.
- I left my wallet on the table.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But let’s not get hung up on these and instead talk about the prefix versions of lassen… right after we’ve talked about the second, even more annoying thing about lassen in the past. And that has to do with word order.
Take this example:
- Ich habe Maria schlafen lassen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This is a normal main sentence.
Now let’s make that into a side sentence; one of the ones with the verb at the end.
What students think happens, because of the rules:
- Maria ist dankbar, dass ich sie schlafen lassen habe.
(habe moves to the end)
What actually happens, because German:
- Maria ist dankbar, dass ich sie habe schlafen lassen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This word order is a niche rule of German sentence structure: The helper-verb goes IN FRONT of the bulk of verbs at the end but AFTER all the rest. And it’s not limited to lassen or the past either.
- …, dass ich werde kommen können.
- …, that I‘ll be able to come.
- … weil, ich ihn gestern so lange habe warten lassen.
- … , because I let him wait for so long yesterday
Doing this at too high a pace can result in a complete train wreck of a sentence and it doesn’t only happen to learners either. Doing this on the fly during a conversation is a challenge even for natives, and you can hear blunders every day. It just takes because it takes an incredible amount of concentration and awareness to process this switcheroo in time before the mouth blabbers out stuff in the “normal” order. Here’s how a conversation might go between two native speakers
- “Danke, dass du mich schlafen lassen hast.”
“Warte mal, sollte das nicht ‘schlafen hast lassen‘ sein?”
“Hmm… egal… schlafen gelassen haben gesein.”
“Ah ja, genau”
(both laughing)
Even correcting someone else takes some brain power and everyone understands. This structure has defeated us all, so getting it wrong is a good way to blend in ;).
If you get it correct though during a conversation… man… you’ll know instantly because it feels super smooth and it’ll be one of the most satisfying moments of your life.
All right.
So this was our short look at the specials we need to keep in mind when using lassen in combo with another verb in past tense.
Here are the two “systems” back to back again.
- Rapunzel hat ihr Haar runtergelassen. (normal past tense)
- Rapunzel let down her hair.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Rapunzel hat ihr Haar runterhängen lassen. (special rule, no ge)
- Rapunzel let her hair hang down.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And now, let’s move on to the next chapter: “Lassy Potter and the goblet of prefix”
Hooray :)
The Prefix Versions of “lassen”
And the prefix-versions of lassen are actually surprisingly straight forward because the core ideas we learned last time don’t really change much – namely the idea of not changing (aka to leave) and the idea of not preventing (aka to let).
First of, there’s a big group of prefix versions that add a generic notion of how or where to these. Like… not changing HOW something is, thus “allowing a state”…
- Ich lasse das Radio an / aus.
- I leave the radio on/off.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich habe das Fenster aufgelassen/zugelassen.
- I left open/closed the window.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
… or “allowing” a location. This is where we find all the what I call r-versions, because those are usually straight forward about location.
- Ich lasse die Katze rein/raus/rauf/runter/vorbei.
- I let the cat in /out /up/down/past me.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
…or sometimes both in one verb…
- Ich lasse bei der Sauce die Butter weg.
- I’m making the sauce without butter. (I’ll leave out the butter)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Mein Chef hat mich nicht weggelassen.
- My boss wouldn’t let me leave.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But of course, not all the prefix uses of lassen are THAT obvious.
There are more abstract or figurative uses.
Zulassen for example. Besides its literal meaning of leaving closed can also express that you let something happen. You let it come to you, if that makes sense.
- Das werde ich nicht zulassen.
- I won’t let that happen/I won’t allow that
(also used in context of approval of technical equipment)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Or überlassen which is about leaving something to someone. Think of handing “over”, if you need a logical connection :). It can be a decision as well as something physical and it can be in exchange for money or not.
- Das überlasse ich dir.
- I’ll leave that up to you.
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- Thomas überlässt der alten Dame den Platz/sein Auto für 100 Euro.
- Thomas leaves his seat for the lady/ sells her his car for 100 Euro.
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- Hier ist nichts dem Zufall überlassen.
- Nothing is left to chance here.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And another nice one is hinterlassen, which is about leaving behind, but ONLY in a context of messages or heritage.
- Ich bin zur Zeit nicht zu erreichen. Bitte hinterlassen Sie eine Nachricht nach dem Piep. Ich rufe dann zurück.
- I’m not available at the moment. Please leave (behind) a message after the tone. I’ll get back as soon as I can.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And I see we have a call here, Maggie from Motherwell in Scotland, welcome to the show…
“Hey Emanuel, quick question… from the examples for überlassen it looks like it’s non-separable, right?”
Oh yeah, it is, I forgot to point that out explicitly. And the same goes for hinterlassen, that’s also non-separable.
“Ah… so it would be ‘Ich habe eine Nachricht hinterlassen.’ right??”
Exactly.
“Great, thanks a lot.”
Thank you for pointing that out.
I often forget that hinter and über can be both – separable and inseparable – and that I have to tell you guys, because it’s pretty much impossible to guess.
Anyway, what’s clearly non-separable is the prefix ent- and the verb entlassen which originally was about letting someone “out” into freedom. It’s still used that way in context of prisoners, but the more common use these days is the sense of … letting go from work. Which can be a prison, too, so I guess it makes sense.
- Trotz der Corona-Krise versucht die Firma, keine Mitarbeiter zu entlassen.
- Despite the corona crisis, the company tries to not fire/lay off employees.
- Der Konzern droht mit Massenentlassungen.
- The company threatens mass lay-off .
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Then, there’s also belassen, which is just a technical, formal sounding variation of lassen in sense of not changing/leaving.
- Wir (be)lassen es dabei.
- We’ll leave it at that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And there’s erlassen which is also about “leaving out” in some way, but it actually has two meanings.
- Das Parlament erlässt ein Gesetz.
- The parliament passes a law.
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- Ganz Deutschland spart – MediaMarkt erlässt bis Freitag die Mehrwertsteuer.
- All of the US saves big time – Best Buy waives the VAT. Only till Friday.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
In the first example, erlassen “leaves” a law “out” into the public, in the second one it “leaves” a cost “out” from a bill.
And if you’re now like “Wait, so does that mean that er- means a notion of out?” then the answer is of course … kind of. But we’ll talk more about that in my book. You know, the one that I’ll be completing any year now. The Winds of Winter of German learning books.
Anyway, all of these prefix versions are kind of useful, but the most useful one of all of them is… verlassen. And that one actually deserves a closer look. And as we’re at it, we’ll also talk a bit about to leave… because it has been a translation in like half of the examples and maybe it would be good to put lassen, verlassen and to leave in perspective.
The Meaning of “(sich) verlassen”
We’ve seen to leave as a translation for lassen quite a lot, but the idea was always about not changing something. However, to leave can also express the idea of not staying.
And the question is, what does one have to do with the other.
Well, to leave is actually related to German bleiben and the original meaning was to remain. And also let remain. That’s the leaving we’ve seen so far, like leaving something on the table or something.
But slowly, slowly a second perspective evolved.
activates time machine
“But time travel is impossibl..”
time machine go brrrrr
And we’re at a little tavern in England 1200 years ago with some really really drunk Anglo-Saxons …
“MORE ALE!!!”
“But … but… I don’t have any left”
“What say thou… NO MORE ALE?!?!?!”
“Oh no, now they’ll harry my home.”
“Hell yeah, we will… but wait… harrying is not fun without ale. This makes no sense here. Let’s go somewhere else, folks.”
“Oh thank God, they are leaving (letting remain) my home.”
Get it? The connection between letting remain (leaving) and the idea of walking away (leaving) is simply letting something be by walking away. Tadah.
And while in English to leave has both meanings now, German split them up across two verbs, because that’s the German way. And so lassen took the notion of letting remain (not changing) while the idea of walking away to verlassen.
So, verlassen is actually what we need if we want to say leaving in sense of going away.
However, there are a few quite important differences.
First of – and this is gonna be a big one to get used to – verlassen MUST have an object.
In English, you can just leave. In German, you MUST leave someone or something.
- Honey, I’m leaving.
- Schatz, ich verlasse. … is super wrong
It sounds SUPER incomplete and weird to a German native speaker.
Let’s repeat that because it is a super common mistake… you cannot just say this:
- Ich verlassse.
In this context, you’d use losgehen or some other alternative for to head out.
- Schatz, ich geh los/ich mach mich auf./Ich mach mal los.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Another quite important difference is tone.
Verlassen sounds kind of formal or serious.
- Please log off when you leave your computer.
- Bitte loggen Sie sich aus, wenn Sie Ihren Computer verlassen.
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- Thomas und Maria sind sich nicht einig, wer wen verlassen hat.
- Thomas und Maria are in disagreement about who left whom.
Here, we have serious and formal contexts, so verlassen works well, but in the following example.. not so much.
- We left the bar at 2.
- Wir haben die Bar um 2 verlassen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The first example is a good match because it’s a formal work note, but the second one is NOT a good translation. The English version sounds normal, the German one sounds like it’s taken from a police report. People just don’t use verlassen in everyday contexts that much. Again, losgehen or something else with los are the idiomatic choices here.
But before you think that verlassen isn’t all that common after all… there is of course a side meaning. You can rely on that ;). Or in German…
- Man kann sich drauf verlassen, dass es immer eine zweite Bedeutung gibt.
- You can rely on the fact that there will always be a second meaning.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Yup, verlassen with a self reference (full phrasing: sich verlassen auf + Acc) means to rely on, to count on something. And it actually makes sense, if we look at the literal translation: sich auf jemanden verlassen literally means “leaving onself on someone“. You let your fate “rest” with the other person, or a thing. Your fate is left “lying” there, if you will. I mean… rely is technically NOT related to to lie, but it’s a good mnemonic.
Anyway, let’s look at a few examples.
- Du kannst dich auf mich verlassen.
- You can count on me.
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- Das hat ein Nachspiel, darauf kannst du dich verlassen.
- That will have consequences, you can be sure of that.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich muss mich 1000 prozentig auf meine Mitarbeiter verlassen können.
- I have to be able to trust my employees 1000 percent.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Auf Maria kann man sich nicht verlassen.
- Maria is not very reliable.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This phrasing really is quite common and there are also adjectives based on it.
- Die Waschmaschine ist sehr zuverlässig.
- The washing machine is very reliable.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria ist sehr unzuverlässig.
- Maria is not very reliable.
Cool.
And I think that’s pretty much it for today.
Well… maybe a little not about how to translate the word left.
I mean of course the form of the verb to leave, not the left side.
First up, we have left as in the past form of to leave. And there, it depends on the context.
- I left the door open.
- Ich habe die Tür offen gelassen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria hat Thomas zum dritten Mal verlassen.
- Maria left Thomas for the third time.
But left is often used as a sort of adjective.
- There’s one beer left.
And even though the idea is of course remaining, being left behind, this will often NOT be translated with a form of lassen or verlassen.
Instead, noch da or übrig, those are the proper translations. Or even just noch.
- Sie hat recht, ein Bier ist noch da/übrig.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Is there soup left.
- Ist noch Suppe da/übrig?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- I 30 minutes left when I handed in the test.
- Ich hatte noch 30 Minuten, als ich den Test abgegeben habe.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And… that’s actually it.
This completes our look at the meaning of lassen, its prefix versions and its grammar quirks and because I haven’t finished the quiz for this part yet, you now officially have an M. A. in the field of “Lassen”. You can print it on your cards and flash them in your teachers face next time they correct you :).
Seriously though, I hope it was helpful and you have a better understanding of lassen now. As always if you have any questions about lassen and what we’ve learned today or if you want to try out some examples just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
> weil, ich ihn gestern so lange habe warten lassen.
> Doing this on the fly during a conversation is a challenge even for natives, and you can hear blunders every day. It just takes because it takes an incredible amount of concentration and awareness to process this switcheroo in time before the mouth blabbers out stuff in the “normal” order.
If this rule goes against the natural order, how did it even come to be? Will this rule change in the future, if native speakers find it hard to stick to it?
I honestly have no idea where this alternative order came from but I don’t think it’s going away.
Putting the verbs into the “standard” order sounds super duper bad, so every native speaker will definitely try to avoid it somehow. If it does happen, then that’s kind of negative reinforcement. You said something that sounds REALLY bad and you want to avoid it next time.
I have no data on this obviously, but yeah.. that’s my personal guess.
> Putting the verbs into the “standard” order sounds super duper bad
Wow, didn’t know it was that bad. Nützliche Information.
Yeah, it’s visceral. I feel it in my body that it’s wrong. A bit like a train crash in slomo.
THANK YOU for this. I kept running into lassen while i was reading and i was like “WHAT is this doing here???” Past tense will be the end of me
Happy I could help :)
That “, dass ich sie habe schlafen lassen” blew my mind… I thought this structure appears only with hätten + modals. Is there a list of all verbs where this structure is used? Beside lassen, werden and maybe sehen/hören
Whenever you have three, so all modal verbs plus lassen, sehen, hören.
I have a section about this in my series on conditional. Can’t think of the article right now, but it’s NOT limited to conditional. It’s a rhythm thing that happens when three are clustered up
– … dass ich hätte kommen müssen/wollen/können…
– dass sich die habe singen hören (sounds odd either way you phrase it)
Hmm, If I want to say….Can we leave our baggage here…. Sollte ich sage….”können wir unser Gepäck hier verlassen” oder “können wir unser Gepäck hier lassen” – in the context – I know im checking out but I want to leave my bags here and come back later to pick them.
Definitely “lassen”!!!
“verlassen” would sound like you’re parting ways with your luggage, that you were also friends with.
oh no, I’m pretty sure I used verlassen when when I was last in Berlin. :-(
For Zulassen you could also say you’re leaving it to be. Ich lasse es zu sein
Uh… nope, not in German. That means “I leave it closed.”
What does that mean in English?
I think i meant ‘let it be’, or ‘leave it alone’. I also realised lassen might already mean that itself but I’m not sure now.
For me zulassen with the window example is leaving it closed, letting it be. Can you use it to say you’re closing the window when it’s open though?
Thinking about hinterlassen , which i thought might be a candidate for the idea of moving on from a stage of ones life or from a relationship or bad experience, but it sounds like it wouldn’t work. How would you translate something like “he wanted to leave his old way of life behind him and move on to a new, healthier existence?
That’s “hinter sich+Dativ lassen” :).
And yes, “hinterlassen” would logically make sense, but the language tree just didn’t grow in that direction.
danke!
Oh, ist das dein Neujahrsvorsatz?
Die Frage passt der Jahereszeit oder? Also, Neujahrsvorsätze sind nicht mein Ding aber ich habe über diese Theme nachgedacht, und wollte wissen, wie man “to leave the past behind” in Deustsch übersetzt wird. Kaffeetrinken aufzuhören ist bei mir momentan eine Theme. Ich trinke zu viel Kaffee und davon kriege ich Angst, deswegen möchte ich weniger Kaffee trinken…. Kein Neujahrsvorsatz aber allerdings ein Vorsatz…
„ Lassy Potter and the goblet of prefix“: this blogs genius knows no bounds…
Rapunzel hat ihr Haar runtergelassen. Could there be a reflexive
pronoun there ? like there often is with things to do with the body „ich wasche mir die Haare ? „ Like „Rapunzel hat ihr ihr Haar runtergelassen“ ?
The key thing about this Dative reflexive that you see in body related things is that you yourself are the benefactor if the act.
As you can see, the Dative really just indicates who gets to benefit from the hair washing and that can be myself or another person, the grammar is the same.
With “letting down the hair”, it’s a bit harder to have a context where Rapunzel herself would be the benefactor of that. You could say
In this case, I “receive” the hair she lets down.
This would only make sense if you want to express that having the hair down is somehow more comfortable for her (she is the benefactor), but the more idiomatic phrasing there is “sich die Haare aufmachen”.
Oh and you wrote “ihr ihr”… the reflexive third person is “sich”, so it would be “sich ihr”.
Hope that helps.
thanks, yeah, that does make sense
I noticed the Rapunzel example uses the singular Haar like in English. Do you know if in earlier times that used to be the norm in German? or is there another reason for it?
Good observation!!
“das Haar” actually has two meanings in German:
It sounds a bit poetic for everyday life to refer to your hair in the singular, but it’s not completely outdated and you can hear it in ads, too.
Hope that helps.
Hi, cool work with “lassen”. To put it all to the relaxed “let it be, let it be” feeling. There is just one question I have. For “anlassen”, there is a second meaning you didn’t meantion. When you say:
Ich lasse das Auto an. That can mean: You let the car running, but more often you mean “to start the car”. So how does this “anlassen” = “to start” fit into the picture? Is the car being (in a demanding sense) allowed to start up? Yes, that seems okay, but it does not really feel that way if you say it. There it feels like the action realy comes from you not the car. I am saying nonsense, huh. Did you mention “einlassen” by the way? “To let yourself be involved with” or is there a better translation?
Thanks for keeping up the good work.
This “anlassen” in context of is actually really odd. Based on the logic I used in the article it sounds like the engine is a caged animal that you unleash. I checked Google books for some old instances and it looks like people called starting an engine “anlassen” already at the end of the 19th century
https://www.google.de/search?q=%22motor+anlassen%22&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1800,cd_max:1904&lr=lang_de&gws_rd=cr,ssl&ei=OyESV-nECIubsgGx8Yq4Aw
Maybe starting an engine was more than just flipping a switch and that’s why “anschalten” didn’t feel appropriate. “Anlassen” does sound like it’s a process to me, even though it’s super quick these days.
Grimms dictionary mentions that anlassen had the notion of starting already centuries ago.
https://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/?sigle=DWB&mode=Vernetzung&lemid=GA04243#XGA04243
As for “sich auf etwas einlassen”… the only translation I could come up with myself was “to play ball” but that’s probably not the best. On Linguee I found different translations depending on context. Engage, become involved. Going by the examples I found using your suggestion I’d say yours is by far the best option.
Thanks for bringing up those two meanings
Thank you. If you look at it historically “to start a car” began with turning this crank lever around and if you were not careful it could rip your arms off. So to look at it like at a furious beast might not be so far of. That makes sense.
Was wäre der Unterschied zwischen lassen und liegen lassen im folgenden Beispiel.
– Ich lasse den Schlüssel auf dem Tisch.
– Ich lasse den Schlüssel auf dem Tisch liegen.
Wenn ich das Ganze richtig verstehe, beide Sätzen sind richtig? Stimmt das?
Ja, sie sind beide richtig. Der erste klingt mehr nach Absicht, der zweite ein bisschen mehr so, als ob ich den Schlüssel da vergessen habe.
It is almost always used in the infinitive (he asked them to desist, they would not desist) or imperative (cease and desist). It’s pretty formal and ‘legalese’.
https://sentence.yourdictionary.com/desist
Danke! It does seem like a good fit, though I wouldn’t use “unterlassen” in historical texts (like the ones at the link). It sounds too bureaucratic, at least to my ears.
I looked up a few related words (mostly used in law contexts)
– Unterlassungserklärung
– declaration of cease and desist
– Unterlassungsklage
– injunction suit
– unterlassene Hilfeleistung
– failure to render assistance/denial of assistance
Oh and there’s one which is not technical at all
– ohne Unterlass (fixed phrase, slightly poetic)
– incessantly/without a break
I guess a good translation for ‘unterlassen’ would be ‘to desist’.
How would you use that in a sentence (just wondering about the grammar) ?
“Please desist from using such innuendos in the future”.
But it’s seldom used, and would make you sound a bit up yourself.
Was den Ersatzinfinitiv mit “pseudomodalen” Verben in Nebensätzen betrifft, sind laut canoo beide Formen zulässig:
“Wenn eine Verbgruppe einen Ersatzinfinitiv von heißen, lassen, helfen, sehen fühlen, hören enthält und dieser Ersatzinfinitiv vom Hilfsverb haben abhängig ist, wird das finite Hilfsverb im Nebensatz in der Regel vor die Verbgruppe gestellt. Zumindest bei lassen, sehen, fühlen, hören gilt aber die Endstellung des finiten Hilfsverbs auch als korrekt:
weil man euch hat kommen heißen nicht weil man euch kommen heißen hat
nachdem ich ihm habe aufräumen helfen nicht nachdem ich ihm aufräumen helfen habe
bevor du das Glas hast fallen lassen auch bevor du das Glas fallen lassen hast
weil sie euch haben ankommen sehen auch weil sie euch ankommen sehen haben
obwohl er sie hatte lachen hören auch obwohl er sie lachen hören hatte”
Also das zweite Beispiel klingt für mich extrem falsch.
.. nachdem… habe aufräumen helfen.
Das würde ich NIE sagen und auch wohl nicht sofort verstehen. Immer “beim Aufräumen geholfen habe” oder wenn dann “aufräumen geholfen habe”
Beim Glas-Beispiel würde ich wohl
– … das Glas fallen gelassen hast
sagen. Und
– … das Glas fallen hast lassen.
klingt für mich genauso richtig wie alle anderen.
… ankommen sehen haben
Das klingt für mich auch extrem falsch und ich würde bei der Struktur “gesehen” bevorzugen. Genauso bei “hören”
Entweder:
– hatte lachen hören.
oder
– lachen gehört hatte.
aber nicht
– lachen hören hatte.
Ich kann das nicht belegen, aber ich glaube, was bei Canoo steht ist in dem Fall an der Sprachrealität vorbei
Hi Manuel, happy new year and thank you so much again for this groundbreaking blog :)
i was reading this old post and wasn’t quite sure about the verb order in side sentences like these ones. Mentioning your example from up above,where it reads:
-weil, ich ihn gestern so lange habe warten lassen.
Does this happen with any verb and tense formed from 3 or more verbs?
Also, other verb orders are acceptable, but less idiomatic or must be conjugated differently? Like this sentence can be also rephrased as:
I’m trying to understand if this shifting is something that happens to certain verbs or tenses only, or applies to any.
Also In a manga scanlation I’ve just read ‘…warten lassen habe’ but from what I read in this article this is utterly wrong,right?
Emanuel. Ugh hadn’t noticed the spell checker had deleted the ‘e’, my bad
Well, “warten lassen habe” is wrong, but not utterly wrong.
Germans do say it on occasion, because believe or not, ordering these three verbs in the right way at the end of a long sentence does trip up native speakers sometimes
So don’t worry too much about getting it right. Native speakers struggle with this too.
And yes, it applies to all tense
Great! Thank you so much for clarifying it :)
Mein Beispiel aus dem letzten Thread:
Der Zauberer ließ den Mann dessen Bierglas fallen lassen.
Mal sehen, ob wir es krasser machen könnten (wobei ich mir nicht sicher bin, dass irgendeins unterer Beispiele stimmt).
Der Zauberer hat den Mann dessen Bierglas fallen lassen lassen.
Der Oberzauberer ließ den Zauberer den Mann dessen Bierglas fallen lassen lassen.
Der Oberzauberer hat den Zauberer den Mann dessen Bierglas fallen lassen lassen lassen.
;)
Alse der erste von den drei Sätzen ist kein Problem, bei den beiden anderen muss ich überlegen. Besonders beim Dritten bin ich mir nicht sicher, ob ich es nur verstehe, weil ich weiß, was gemeint ist, oder ob ich es auch in einem Text verstanden hätte. Ich glaube eher nicht, ich kriege es auf jeden Fall nicht mental als Einheit gegriffen (was mit “habe Klavier spielen lernen können” kein Problem ist) Ein Teil von mir sagt, dass da ein “gelassen” ganz gut passen könnte…
– Der Mann hat die Frau das Kind etwas machen lassen (ge)lassen.
Keine Ahnung, ob es dazu Literatur gibt :)
Der Oberzauberer hat den Zauberer den Mann dessen Bierglas fallen lassen lernen lassen können? :D
Ja, technisch richtig. Man könnte sagen, ich habe es mit einigem Aufwand verstanden gekriegt.
Ich glaube, die Hauptbedeutungen von “lassen” lassen sich durch zwei vom Verb abgeleitete Verben ausdrücken: zulassen und veranlassen.
Der Richter lässt mich das Protokol führen.
=
Der Richter veranlasst, dass ich das Protokol führe.
Der Richter lässt den Anwalt die neuen Beweise beibringen.
=
Der Richter lässt zu, dass der Anwalt die neuen Beweise beibringt.
Allerdings ist die Grenze dazwischen nicht immer klar.
Dabei soll man auch aufpassen: “veranlassen” leitet sich nicht direkt von “lassen” ab, sondern durch das Substantiv “Anlass”. Deswegen wird es schwach konjugiert:
er veranlasst, nicht *veranlässt
ich habe veranlasst, nicht *veranlassen
Korrektur: Protokoll
Na, da fehlt dann aber komplett der “nicht machen”-Aspekt und der ist in der Alltagssprache relativ wichtig.
Great articles as ever thanks, these really help.
Can you comment on gelassen as in relaxed, are there any nuances with it or is it a reliable translation for cool, relaxed, chilled etc?
Man kann sich drauf verlassen, dass es gibt immer eine zweite Bedeutung. -> Man kann sich drauf verlassen, dass es immer eine zweite Bedeutung gibt.
Ops… editing mistakes 101. I had the second part to be the main sentence first :)… vielen Dank!
Re: Butter bei der Sauce weglassen… Nein, “leave away” geht nicht und klingt auch komisch. “Leave out” wäre in Ordnung: “I’m leaving the butter out of the sauce.” (Übrigens steht da “I doing the sauce” anstatt “I’m making the sauce”…) (Also, please don’t leave the butter out of the sauce! That’s the best part.)
Zum Thema “jmdn. verlassen,” ich glaube, dass “leave someone” ziemlich ähnlich wirkt. Nicht immer: “I left the kids with my mom while I went shopping.” Aber “I’m leaving you” ohne weiteres zu sagen ist total definitiv und kommt fast immer im Zusammenhang vom Ende einer Beziehung vor.
Ja, bei “do” und “make” bin ich mir immer nicht sicher und mir hat mal eine Amerikanerin gesagt, dass man sich keinen Espresso “makes”, sondern “prepares” oder “fixes”. Was das kochen an sich angeht…Butter passt nicht überall. Es ist wie so eine Art Mörtel, der zwar bindet und wärmt, aber gleichtzeitig vielleicht interessante Strukturen der Wand überschmiert :D
Ha, das war voll snobbisch von ihr… Doch “makes” man Espresso und “make” passt fast überall (im Gegensatz zu Butter…), wo es sich ums Vorbereiten von Essen/Getränke handelt. Es ging in meiner Korrektur aber nur darum, dass du “I’m” weggelassen hast. Eigentlich wäre “I’m doing the sauce without butter” etwas umgangssprachlich aber nicht völlig falsch. Ich habe gemerkt, dass “do” öfter im Britischen auftaucht als bei uns Amis.
Im großen und ganzen hat “make” etwas mit schaffen oder Ursprung sein oder verursachen zu tun, mit dem Anfang von etwas. “Do” hat eher mit dem Vollziehen zu tun, also es ist nach Fertigstellung orientiert. Ein Lehrer “makes” Hausaufgaben, die Schüler “do” sie. Es gibt wahrscheinlich jede Menge Ausnahmen aber hoffentlich hilft das ein bisschen wenn du es noch nicht so wahrgenommen hast. Bei “machen” und “tun” bin ich mir auch ein bisschen unsicher aber kann mich darauf verlassen, dass “machen” meistens richtig ist. :)
Ich glaube, man würde wahrscheinlich sagen, “You can (always) rely on the fact that…” oder “You can (always) rely on German to have another meaning”. Es ist komisch, aber auf Englisch muss man immer “rely on something”, und du kannst “always” in diesem Fall verwenden, wenn du ein bisschen idiomatischer klingen willst.
Bei diesen Beispielen freue ich mich, dass ich Englisch nicht lernen muss… (dieser Satz war ein Experiment, sag mir mall, ob es Sinn macht!)
oder zumindest wäre ich ein bisschen verwirrt, wenn du sagst, “You can rely on that there will always be a second meaning”, vielleicht ist es anders irgendwo anderes.
Man kann auch “you can rely/count/bet on that” sagen… aber erst wenn es keinen anderen Satz gibt.
Ha… das ist eigentlich ziemlich “Deutsch” von Englisch hier :). Ich dachte es geht vielleicht, aber im Deutschen Satz ist ja auch “darauf” drin. Er ist also quasi “in that, that…”
Und ja, der Satz macht für mich Sinn… ich hätte vielleicht “solchen” gesagt, aber das ist nicht wichtig.
Ich finde jag041s zweite Übersetzung besser: “You can (always) rely on German to have…” Da passt auch “count” gut. Man kann es auch so formulieren: “You can (always) count on German having…” aber lieber nicht mit “rely.” Für mich wirkt “rely” etwas vermenschlichend wenn es nicht direkt um Menschen geht, also man verlässt sich auf das “Handeln” und nicht auf den Umstand, dass irgendetwas passiert (auch wenn das, was passiert, eigentlich als Handeln zählt). Boah, keine Ahnung, ob das überhaupt Sinn macht…
– You can always rely on it raining when you forget your umbrella. – Umstand (also klingt für mich ein bisschen komisch)
– You can always rely on it to rain when you forget your umbrella. – Vermenschlichtes “it” (was auch für mich komisch klingt aber nur deswegen, dass “it” betont wird)
– You can always rely on the weather to punish you for forgetting your umbrella. – Vermenschlichtes “weather” (stilistisch gut)
“Count” passt sehr gut in die ersten und dritten Sätze.
Das Problem ist, dass in dem Beispiel “Deutsch/German” überhaupt nicht auftaucht :). Das habt ihr reingelesen. Deshalb ist “rely on the fact” besser. Auch von der Struktur her
– You can rely on German to verb.
That would be
– Du kannst dich darauf verlassen, dass Deutsch verbt.
rather than
– Du kannst dich auf Deutsch verlassen zu verben.
Vielleicht ist das sogar falsch. Man sagt also entweder
– Ich verlasse mich auf eine Person.
im Sinne von
– I rely/count on someone.
oder
– Ich verlasse mich darauf, dass etwas passiert/jemand etwas macht.
aber nicht
– Ich verlasse mich auf dich + eine Aktion
Danke für die Nuancen über “to rely”. Sowas ist sehr interessant für mich :)
Na ja, das stimmt aber es zeigt auch, was ich meinte. Wir haben beide “Deutsch” reingelesen, weil “verlassen” mit “rely” übersetzt wurde und wir haben erwartet, dass es quasi ein “jemand” als Objekt gäbe. In meinen Ohren ist “fact” zu abstrakt dafür. Am liebsten würde ich mit “count on” übersetzen: “You can count on there always being a second meaning.” Aber das ist alles wahrscheinlich nur Erbsenzählerei von mir, keiner würde dich korrigieren wenn du sagst, “You can rely on there always being a second meaning” und es kann gut sein, dass du das irgendwann von einem Muttersprachler hörst.
Zu den Nuancen:
– I’m counting on him to verb/verbing.
heißt (ohne weiteren Kontext), dass ich davon ausgehe, dass er verben wird (egal ob meinetwegen oder nicht) und dass ich mich auf diese Möglichkeit verlasse.
– I’m relying on him to verb.
sagt eher, dass ich mich auf ihn verlasse in der Hoffnung, dass er verbt (mit der Andeutung, dass er mir hilft, indem er verbt).
Würde man beides mit “Ich verlasse mich darauf, dass er verbt” übersetzen?
Als ich das aufgeschrieben habe, dachte ich das auch… Darum ist Englisch so verwirrend… Manchmal nach Deutsch, manchmal nach etwas anderes