Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of
lenken
Lenken is one of those words that many learners somehow miss out on even though it is something we do every day. No wonder, because can lenken can be done to all kinds of things… bikes, cars, companies, rivers, attentions, lives and more. Quite a selection, right? The thing that all these have in common is that they move. And lenken is about giving the movement direction.
Today we’ll find out how exactly to use lenken, what related words there are and of course what’s up with the prefix versions one of which is really really really important in context of THIS.
Haha… the second one… so cute. Anyway, where was I. Uh yeah… so are you ready to dive in and find out about lenken? Great :).
Lenken comes from the old Germanic noun lanca which once was the word for hip. No, not Chai-Almond-Latte-with-Choco-Chia-Drizzle-hip. The other hip. The one where that chai latte settles down as fat. Lanca comes from one of the many Indo-European roots for bending, and the original idea was simply part where the body bends. In German this evolved into the very useful word Gelenk which is the word for all joints.
- Mein Handgelenk tut weh.
- My wrist hurts.
- Maria ist sehr gelenkig.
- Maria is very limber.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Lanka is also the origin of the word link, and this word actually kind of combines all the idea of the family. A link in a chain is bent, a chain itself bends, and the links are kind of like the joints (Gelenke) of the chain. But that’s not all. Today there’s another kind of link. The internet link. And what do those do? They direct us somewhere. Just like lenken :). Because that’s what lenken is all about… giving direction to a movement.
And now with the history out of the way, let’s look at lenken in action.
And we’ll start with some examples from traffic where it means to guide or to steer.
- Ich lenke nach links.
- I steer left.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Selbstlenkende Autos sind keine Zukunftsvision mehr.
- Self-guiding cars are not a vision of the future anymore.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich lenke also bin ich.
- I steer therefor I am.
(real book title of a book about biking in Berlin… word play with the famous “Ich denke also bin ich”)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And here are a couple of important nouns:
- Das Lenkrad lässt sich schwerer als normal drehen.
- The (steering) wheel is harder to turn than normally.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich hab’ einen Kaffeehalter an meinem Lenker.
- I have a coffee cup holder on my handlebar.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But as we’ve mentioned it’s not limited to traffic so let’s look at some other examples, too.
- Lenken sie nun all ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf ihren kleinen Zeh.
- Now, direct all your attention into your small toe.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Thomas will seine kreative Energie in nützliche Bahnen lenken.
Lit.: Thomas wants to steer his creative energy into useful tracks/orbits. - Thomas wants to channel his creative energy in a useful way.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Frau Schmidt lenkt den Konzern seit über 10 Jahren.
- Mrs. Smith has been at the helm of the corporation for more than 10 years.
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- Der Mensch denkt, Gott lenkt.
- Man proposes, God disposes.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The translation of the last one (common idiom, at least in German) is a bit odd. I guess the translator took some liberty because he or she wanted a rhyme but … in a normal contexts lenken is definitely NOT be a good translation for to dispose.
Anyways… now let’s get to the prefix versi… oh hold on, there’s a call here. Henne from Norway, welcome to the show. What can I do for you
“Hey Emanuel, so great to be on the show. I have a question…. well two actually”
Sure, go right ahead.
“Cool, so I’m confused about steuern. I’ve heard that used in context
of cars and I was wondering if there’s any difference to lenken.”
That’s a great question… steuern is actually the direct brother of to steer and the whole “helm” of a car for example is usually called das Steuer but as a verb itself it is not used that much for cars and not at all for bikes. It kind of sounds bigger, heavier, clunkier than lenken, and I wouldn’t use it in any of the examples we had.
“Oh okay… so it’s more the vibe than the meaning.”
Yeah… lenken sounds smooth… oh and also, lenken is a pretty continuous act and closely connected to direction. Steuern is also used for controls that only give one instruction per hour. Like… imagine a computer that turns on your coffee machine at a certain time… you can call that steuern but not lenken. Does that help?
“Yeah I think I got it. Great, thanks so much.”
Oh thank you for calling, this was a great question. Maybe I’ll actually do a WotD on steuern.
“Oh you mean because it also mean t…”
Hello, hello Henne are you there? Hmmm weird, I guess the connection failed.
Anyway, now let’s get to the prefix versions. And there’s one which is really really really useful: ablenken.
Ablenken is about directing something off the track or trajectory. In real world contexts it translates to deflect.
- Thomas schießt und sein Mitspieler lenkt den Ball unhaltbar ab.
- Thomas shoots and his teammate deflects the ball making it unstoppable.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But the really important use is about “de-routing” an abstract thing… our attention. Ablenken is THE word for to distract.
- Die besten Tipps wie Sie sich vom Rauchen ablenken.
- The best tips how to take your mind off smoking.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Das Geräusch lenkt mich ab.
- The noise distracts me.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Wo warst du?”
“Äh… ich… sag mal , ist das Hemd neu?”
“Lenk nicht ab!” (SUPER COMMON!!!) - “Where have you been?”
“I … uh… hey, is that a new shirt?”
“Don’t try to switch the topic.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
There’s are also two common related words… die Ablenkung and abgelenkt.
- Nacktpicknick neben der Landstrasse führt zu größtem Auffahrunfall in 10 Jahren – alle waren Zitat “kurz abgelenkt.”
- Nude picnic causes biggest pile-up (car accident) in 10 years – everybody was quote “distracted for a second”
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria und ihre beste Freundin machen heute Ablenkungsshopping.
- Maria and her best friend want to go distraction shopping.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Theoretically there is also ablenkend which would be the equivalent to distracting but nobody uses it. You could use störend or nervig or you could just make a normal sentence.
- That sound is distracting.
- Das Geräusch stört/nervt/lenkt ab.
- He has a distracting voice.
- Er hat eine nervige Stimme./Seine Stimme ist nervig.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
All right.
Besides ablenken there are a few others. Umlenken is just a general term for changing abstract directions, einlenken is about changing the direction in a discussion and coming around to the course of the other party. Umlenken is mostly used for changing of abstract courses and auslenken is mainly used in physics in context of moving something out of the normal position.
Here are some examples…
- Wenn ein Drucker nicht geht, kann man den Druckauftrag auf einen anderen Drucker im Netzwerk umlenken.
- If the office printer isn’t working you can redirect the printing order to a different printer in the network.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Thomas signalisiert ein Einlenken beim Putzplan.
- The party signals relenting in the matter of the cleaning schedule.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Die Auslenkung der Feder/Amplitude ist jetzt maximal.
- Now the elongation/displacement of the coil/amplitude is at its maximum.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
but neither of those is really common so I’d say… passive pile.
The one you need is this one.
… …. hahaha… at 0:45 the move… so funny…. hahah.. oh my God that is so cu… oh… oh sorry, I forgot we’re still on. But I think we’re done for today anyway :).This was our German Word of the Day lenken. It is related to link and it’s a continuous rather hands on way of giving direction. It’s THE word for steering cars and bikes but it also works for abstract stuff.
As always, if you have any questions or suggestions or if you want to try out some examples just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.
** vocab **
lenken – to steer, to direct (continuous process)
die Lenkung – the steering
das Lenkrad – the (steering wheel)
der Lenker – the handlebar (also used for managers)
ablenken – to deflect, to distract, to divert
die Ablenkung – the distraction (both good and bad), result of a diversion
das Ablenkungsmanöver – the diversion
abgelenkt – distracted
einlenken – come around, give in, relent
umlenken – change direction (all kinds of abstract stuff, not really for cars and bikes)
auslenken – to displace, to deflect (physics)
die Auslenkung – displacement, elongation (for a coil for example)
das Gelenk – the joint
das Handgelenk – the wrist
das Sprunggelenk – the ankle
gelenkig – limber
ungelenk – ungainly, bearish
Why “ Lenkt nicht ab!”?is referring to DU right? Why not lenke nicht ab?or lenk nicht ab? Dankeschön
Yup, should be “lenk”. Good catch, I fixed it. Danke!!
Oh, good. I was afraid there was another evil trick in the language :)
Thank you, this is a very useful sentence!
U
?
So that’s where Gelenk comes from. Fascinating. It’s a nice mental picture to remember the meaning, since joints move fluidly/continuously (at least when they’re working right) and you can use them to change your direction or the direction of stuff you touch. That at least helps me separate “lenken” from the other verbs about bending, steering, guiding, and the comments on this article were really interesting too.
It looks like “flank” is related (makes sense I guess, a bendy body part) and also “flinch.”
It’s nice to have the option to log out. I’m not sure I’ll use it as much as dark mode, but it definitely could come in handy.
How does einlenken feel compared to überreden lassen or breitschlagen lassen?
“einlenken” is a result of the other two.
It’s what you do. The other are about what you allow.
Does that help :)?
Yes, I think so. Thanks.
One note about “to dispose”. In some contexts dispose could mean “direct” or “command” such as when saying “I will use all the means at my disposal to accomplish the task.”
The Latin root “disponere” meant “to arrange” and the French “poser” meant “to place”.
So it could be closer to lenken than you think.
It’s more recent that it came to mean “place in the trash”.
Thanks for the awesome descriptions of German words!
There are a few children of “dispose” in German… “disponieren”, “die Disposition” und “die Dispo” (schedule on movie shoots) , “disponieren”, “umdispionieren” . They’re all used in a broad context of arranging. They just all sound a bit technical and dry.
Hallo! I am very interested in having skype 1-to-1 lessons with you. Can you give private lessons? If you can, could we talk further through email? Thank you!!!
Hey Carolina, no I don’t do skype. I simply don’t have enough time at the moment. Tut mir leid :)
Hi, I loved the article as usual, but I had an entirely unrelated question. Why does ‘die Brille’ mean ‘toilet seat’ in addition to ‘glasses’? Do you have any idea how one word has come to have two totally different meanings?
Auf Französisch, “les lunettes” bedeutet “glasses/spectacles”. Und “la lunette” bedeutet, unter anderem, “toilet seat”. Koinzidenz?
Haha… wie cool.
Hah… no idea :). But both have rims. And both have a similar shape. And you put on both if you want to read ;)
Just when I thought you had taught me everything there was to know and BOOF, out comes an ace from your sleeve. Lenken seems to have fallen under my radar over the years. must have been ein bisschen abgelenkt when it popped its head out from beneath the woodwork. I had genuinely never heard of it until you posted just there. I knew about lenkrad and gelenken but hadn’t made THE connection. That’s what you do here better than anything, you make the connection for us that makes all the words seamlessly fit together under one umbrella. What is the German word for the theoretical abstract connecting of things? Like I figure/suss out something, means I make a connection. I know die Verbindung but I think that’s more an electrically orientated word, more for actual physical things that are connected together, like a computer to the internet through a cable, but i’m sure that’s not the correct word for the abstract idea. Also one more question. Is there a name for constructions, when you use only the prefix verb together with a negation or participle to form a three or four letter sentence that only contains the verb first, its negation/participle/direction and then then the separable prefix at the end e.g lenkt nicht ab (danke), komm mal rein, schau mal hier an, schiess mal los (I love that one), dreh sich um or nicht schlapp machen? Ok that last one probably doesn’t fit the same but I added it because I like the sound of it, its fits at least in rhythm. Whatever they are called, I especially love learning/hearing them, they sound very German to me, real native stuff.
Imperativ.
What I’d really like to know is how the “impersonal imperative” is called. Like: Nicht Peter ablenken!
Keine Ahnung, da müsste ich wohl etwas graben. Aber nicht im Sommer :)
Yeah, I feel like there’s a whole bunch of these “below the radar”-words. Like “kriegen” or “lenken” or “schieben”. They’re everywhere every day but even B1 or B2 students kind of miss out of them because they’re not giving attention in text books. No idea why. But I’m sure I’ll have a few more surprises for you in the future :).
As for your questions:
“Verbindung” does work for abstract connections too, but it is more about two-point connections that allow some kind of transfer. In this context I think “der Zusammenhang”.
– Zwischen gutem Bier und guter Laune besteht ein Zusammenhang.
Here, you wouldn’t use “Verbindung”. It would sound like they know each other or both know the same person.
If you have more than just one interdependence, you could use “die Zusammenhänge” .
I should say though that in German you do not “make” the “Zusammenhang/Verbingung”. I can’t think of a nice idiomatic way for that right now. A generic option would be
– Ich hab den Zusammenhang nicht kapiert/gesehen.
but I guess there’s some others as well.
As for those three word sentences… those are just imperatives.
– Komm mal rein!
– Come in!
You can nicely see with those how prefix verbs and phrasal verbs are essentially the same stuff.
– Eat up!
– Iss auf!
One language says “to eat up” is the infinitive, the other says it’s “aufessen”.
And the mal is just there, to make it less command-y.
– Iss auf. (DUN DUN!)
These are two stressed syllables in a row and nothing else. Hence the “bark-y-ness”. An unstressed “mal” in between softens that.
– Iss mal auf.
– DUN dut DUN!
That’s also one of the reasons (I think) that you don’t need “mal” as much when there’s another unstressed word.
– KOmm (mal) schnell rein!
– Dreh dich (mal) um.
As for a name for the ones that are just infinitive
– Nicht schlapp machen! (really nice one :)
I’ll look it up… but not in summer :D
These ones are super common by the way.
– Heute abend ist Party. Deshalb ist viel Bier im Kühlschrank. Nicht wundern.
Hi, so you can use *lenken* or *Umlenken* to point out that you change your mind? in case of abstract examples
Actually, neither one really works for changing the mind. “lenken” does imply some action. Some course correction. You wouldn’t use “umlenken” in daily contexts … like… you want pizza your friends wants kebab, you discuss and then you change your mind. I don’t think you’ll need “umlenken” ever in daily conversation.
Oh and “lenken” alone is too imprecise. It doesn’t by itself carry enough notion of course correction (though of course technically it is). “Lenken” is really just about general steering.
Hope that helps
Can lenken be used as a synonym for “to guide”, in the context of physically moving a person in the direction you want them to go. For example, if you were in a crowded shopping centre and you put your hand on your partner’s shoulder and steer/guide them in the direction you need them to go rather than yelling over the crowd? Or is a different verb used for this?
Also, I’ve been having a problem with the site over the last few days. Posts on the main page have been disappearing/rearranging themselves. I missed “Listen to German – 1” when it was posted as it appeared under the post for “Fähig” and now the post for “Fähig” is under the post for “rücken” (after vanishing for a little while earlier today). “Ausnahme” has also disappeared, reappeared, and rearranged itself. I’m not sure if you are doing something with the archives or if it’s a wordpress thing, and maybe you’re aware that it’s happening – but I thought I’d mention it just in case.
Good question and no, I wouldn’t use “lenken” in this case because it’s a simple one time turn and “lenken” implies a continuous directing (at least in most contexts). People do use “lenken” in sense of guiding people through a store but then it’s in context of store layout… so it’s about guiding them all the way.
As for the shuffling… yes, I’m aware of that and it’s really annoying. The problem is that WordPress assigns the posts with a date in the slug and they take the date of the very first draft. Then, when I publish it a few weeks later with a few posts in between it ends up NOT on the top of the home page. I only found out about that recently and now I have found a workaround, so I hope it won’t happen again. I’ll also nag WordPress a bit because it’s a really stupid feature. By the way… did you sign up for email notification? That way you’d not miss anything (and no, I don’t send anything other than post notifications)
how do i contact you?
i have a proposal to make.
just send an email to : info[at]german-is-easy.com
thanls but you havent replied..
I need a few days sometimes.
hope you reply soon though
Well, then I’ll reply here now… I actually do have a Facebook page of my own. I just didn’t add it to the links because I don’t do much there. I’ve checked out your page you seem to be very active there. Great job!!
You’re absolutely welcome to share it on the link page or in a comment on any post you like. But I’m not going to add it to the link page because I’ve gotten quite a few requests and it wouldn’t be fair toward the others and I want to have just a few links there. Anyway…. if you think it’s helpful I could give your page a shout out in an upcoming post. Let me know.
that would be very amazing… Thanks!! :-) ;-) :-
“Der Mensch denkt, Gott lenkt.
Man proposes, God disposes.”
We also have this proverb:
“Chelovek predpolagayet, a Bog raspolagayet”.
Also, as I was reading, I thought of “lanky”, and sure enough it stems from the same root.
I imagine the sayings in various languages are derived from Proverbs 16:9, which in Hebrew sort of rhymes, I guess: Lev ‘adam yechashev darkho; vaAdonai yakhin tsa`ado. (“A person’s heart plans his way; but the Lord establishes his steps.”)
Probably, but that doesn’t explain why they all rhyme :d
Does the English one really rhyme though ;)
Sure.
As someone who is more than “bibelfest”, and who knows German quite well… what’s your impression of the German and the English version? To me, they do not feel the same at all. The English one feels kind of harsh to me. Like man is like “I have an idea, let’s do it this way.” and God’s just like “NO! That the other way.” The German version sounds more like man just runs around doing all kinds of stuff while God watches and does a little course correction here and there.
Oh and then, the Hebrew saying seems like something entirely different again because it speaks of “heart” while the others seem very head-driven.
I don’t know about ancient Hebrews, but their next-door neighbours, the ancient Egyptians, believed that intelligent thought originated in the heart. The meaning conveyed to the original audience might have been quite different from what is understood by a modern one from the word “heart”.
Yeah, this is more or less the case for ancient Hebrew – the heart is the seat of thought and will (together with the kidneys). The seat of the emotions? The intestines. :)
I do think the English version sounds a little harsher to modern ears, but that really could just be because “propose” and “dispose” have shifted a bit in meaning (or at least connotation). In any case, I think the meaning of the proverb is the same – people come up with plans, but the outcome is ultimately in God’s hands.
Oh that’s really interesting. Thanks for that insight!!
The verse from Proverbs may well be where his inspiration came from, but Thomas à Kempis (von Kempen) is credited with “Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit”, which was likely the beginning of all the short, rhyming “proverbs” in various languages.
Спасибо, Grateful Reader, for the Russian one.
Never heard of “lanky”. Good one :).
From the looks of the words the Russian version of the proverb seems like a pretty much literal translation of the Latin original, right?
Wahrscheinlich. Ich müsste die lateinischen Bedeutungsnuancen kennen, um das zu beantworten.
Übrigens, würd’ Folgendes auch gehen?
Mensch [nur] überlegt, während Gott festlegt.
(Ich weiß, Verbzweitstellung; aber man verzichtet oft drauf bei Sprüchen.)
Oh, nette Idee :)… ich mag die Verben, die du gewählt hast. Die passen sehr gut. Allerdings mag ich es nicht, wenn sich gleich auf gleich reimt (legt auf legt) und in der Schule haben wir gelernt, dass das kein reiner Reim ist. In manchen Raptexten wird das gemacht, und da kommt das gut. Aber es ist definitiv dort kein normaler Reim sondern ein Effektelement.
Ich glaube du wirst in Deutsch keine Sinnsprüche mit solchen Reimen finden. Der Englisch Spruch reimt sich für mich auch nicht, und ich sage ihn nicht gerne.
Thomas wants to channels his creative energy in a useful way. he wants to CHANNEL stuff into stuff :-)
Thanks :)
Minor: “I steer therefor I am.” -> “I steer thereforE I am.”
Thanks .. I was wondering why spell checker didn’t act but. I didn’t know that there’s actually both version with different meanings :)
Yeah, “therefor” would correspond to “dafür,” but it sounds waaaay archaic.
– There’s an app therefor.®™
Great post as usual, I learn german a lot from you, vielen danke. Another cat lover here. Ich war ein bisschen mit den Katzenvideos abgelenkt.. Gruß :D
Ja, ich habe beim Schreiben auch ein paar Videos geguckt :)
Kleine Korrektur:
– vielen Dank (ohne “e”)
Not a big mistake but “Danke” alone would also mean “thanks” so it sounds like you’re saying both versions at the same time.
Danke! ;)