Hello everyone, 
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will have a look at the meaning of:
alle
Seems boring enough at first glance, right?
Alle is of course the German brother of all and the core idea is the same.
But the usage is a little different. Also, German has this other word ganze, which also means all, and the question is of course how they’re different. And as if that wasn’t enough, alle also has a second meaning and that one can REALLY confuse you if you don’t know about it.
Yeah… definitely something to clear up, so let’s friggin’ jump into it.
Let’s start with a few examples…
- Ich habe alle meine Freunde eingeladen.
- I have invited all my friends.
- Alle Kinder gehen in die Schule.
- All kids go to school.
- “Hast du die Star Trek Filme auf DVD?”
“Ja, ich habe alle.” - “Do you have the Star Trek movies on DVD?”
“Yeah, I got them all.”
- Ich liebe euch alle.
- I love you all.
Seems like the two words line up very well, right?
But there’s actually a really big difference between German alle and English all, and that is that German alle ONLY works for entities in plural. Unless you’re some linguistic super genius you probably haven’t noticed it, but the examples we had were all about plurals… all my friends, all the kids and all the movies.
The English all can also be used for singular, in the sense of entire. Like in all night or all my life.
And THAT generally does NOT work with alle.
- Ich war
alle Nachtauf…. NOPE - I was up all night.
This makes NO sense and it might well confuse a native speaker because the alle makes them feel like there’s a plural.
If you are not sure, just try to replace all with the whole or the entire and if that works, then ganze is your word.
So for this type of all, the proper translation is ganze.… or ganzen or ganzes and so on. You know… adjective endings.
- I was up all night.
- Ich war die ganze Nacht auf.
- I was working all week.
- Ich habe die ganze Woche gearbeitet.
- I have enough of all that stuff.
- Ich habe genug von dem ganzen Zeug.
So, for plural-all use alle, for singular-all use ganze. You can even make a mnemonic from this… plurAL like alle and sinGular. Pretty awesome, I know.
Anyway, there’s actually kind of a third group besides singular and plural and that is the “mass-nouns” – those that are used in singular but can stand for a large quantity of the thing. Like beer or hope or money.
And for those, we actually have the choice. We can either use ganze like we just learned, but we can also use all. And yes, I mean all in German WITHOUT e.
- Ich habe in Vegas all mein Geld verloren.
- Ich habe in Vegas mein ganzes Geld verloren.
- I have lost all my money in Vegas.
The version with all sounds fancier and a bit poetic even, but it doesn’t need you to put adjective endings, so that might be the easier option. Just make sure to NOT say alle – that would sound really weird, again.
Cool.
So now we know when to use alle as a translation for all. But that’s not the only thing it is used for. It can also be a translation for everyone. And in that role it gets what most pronouns get… case endings. Yeay!
- Alle finden das Konzert gut.
- Everyone likes the concert.
- Ich gebe allen (Dative) ein Stück Kuchen.
- I give a piece of cake to everyone.
And I’m sure that many of you know the other German option for everyone – jeder/s/e/m/n.
So what’s the difference?
Well, grammatically, alle* is a plural while jede* is singular.
- Jeder findet das Konzert gut.
- Alle finden das Konzert gut.
And that has an effect on the meaning, or let’s say, tone. Alle focuses on the group as a whole while jeder puts a little more emphasis on the individual. So in the first example, I’d say alle is definitely the better choice because you’re talking about a crowd. In the second example, jedem would work perfectly fine as well.
Anyway, so alle can mean everyone. And it is actually also the best translation for everything. All we need to do then is add a little s and make it alles, so it doesn’t sound “plural” anymore.
- Ich habe alles vergessen.
- I have forgotten everything.
- Das alles macht keinen Sinn.
- All that makes no sense.
- Alles ist relativ.
- Everything is relative.
And I guess we should not forget to mention alle in the context of time, because there (and only there) it can be a translation for every.
- My phone is ringing every 5 minutes.
- Mein Telefon klingelt alle 5 Minuten.
Cool.
So now we have a pretty good overview over how to use alle for the overarching theme of all.
But as I said in the beginning… and that has nothing to do with what we’ve seen so far.
The (very) other meaning of “alle”
Let’s again start with an example…
- Wir hatten drei Kuchen aber jetzt sind alle alle.
Yes, this is not a typo. There are really two alle in a row. German, you’ve done it again, you son of a gun… another stupid looking phrasing.
So, the sentence is correct, understandable and might be uttered this way in daily conversation.
And the meaning is that all three cakes are… gone, finished, eaten up.
Because THAT’S the second meaning of alle, or let’s maybe say of the phrase alle sein. It expresses that some sort of stockpile is emptied.
By far the most common context for this one is food, but you can also find it for other “resources”
- Mein Geld ist alle.
- I am out of money.
- Meine Zigaretten sind alle.
- My cigarettes are all gone.
- “Gibt es noch Suppe?”
“Nein, die ist leider alle.” - “Is there some soup left?”
“No, it is all gone unfortunately.”
And it is even used for persons in a way.
- Ich bin total alle.
- I am totally exhausted.
Where does this meaning come from?
I’m not sure, to be honest, but if we think of the sense of entire as complete then we just have to flip it negative and we’re there… like… when I have all Pokemon cards, my set is com-pleted. When I have drank all my beer, it is de-pleted (“negative complete”), if you will.
Either way, make sure you DON’T think of it as empty because alle is NOT about the container – it is about the content. So my beer can be alle but my beer glass cannot.
And also, this alle is rather colloquial and focused on our daily needs, so don’t use it in writing.
All right, now to wrap this up I want to give you 2 of the many useful idioms with alle.
- All in all…
- Alles in allem…
Just to make sure… it is alles as the English all could be technically replaced by everything and it is allem because it is case 3. Why is it case 3? Because it is in and we are talking about a fixed location here. No idea, what I just said? Don’t worry… I will get to it my On-line course and then it won’t be any miracle anymore.
The second idiom comes very handy in inner city traffic:
- Hast du sie noch alle?
- Der hat sie doch nicht mehr alle!
Garnished with a little “du Idiot!” you have a formidable version of
- Are you mad?
- He is nuts!
And just because the construction might be a little confusing, here is the blue print… just fill in the person of your choice. The words in parentheses are options for the sound. They do not really mean anything here. You may use all three at once
- ____ hat sie (doch)(wohl) nicht (mehr)alle!
And that’s it for today. Das war alles für heute :).
This was our little look at how to use alle and alles.
If you want, you can take our little quiz and see how much you remember :).
And as always, if you have questions or suggestions, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
—-
And let’s get one thing out of the way right away because it’s a BIG mistake: not at all is translated NOT translated with alle. It is translated as überhaupt nicht.
Alle does NOT MAKE ANY SENSE in that context.
- I don’t like German at all.
- Ich mag Deutsch überhaupt nicht. #sad
With that out of the way let’s first look at all that all and alle have in common and yes this phrasing was on purpose.
I like your page
And another one nuance. Much simpler:
The question is: why “gute” instead of “guteN“.
The answer (as I understood):
This is a different example than the one before because “alle gute Leute” is not one unit here, as you realized correctly.
To me, it is
– Sie sind alle [gute Leute].
– They all are good people.
and not
– Sie sind alle guten Leute.
– They are all the good people (that there are).
As for “gute”… that is NOT an article. It is an adjective without an article and it carries the normal plural ending for Nominative :).
> As for “gute”… that is NOT an article. It is an adjective without an article and it carries the normal plural ending for Nominative :).
Yeah, I know. I meant “article-like word” or “article-replacing word”. Something that takes responsibility for an article, which is absent. And therefore conjugated like an article. Dunno how it’s called linguistically :-)
Oh… I have to correct myself a bit. My assumption that “strong declension” of adjectives has exactly the same endings that definite have is incorrect. Yeah, most of them are exactly the same, but not all. In genitive singular instead of using -es they use -en (Deutsch, warum?).
So I couldn’t say “conjugated like an article”. I should have said “conjugated in strong declension, that is almost like definite articles” :-)
Honestly, I don’t know what strong declension means :). I’ve looked it up several times but it just doesn’t stick in my brain.
You’re right that adjectives get to carry the marker that the article would have otherwise. I don’t think of it as an article though, and I don’t think linguistics does either (not sure, though). It’s just that there is no article and the adjective gets some extra work.
I think I got this mistaken thought from some of many youtube german grammar videos. You know, sometimes teachers oversimplify something difficult, trying to explain it. And it works well… to some degree. Then it ruins the whole idea.
It’s that case when an adjective takes a role of a definite article. E.g. “ein gutes Kind” or “gute Leute”. Usually in grammar books you have 3 big grammar tables. Strong / weak / mixed declensions of adjectives (my nightmare, lol). And this “strong declension” table looks almost like a typical grammar table of conjugating definite articles. The root of evil – “almost”, but not completely :)
Danke :). I’m curious if I get to remember it this time.
I know I should probably know this, being a teacher and all, but I really don’t care. That’s the beauty of having my own site, that I don’t have to use concepts that I don’t think are helpful.
Have you read my series on adjective endings by any chance?
Actually not. I didn’t even know about them. But you intrigued me, I will read them. Thx.
Let me know what you think! I’m sure you’ve figured out all what I say there yourself, but it might help you understand why I am not so big into the proper terminology :)
Hi, again. I have finally read those 3 articles. Thank you for them.
The 1st article was interesting, because having 40% of correctness just for adding “+e“ is really nice. And yes I got to the same idea too.
But the 2nd article did not ring the bell in my head. And I will try to explain why. The whole concepts is rolling around weirdness of some German articles. But… I consider other set of articles as weird. Ok, to be honest, being a Russian I consider the whole concept of articles as weird, hehe. Because we don’t have them at all, and nobody has died because of it :-) Even English articles are really really wierd (“the New York“ as an example).
Back to the topic. From my point of view German articles look like they were randomly chosen from an opaque sack. Without too much logic. E.g. I find “ein“ as a weird one. Because it should be “einer“ in a better world. But I don‘t consider “des” as weird. Because it was easy to grasp. And so on. I can’t use the rule of article weirdness because in such a case I would add “en“ to almost any adjective in German.
So how do I handle this topic myself? I’m lazy and cannot memorize all these 48 endings by heart. So I found some “pseudo“ logic pieces behind those 3 tables and started step by step using them.
Rule 1. Ignore genitiv. Because why not? It simplifies everything. I don’t think I would often use genitiv with adjectives. Especially without an article.
Rule 2. Any time you deal with plural – use “en“. But yeah, there’re two exceptions: for “strong“ declension with nom. & akk. I can live damit… oh with that.
3. Grasp the “strong/mixed“ declensions concept. Even though it sounds bad it was pretty simple. Only 2 special cases:
a) your article is absent
b) or your article is from “ein“ family (ein, mein, sein…)
What does it mean? It means that your adjective takes a role of an article. And it literally has the same ending. And I already know all of them. So I can relax my brain. Dieser – guter, diesen – guten, diesem – gutem. Just copy-paste.
4. Dative = en. So simple. Keinem, einem, seinem, diesem, whateverEM = EN. Einer, seiner, keiner, whateverER = EN. Pretty simple.
5. You got here? Use “e“. 40% of all uses.
As you can see it’s not so simple as 3 rules. But it works without table of article weirdiness that I would have had to learn by heart anyway to be able to use it.
I hope you’ll find this ^ not too boring. And thx again for your articles!
Ha, I low key assumed you were Russian! Russian people tend to have a really good grasp on grammar and they have an analytic mind for this stuff.
Generalizing, of course, but yeah…. there’s something. Russians are not as intimidated by German as many others :).
Danke für den Artikel! I always like how thoroughly you grasp the topic.
I think there’s another one nuance about “alle”, that can break someones (e.g. mine) mind.
instead of
The first my thought was – shouldn’t it be here like “alle seineN“? I mean “Alle” is an Artikelwort, seine is an adjective (spoiler: it’s not), so it has to be ended with “en”, does it?
But later I found:
So… Of course “seine” is not an adjective. It’s a pronoun. Ok, but aren’t they supposed to be conjugated in the same way as adjectives? Hm, dunno. Probably not. And I see “kombiniert” in the phrase above. So… it seems that this kind of sentences uses dual articles. Wow.
It explains a lot. But did I understand it properly?
So “seine” is definitely not a pronoun here, as it accompanies a noun. Pronouns don’t do that, they stand IN PLACE of the noun :).
It can either be an article or an adjective (not sure which it is). Actually, before worrying about the word type, the first step is to look at what case you’re dealing with.
This seems to be either nominative or accusative plural.
– Ich sehe alle seine Sachen.
– Alle seine Sachen liegen auf dem Boden.
These endings are in line with the normal adjective and article endings.
If it were Dative, we’d see different endings accordingly:
– Er geht mit allen seinen Sachen in den Urlaub.
I hope that helps :)
> These endings are in line with the normal adjective and article endings.
Rather article endings, not adjective. I mean – yeah, in Dative they are the same, but it’s just a coincidence:
– Ich sehe alle seine schönen guten großen whatever-adjectiven Sachen
So the whole point is about forgetting about adjectives each time we deal with pronounce, because they are conjugated as articles.
Or maybe I understood it wrong :)
You’re right I phrased it as if they’re the same, but they’re not.
Your extended example is great actually, because now we can see that “seine” is not an adjective (otherwise, it’d behave like one). So it must be an article.
i saw many phrases like “all diese Dinge/Menchen” … where in the hell is the adjective ending?
“diese” is not an adjective. Probably it’s the reason
Great article! in this sentence” Ich gebe allen ein Stück Kuchen ” why is it allen and not “allem”? isn’t that “allen” the dative part and “Kuchen” the accusative?
It’s a Dative plural for “to all the people”. In Singular it would be “allem”, indeed.
An amazing article!!!! Vielen Dank
Danke :)!
Amazing article , solved the confusion i had about all and alle xD, and the quiz is useful. Vielen Dank
Freut mich :)!
Emmanuel,
I love this blog! How many blog posts from 7 years ago are still relevant today?
A question:
If the following two sentences have essentially the same meaning (he is/are you nuts?),
Hast du sie noch alle?
Der hat sie doch nicht mehr alle!
can I equally say
Hast du sie noch nicht alle?
Der hat sie doch mehr alle!
?
That is, is the nicht meaningless in this idiom?
Language doesn’t change that fast, so pretty much all articles are still relevant. Some are a bit dated in terms of style, but I am editing old articles when I have the time.
As for your question… no, your switch absolutely doesn’t work. The crucial difference between both sentences is that one is a question and the other is a statement.
Similar to English:
– Are you still sane?
– Come one, he’s not sane anymore.
You can’t switch the “not” in those either.
Hope that helps :)
Thank you for clearing this up!
Perhaps my confusion was in the explanation for this really neat idiom:
“sie alle haben” is not “to be nuts”, but, perhaps, a state that, when negated, means nuts, i.e. “to be sane”.
More idiomatically “to keep it together”, perhaps? This phrase really refers to keeping one’s composure, rather than one’s sanity.
The negative might be expressed “to lose it (altogether)”.
In a harrowing situation: “Are you still keeping it together?”
Watching someone do something impulsive and stupid in traffic: “he’s lost it (for sure).
These aren’t the best translations, but perhaps they allow the learner to see how adding the negative works.
Have I got this completely wrong?
Yup, “sie alle haben” is indeed the state of “sane” :).
It’s ONLY used in the context of you implying that the other person is crazy/mad/an ignorant idiot.
You wouldn’t use it to check on someone in a high stress environment.
Hi Emanuel! I was wondering: is “alle” (as done/all used up) regional? or is it just colloquial?
Not sure, if it’s regional, actually. I wouldn’t think so but it might be.
As for colloquial… it’s not “refined” but you can find it in books, too, sometimes.
Thank you for the answer!
And your work in general. It is particularly admirable.
Danke :)!
I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that “alle” can mean both “all” and “empty” in German. The only thing I can think of, is that words are “empty” so to speak and we people give it substance. So, when they say something like “Die ist alle”, then they mean the word itself is all that is left…That kinda sounds reasonable, I think….
Wow, that’s pretty deep actually :). *Philosophy intensifies
Hi Emanuel, why are we using “allen” instead of “allem” in the sentence, “Ich gebe allen ein Stück Kuchen.”? shouldn’t “allen” be a Dative here? please enlighten me!
okay…i saw you have already answered it in a commend before…”allen” here is a plural dative! Tricky one! never mind :)
You’re totally right, that it’s Dative. But it’s a plural ;)
– Ich gebe den Kindern…
– Ich gebe allen…
Hope that helps :)
Buhahaha… okay, that’s what I get for not even reading the comment to the end before answering :D
Wow, this isn’t the first time I’ve read where my last name Completely Described me to a tee.
Do you know that German actually has a word “allerdings” :)?
Hello, Emanuel,
Your material was very useful and fun. I like the fact that I have finally found explanations which stop my brain from spinning the problem over and over again in my head. Things start to make sense. Yeeeeey!
However, I steel have a question ( Damn! Now I have to concentrate not to write nouns whit capital letter :) ). In your example :
Das alles macht keinen Sinn ,
shouldn’t alles be written as Alles because it is a noun ?
Vielen Dank im Voraus!
Very good question!! But nope, it’s written with lower case, by convention.
It’s more like an adverb here and the “das” is a demonstrative pronoun.
Here’s an example with a similar construction… an adverb following
– Das allein reicht mir.
– That alone is enough for me.
“alone” is not perceived as a noun, but as a specifier for how “that” is enough.
And it’s similar with “alles”.
Hope that helps :)
Oh and I thought of another thing… you can also move “alles” away from the article.
– Das macht alles keinen Sinn.
You couldn’t do that if it were actually a noun.
Thank you,
everything makes sense now. I considered Das as the definite article, hence the confusion. German can be tricky, on the other hand the same goes for Romanian ( my native language :) ) I guess I just have to keep at it till I get it right.
Well, all in all, problem is solved.
Have a nice day.
Perfect, you too :)
Can you explain a bit more about how and where that splitting happens?
Does it work for all constructs like das alles, das allein. Or only das alles. Does it happen when it’s first in the sentence? Or can something else come between it when it comes after the verb. “Gestern hat das keinen Sinn alles gemacht”?
Good question.
I feel like it indeed only works if “das” is in the beginning.
Your example does absolutely not work, also because “keinen Sinn machen” is very closely connected and you can’t split it up without creating a LOT of tension. And too much tension without a reason will sound wrong.
And just as all is relative so is the word alle… yeah that expensive transition-seminar starts to pay out :- Roger discusses “pay out” and “pay off”
1. I have seen where the Lottery Organisers will pay out (verb) 50,000,000 dollars.
2. Emanuel’s site has recovered all its development expenses and it will soon pay off (verb) for the owner/s of the site and the employees !!!
3. Because of this big pay-off (noun) it will soon be listed for a huge amount of new capital on the Stock Exchange !! [Grammar examples only !!]
4. The new shareholders will be hoping for a big pay-out (noun).
5. Alternatively the recent pay-offs will result in millions of free members (LOL)
Roger is a dreamer … maybe Emanuel is also?
Or maybe this is the true future ?
I have girl-friend whose name is Genevieve. She wishes to point out that “genetive” is spelled genitive ;-)
Another great post man. Clears up my confusion regarding alles/ alle/ allem. Thanks & keep up the good work.
Danke für das Feedback :).
can someone send me in the e-mail oll this dokuments pleas
i like this so much
Which documents do you mean? :)
“Alle Kinder gehen in die Schule.
All kids go to school.”
There is a difference in English between “All kids go to school” and “All kids go to the school”. In the first one it may be different schools that the kids go to but in the second it is one specific school (perhaps you are talking about kids in the neighborhhod and the local school). Thus, I am confused about why the article was used in German but not in English. Does the German mean just school in general or some particular school? If it definitely means one or the other how is the other meaning said in German?
Very good question. Actually, the German version is not clear and can mean both ideas… so a general going to school as well as a particular school.
There’s also “zur Schule gehen” which only means “go to school” (in the general sense) but “in die Schule” is idiomatic, too.
Wonderful article <3 I never really liked the whole (all and its inflicted forms) thing because in Arabic it's sooooo easy! There is one single word that can be used as "each/every" or "all" and is uninflicted so same for m, f, singular, plural, countable and uncountable :P
Wow, that’s easy indeed. Probably one of the handful easy things about Arabic. From what I hear it’s super complex and difficult :)
Thanks, Emanuel, for a great article. I’m still on my way to the intermediate level, and your articles help me a lot.
I’ve checked in Leo, and it seems that “alle” could also be used in singular, perhaps in the sense of “each”, as in “Aller Anfang ist schwer” or in other expressions “bei allem Respekt”.
So, I guess it would make it even more similar to “jeder”, as you write. And as you write “alle focuses on the group as a whole while jeder puts a little more emphasis on each individual”. Based on that, “bei jedem Respekt” would probably not work, but perhaps “Jeder Anfang ist schwer” is possible, although perhaps, this is not what people use. Please let me know.
OK, so just googled it, and at least, there is a song “Jeder Anfang ist schwer”.
You’re right! Bei jedem Respekt sounds wrong while “jeder Anfang” just sounds unusual because it’s not the common expression. I think the grammar/structure of “aller Anfang” is actually pretty old. At least I can’t think of a similar phrasing.
Generally, “alle” can be used to refer to the entirety of a mass noun. You need the proper ending then.
– Alles Wasser
– Aller Dank
Oh and I just realized that it sounds quite odd for feminine nouns.
– Alle Milch ist sauer.
Here, I’d definitely say “ganze”.
Hope that helps!
Yes, I was wondering about feminine nouns, since they would have the same “alle” form as the plural (except for dative), which is maybe why it sounds strange. Also, it is “the whole milk”, so “ganze” would work according to your rule.
Yeah, “die ganze Milch” sounds fine to my ears :)