Word of the Day – “wobei”

Hello everyone,

And welcome to your Word of the Day, this time with the start of a new mini series called WWE. Which is of course short for Wo-Words Explained and it’s a new series in which we’ll… ahem… wrestle with the wo-words one at at time.
I do have a lesson on wo-words in general too, but I think do quick takes on each of them is actually quite useful because we’ll get way more examples that way and we also have time to talk about some of the finer points that simply didn’t fit in the general grammar lesson.

So yeah, welcome to Wo-Words Explained and today, we’ll start with the look at:

The Meaning of “wobei”

Oh, if you want to check out my grammar lesson about wo-words, I’ll leave the link below.
But you don’t really need to know it for this one, because we’ll go over the important concepts together. So if you’re ready, let’s jump right in.

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Now, some of you might be looking at wobei thinking “Hmm, that should be whereby, right?”.
And in a technical sense, it is.
You see, English does have these wo-compounds as well, like whereby or wherein or whereafter. But they’re way less common than they are in German sound Lord-level fancy, while their German counterparts just sound proper.

And they’re not just different in tone. Also the meanings don’t always line up and it’s particularly bad in the case of wobei and whereby.
Those two are actually borderline false friends and the reason for that are the different meanings of bei and by themselves.

The Meaning of “bei” (and difference to “by”)

Of course, the English by and German bei are kin, and the original sense of their ancestor was something like proximity.
We can still see that in English in examples like this one.

• I’m standing by the window.
• I’ll come by later.

But just as important is the sense of origin or cause that by has taken on.

• “This book was written by my favorite author and my best friend.”
  “ChatGPT?”
  “Yes, ChatGPT.”
• By ignoring me, my CatGPT, my new AI cat, is trying to assert dominance.

This sense is also what’s usually present in whereby.

• The “30-Day No-Shower Challenge” is the means whereby I’ll finally attain dominion over the shared space of the apartment.

German wobei would make no sense here (you’d need wodurch) , because bei does NOT carry this notion of cause or origin at all.

Instead, bei has stayed much closer to the original sense, and if I had to define a core idea of bei, I would say that it’s “involved proximity”.

That’s very abstract though.
What matters are the two main uses.

The first one is the “local” sense of at or with, primarily for people.

• Ich bin bei Maria.
• I’m with Maria/at Maria’s place.
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• Ich bin beim Zahnarzt.
• I’m at the dentist.
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And by extension, this also goes for brand names.

• Ich bin bei McDonalds.
• I’m at McDonalds.
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Yes, McDonalds is a place, a building with a door and you can be “inside”. But because it’s a name, Germans use bei.

And the second really important use of bei and especially beim is for the idea of “being at” an activity.

• Ich bin beim Yoga.
• I’m at Yoga-Practice.
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• Ich habe mir beim Yoga den Rücken gebrochen.
• I broke my spine at Yoga practice/while doing yoga.

Think of it as the activity being “where you are” in a way.

There are of course smaller side uses of bei, but those two are the important ones.
And the latter one, the one with activities is the key to wobei.

The Meaning and use of “wobei”

Let’s start with an example. Your friend comes to you and tells you they need your help.
The question you would ask is “with what”. And in German, it would be wobei?

• “Ich brauche deine Hilfe.”
  “Wobei?”
• “I need your help?”
  “With what/To do what?”
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Basically, you want to know what activity it is that you’d sort of join or contribute to and that’s the core of wobei. Could we ask “Bei was?” instead?
Yes, but that’s more colloquial. Wobei is the more refined version of bei was, essentially.

Now, in the first example we had, wobei was basically a question word, and of course it can also be used in indirect questions like here…

• Ich weiß nicht, wobei ich dir helfen soll.
• I don’t know what I’m supposed to help you with.
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… and in so called “free” relative clauses. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that is. Most learners who became fluent in German didn’t know this. It’s grammar jargon.
What I mean are sentences like this:

• Wobei ich wirklich Hilfe brauche, ist die Grammatik.
• What I really need help with is the grammar.
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Now you might be like “Hmmm, you’re always using with what in some way. So I guess wobei means with what?”.
Well, yes and no.
First of all, the translation is not ALWAYS with what.

• Wobei hast du dich verletzt?
• What were you doing when you hurt yourself?
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This is asking what activity I was doing that lead to me injuring myself, and with what wouldn’t really fit here, because it would sound like I’m asking for an object.

And also, not every “with what?” will translate to wobei. We need to understand the SENSE of wobei and not just get hung up on a shorthand translation.

Take this for instance:

• What did you open the can with?

Would this be an instance for wobei? It has with what in it, after all.
The answer is NO. Here, we’re asking about the means of opening the can. A thing. And that’d be womit in German.
And what about this:

• “What was he interrupting you with?”
  “Questions. Lots of stupid questions.”

Would this be a case for wobei?
Again, the answer is no. Because we’re asking for the MEANS of interrupting. Wobei would be the word to use if you want to ask what activity was interrupted.
Let’s look at the two options back to back.

• “Womit hat er dich gestört?”
  “Mit seinem Singen.”
• “What did he bother/disturb/interrupt you with?”
  “His singing.”
  (the means of interrupting)
  
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• “Wobei hat er dich gestört?”
  “Beim Lesen.”
• “What were you doing when he interrupted/bothered you?”
  “Reading.”
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I hope you can see the difference now and the core of wobei. It’s about “What activity was going on, when a second activity joined.”
With what CAN express that, but not every with what is about that.

We’ll do a bit of practice about this in the quiz, but before we get to that, there’s one fairly important special use case for wobei that you’re bound to hear in daily life.

Wobei as Although

Wobei is quite commonly used in a sense of although in daily life. But it’s a very specific type of although that we could maybe call “second thought”.

• Ich kann direkt von der Arbeit zu dir.. wobei… vielleicht wäre es besser, wenn ich kurz nach Hause gehe und den Laptop wegbringe.
• I can come to your place directly from work.. although… maybe it’d be better if I  go home and drop off the laptop.
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• Wenn wir um 7 losgehen, wären wir genau pünktlich am Bahnhof. Wobei wir dann natürlich keine Zeit haben, uns dort noch einen Kaffee zu holen oder so.
• If we head out at 7, we’d be at the train station right on time. Though in that case we’d of course not have time to get a coffee there or something like that.
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Do you get the vibe?

Basically, what wobei is used for here is to introduce a second consideration. You’re making a point, and then you think of some sort of consequence that comes with that point that’s kind of counterargument, so you bring that up. And it doesn’t have to be you, the other person can do that as well.

• “Ich hasse es, wenn der Urlaub mit einem super frühen Flug startet.”
  “Wobei man dann natürlich den ganzen Tag am Ziel hat. Das ist auch irgendwie nicht schlecht.”
• “I hate it if a vacation starts with a super early flight.”
  “Although… you do have the entire day at the destination then, that’s not that bad either.”
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Basically, this wobei is used to sort of introduce a counterpoint to what has just been said. And it can either be as a sort of stand-alone or (like in the last example), as a sort of unbound side sentence with the verbs at the end but NO actual full sentence it’s integrated in. Like an incomplete thought.

And that’s kind of also how this wobei ties in with the first use we learned. It feel like “I’m thinking this, but… now I’m starting to also thinking that.”

What’s important to note is that wobei does NOT work as a regular although or though that you’d intergrate in your sentences.

• I’m going for a run although it is raining.
• Ich gehe joggen wobei es regnet…. NOPE

The German version does NOT mean what the English version means. Instead, the wobei here is understood in this main sense of “joining activities” that we learned. So it sounds like a VERY weird and overly complicated way to say that you’re going for a run while it is raining.

So yeah… using wobei in the sense of although is tricky and you need to know what you’re doing, or it’ll sound super confusing. So maybe wait with that until you’ve heard it a few times and have built up a feeling for it.

Same goes for the main wobei of course, but that’s easier to get a handle on, I think.
To wrap this up, here are a few verbs that often combine with bei as a preposition.

• helfen bei – to help with
• stören bei – interrupt while doing, bother while doing
• unterstützen bei – support doing
• zugucken bei – watch doing
• erwischen bei – bust doing
• begleiten bei – accompany while doing

As you can see, the core idea in all of these that someone is “doing” something and your activity kind of “joins” or “links up” with that. And all these could be examples where you could use wobei as a question word.

And I think that’s pretty much it for today.
Well… with the explanation anyway. But of course there’s a little quiz waiting for you, if you want to recap and practice a bit.

And of course, if you have any questions about any of this just leave me a comment and I’ll try to clear things up there.
I hope you enjoyed this and learned a bit.
Have a great day and I’ll see you next time.

Further reading: 

• Da-Words Explained – “dabei”
• German Wo-Words Explained 
  (Grammar lesson about the use of wo-words in general)