Viel Spaß mit Tür Nummer 7!
berühren
Rühren is very old, and all throughout history the core idea was “mixing and stirring”, especially in sense of cooking. But people also used it in a broader sense of “to set in motion” with berühren being just a more directed sounding version of that. Now, one way to set something in motion is to touch it. And that’s what berühren is all about today, while rühren stuck with the stirring and moving. It can be both physical and emotional (and in the physical sense it has a very low intensity.)
die Berührung – the (gentle) touch
berührt (ge-form) – touched, emotionally moved
berührend – touching
- Ich berühre dich am Arm/deinen Arm.
- I (slighty) touch your arm.
- Der Film hat mich tief berührt.
- The movie deeply moved me.
- Bitte die Gemälde nicht berühren.
- Please don’t touch the paintings.
EDIT 2019:
If you want a detailed look at all the verbs with rühren, check out my article about it here:
How would you compare the relative gentleness/intensity of different “touch” verbs? I’m comparing German translations of Colossians 2:21, where there are two different verbs for “touch” involved, and they’re variously translated with berühren, anrühren, anfassen, and betasten – and different translations will use them for either verb. In the Greek, the first verb is more intense – my preferred English translation has “handle” for the first and “touch” for the second.
I looked at the post on “Taste/tasten” too, and I generally get the sense that berühren is lightest, with the “an-” prefix tending to up the intensity, and “anfassen” or “betasten” are more intense, but I’m not too sure.
Yeah, “berühren” is really the lightest. In a museum you are not allowed to “berühren” the paintings, all the others are not even conceivable.
“antasten” implies doing some sort of harm or at least having some effect.
“anfassen” is the most generic one and ranges from “touch” (also in a sexual sense) to “grab”. And “betasten” is very technical. You do that to gather information about something with your hands. How’s the English version of the sentence you were talking about?
Well, with the preceding verse for context:
– If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”? (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?
So the context doesn’t really help much – it’s just a general characterization of rules somebody has made up. But the feel of the list is that the commandments get progressively more restrictive, from telling people not to use/consume things to the point of forbidding all contact. It’s just funny that the German translations seem pretty arbitrary in how they translate the list:
– berühre das nicht, iss nicht davon, fass das nicht an (Einheitsübersetzung)
– rühre das nicht an, koste jenes nicht, betaste dies nicht (Schlachter)
– du sollst das nicht anfassen, du sollst das nicht kosten, du sollst das nicht anrühren (Luther)
– du darfst dieses nicht anfassen, jenes nicht essen und ganz bestimmte Dinge nicht berühren (Hoffnung für Alle)
The first one and the last one basically reverse the verbs – and the least modern (Luther) and most modern (HfA) are the most similar to each other. It’s just weird. :)
Yeah, you’re right, the context doesn’t help much :). All the German versions you gave strike me as arbitrary and either clumsy or not very idiomatic.The second one for example, why is the person using “das, jenes” and “die”. Of course I don’t know the original. Nor the context in which the translation was made but at least in comparison to English it seems like someone was really trying to sound grave and literary. Or English just skipped a LOT. I don’t know.
The main issue, I think, is the “handling”. Again, I don’t know what the original is but based on English I would go for:
Nicht nehmen, nicht kosten, nicht berühren.
without any pronouns. The prefix verb “anfassen” just makes it sound super clumsy.
And it rhymes with verführen (previous post)! … Ich höre zu viel Helene Fischer zu.
Haha… verführen, berühren. Das passt zu ihr. Welcher Song ist das denn?
Kleine Korrektur:
Man sagt “Ich höre zu viel Helene Fischer” ohne das letzte “zu”. Wenn du “zuhören” als Verb nimmst, klingt das so, als ob Helene Fischer irgendwie Weisheiten predigt oder sowas.
http://www.helene-fischer.de/musik-songtexte/so-nah-wie-du/du-hast-mein-herz-ber%C3%BChrt
And here’s the video… every website should have some Helene Fischer Kitsch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V64PqsK8TeE
Ach, und dann noch das hier… ich hab’ gedacht es stimmt :)
http://www.huffingtonpost.de/2015/07/20/us-milliardaer-helene-fischer_n_7832786.html
Aus 2007, also ein bisschen alt! Das wusste ich nicht. Ich beschuldige Youtube – da sind alle Songs immer neu.
Das Frühwerk der Helene F.