Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day, this time with a quick look at the meaning of
bloß
It’s not a word you see every day, but sooner or later every learner comes across it and finds out that it’s a translation for only. Which then of course raises a question about nur, the main translation for only.
That’s what we’ll find out today if there’s a difference between bloß and nur and when to use which. And we’ll also explore the family of bloß a bit, because… I mean… why not.
So let’s jump right in.
***
The Meaning of “bloß”
The origin of bloß is the decently old Germanic root *blautaz which carried a sense of weak, timid, soft. There are some theories about the connections beyond that, with some etymologists saying there’s a connection to the family of fluid and others saying there’s a tie to the family of ball.
But it’s not certain and we’re not doing science here anyway, so we’ll just take weak, soft as a starting point.
In bloß, this shifted toward a sense of lacking cover or being exposed. This is actually still the core of the related words of bloß, as we’ll see later, but also bloß itself still carries this idea.
- “Ich habe die Nuss mit bloßen Händen geknackt.”
“Wow!” - “I cracked this nut with my bare hands.”
“Wow.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And if we look closely, we can already see the idea of only shine through here. Like… I cracked the nut with nothing but my hands. ONLY my hands.
Here’s a another example:
- Der bloße Wille hat Maria die letzten Kilometer des Marathons getragen.
- Her pure will has carried Maria for the last kilometers of the marathon.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
People started using bloß in contexts of pure or nothing but and from there it’s really just a very small step to the sense of only that it has today.
- “Kommst du zu meiner Party?”
“Ja, ich muss bloß kurz vorher nach Hause.” - “Are you going to come to my party?”
“Yeah, I just have to go home first real quick.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “THOMAS! Was machst du an meinem Handy?!”
“Äh, nichts besonderes. Ich wollte bloß gucken, ob du mich betrügst.”
“Achsoo, okay kein Pro… Moment mal!!” - “THOMAS! What are you doing on my phone?”
“Uhm, nothing special. I just, only wanted to check if you’re cheating on me.”
“Ah, okay, no probl… wait a second!!” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Was ist denn mit dir und Maria?”
“Nichts. Wir sind bloß Freunde.” - “What’s up with you and Maria?”
“Nothing. We’re only, just friends.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Actually, now that I’m making these examples, I feel like just is actually the better translation. Maybe because it has more of a vibe of “pure”. But the core idea is definitely only.
And the big question is of course – could we use nur in these examples.
‘bloß’ vs ‘nur’ – The Difference
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Once more into the fray
Can one say
Nur blosse Wille hat Marie getragt,
Meaning “Only pure will carried Maria”, or is that repetitively redundant?
Bye
I thought it’s a quote from some 200 year old writing.
It should definitely be “getragen” and we’d naturally say something like this:
– Nur der Wille hat….
– Reiner Wille hat…
– Der Wille allein hat…
“Nur blosser Wille … ”
It’s not wrong, but somehow, the nur diminishes the epic-ness of “pure will”. I think it’s a bit like “just pure will made that happen”. Feels similar to me in that it’s less epic than “pure will made that happen.” but I might be wrong of course
Danke
hallöchen, kann ich bloß in dem Fall wo ich bsw. mit einem Freund chatte und merke, dass ich nicht die optimale Wort gesagt habe, und will folgendes sagen: hab (gerade) bloß gemerkt, dass in diesem Fall das Wort […] besser ist”. Oder ist bloß in dem Fall nicht geeignet/kann komisch klingen?
Ich glaube du denkst an die englische Formulierung:
– I only just now realized…
Die funktioniert in Deutsch nur mit “erst” und sie bedeutet, dass du es hättest früher merken können. “bloß” macht absolut keinen Sinn hier.
If I ‘out’ someone for their sexual preferences in English, would the German use bloßstellen?
It’s only “bloßstellen” if the person would like for it to stay private. And the word does not include what you’re exposing about the person.
– Ich habe die Person bloßgestellt.
Just like this, there is ZERO indication that it might be about sexual preference.
Ah! So it might also be used if I were gossiping about someone who had been married before, but didn’t want the fact known? Or that they kept a hug boa constrictor as a pet? Just trying to see how it moves from the actually physical of naked to the social fact of exposed.
No, the person is usually present, so it’s NOT gossipping. Think of a figurative pulling down someon’s pants in front of an audience. And it’s usually a person you know and there was some level of trust.
Emanuel…..you explain things very good…clear….in a way I get the essence of German words….could you please add a pronunciation- intonation part to your website….I’m sure you can open the door of the real german accent to us…I have this problem where to put the accent in a sentence to seem natural.
You’re the best dear Emanuel.
I’ll think about it but I’m not sure writing is the best format. THis is maybe better for people on Youtube.
Thank you so much for your introductions in German! I learn a great deal of vocabulary and grammatical structures or reinforcement thereof.
You mean the newsletter?
Happy you like it.
If you’re a member, you get also access to the newsletter archive, where you can read all the old ones.
My aunt used to say “Sag bloß!” in the context where in English you could say, “Oh, you don’t say” or “Oh really” This was in the late 60s. Is that a regional idiom or an idiom of a previous time? We visited her in Ostfriesland if that matters. Thanks!
I know it, but it does sound a bit “granny” to me :).
On an unrelated note, I was wondering if you might consider an article about “da” and “dort”.
I have one about “da” already :)
https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning-da/
Thanks, but I meant to say like a comparison of the two particles, and when to use the one and and not the other, because they both mean “there” but somehow they are not interchangeable, are they? It’s like “da” is a different kind of “there” then “dort”… Da bin ich, ich bleibe dort. There I am, I’ll stay there. See?
“dort” is a “there” in the sense of “over there”, a place that is not here.
“da” is more generic and can cover everything “dort” covers.
In the example you gave, I would think that the two words are only used so as to not repeat “da”. You can flip them around and not change anything though.
Hallo liebe Emanuel,
Ici wünsche dir einen schönen Geburtstag und vieles mehr !
Schönen Tag .
Vielen lieben Dank dir :)!!
Thank you so much to those who contributed extra for my membership. Great article and a fantastic website. I am excited to learn from it.
Certainly adds nuance to the meaning of the last name ‘Blossfeld’
Might be, but I could also imagine that it comes from “blossom” somehow. I couldn’t find anything about the name and its origin though.
Most Marks & Spencers shops sell food and clothes, but some sell only food; the shop sign of the latter is ‘M&S Simply Food’. How would you translate this? Bloss, nur, einfach … ?
“nur” is the way to go here. “bloß” also works, but “einfach” would be weird.
I think I have been using “einfach” in a similar way as you have described “bloß”. In English this would correspond to the similarity between “simply” and “just”. Is that correct, or am I using einfach wrong? Z.b.:
Wo warst du gerade?
Ich bin einfach spaziergegangen.
It works, but I “nur” or “bloß” are a better match. “einfach” sounds a bit like you have to explain yourself, though that may just be my personal perception.
Könnte man in solchen Kontexten auch “halt” gebrauchen, z.B., “Ich bin halt spaziergegangen”? Ich habe den Eindruck, dass ich “halt” viel öfter als “bloß” begegne.
“halt” is way more common than “bloß”, that’s right.
But “halt” has a completely different meaning.
Just got the newsletter and had a couple ideas for the Advent calendar.
Modal verbs in sentences like this:
– Ich kann Karate. / Ich muss zum Arzt. / Ich will unbedingt nach Italien.
I see questions about this pretty often in other places, and I wonder too. Is that really a complete thought? Is it OK to put another verb at the end (“Karate machen”)? Does it sound OK if you add more pieces of info? “Ich muss morgen um 10 wegen (was auch immer) zum Arzt.” Does it work in past tense?
Side sentences with main sentence word order
– Ich weiß, das ist verwirrend.
Not sure if there’s an article on this, but I didn’t see one. This seems like an interesting grammar thing and maybe pretty common. What verbs does it work with? Ich glaube, ich hoffe, ich wünschte? What are some verbs that don’t work? Maybe “ich verlange”?
Words about quantities
“Stück” and “ein bisschen” have been on my mind lately. Just the different ways you can use them. Like for “Stück”:
– ein Stück Kuchen / zwei Stück nehmen
– ein (Theater)stück
– am Stück / in einem Stück
– ein gutes Stück Arbeit / ein ganzes Stück teurer
– ein Stück weit verstehen
– kein Stück weiter
– Stück für Stück
Maybe there could be an article with just some examples and quick notes on how common something is and how colloquial it sounds.
Great suggestions, though probably more for a normal article :). Danke!!
I have an idea for a short article. (At least, I think it would be short). There are these archaic pronouns for using with second person, beyond the Sie and du that we learn as beginners. I have come across them when reading and even seen explanations that I sort of understand. But I suspect this theme really needs to be developed in the context of unicorn social classes.
I’d find that interesting too. I’m reading a novel at the moment where they use seem to use Ihr, Sie and du to address one another (second person singular)
But those are all, right? I wasn’t sure what Jayne was referring to actually, besides the super polite “Ihr”.
I assumed that was what was being referred to too. I just found wikipedia have a german language article on the topic https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronominale_Anredeform#Deutscher_Sprachraum which i will hopefully get round to reading sooner or later…
How does “bloß” sound to you in this example?
I was wondering if “nicht nur … sondern” was basically a fixed phrase or if “bloß” was ever used as a variation. Google turned up a couple hundred results, but a lot of them were from Swiss and Austrian sites.
And in this example
Would it change the statement or the vibe if you used “einfach” here? “Es handelt sich nicht einfach um einen Rechtschreibfehler”. The context is about a translation where a sentence from the original was left out and some other stuff went wrong.
“nicht bloß… ” sounds perfectly fine in both examples and I might well say it myself. “nicht nur…” is just easier to pronounce.
And as for “nicht einfach…” – I don’t really feel a difference in this particular context.
In English, my feeling is there is a difference between only and just, sometimes it’s a nuanced tone difference, sometimes more distinct:
I only went to the shops [I am telling you I didnt go anywhere else]
I just went to the shops [I am telling you where I was, the location wasn’t really important]
Does nur/bloß tend towards one of these more than the other?
I think I use just a lot in english, and have tended to prefer bloß for that (Ich schaue bloß) but I wonder if English just is sometimes einfach (Ich stand einfach da wie ein Idiot.)
I’d say you can keep using them the way you’re using them.
– I just went to the shops.
To me, that sounds like the “just” is expressing that “going to the shops” is not a big deal, so it’s a bit different from the reading you described.
But “bloß” would definitely lean a bit more toward than while “nur” leans more toward “the only item(s) on a list”.
Those are nuances though and not worth losing sleep over. Not even a 5 second micronap.
Hallo lieber Emmanuel,
Ich habe deinen Artikel durchgelesen und davon viel gelernt. Insbesondere verstehe ich wie genauer , die Partikeln , Schon/Nur, Bloss/Nur, Erst/Nur unterscheiden oder benutzen . Herztlichen Dank dafür!
Ich habe noch eine Frage . Ich weiss nicht in den Ausdrucken, wie ” Erst recht/ Erst recht nicht ” , ist Erst ein Partikel ( = only , intensifier ) oder ein Adjecktiv ( als Erstes) .
Ansonsten verstehe Ich allgemeinen Sinne dieser Ausdruck ( a fortiori oder umso mehr ) .
Viel Grüsse nach Berlin
Das “erst” in “erst recht” ist für mich eher ein “intensifier”. Es gibt kein Gefühl von “first” :).
Hallo,
Having just received the group email to say a new article is available, I’d like to make a suggestion regarding the Advent Calender.
What about Nomen-Verb Verbindungen as one of the topics?
I’ve been trying to get these into my head, as it seems to me they’re kind of essential when we want to stop talking like a child (which I still feel I do, I can read, listen, etc., but think I sound like a 5-year-old when I speak).
Anyway, it lends itself to small articles, so I thought I’d share the suggestion and maybe get feedback from our friends here on the blog :)
I also talk like a 5 year old (which I’m kinda OK with), but agree that fixed Nomen-Verb combinations would be very helpful.
Oh yeah, so phrases like “durch den Kopf gehen lassen” (to think about something, mull it over) or “auf dem Schlauch stehen” (to not understand, not get it). I think those are part of the heart and soul of a language. Not just the colorful ones like standing on a hose, but also the everyday stuff like “sich die Nase hochziehen” (when you sniff the snot up instead of blowing).
The dictionary has a fair number of phrases now. If you click on the link, it should say “phrase” in blue at the top. That will show you some of the phrases. I don’t think there’s a way to see all of them right now. But you can find some of the others by searching for common words like “machen” or “sich”.
So how would you put that into an advent calendar? Just a couple of random ones one given day?
I think maybe it’s easier if there’s some kind of theme where you can pick 2 or 3 expressions and give an example sentence for each one. It could be phrases that revolve around a specific thing, like the article on “Schwein haben”. Or phrases about a specific topic. A couple ideas that come to mind:
Phrases about specific things
Wurst (ist mir Wurst, es geht um die Wurst, eine Extrawurst kriegen).Katzen (für die Katz, einen Katzensprung entfernt, eine Katzenwäsche machen).Pech. Not so much fixed sayings, but different ways to use the word. Pech für mich/dich. Bei/in/mit etw. Pech haben. Von Pech reden können. Das Pech haben, (chronisch krank zu sein).Or specific topics
Having trouble (in Schwierigkeiten sein/bringen/ kommen. In der Klemme stecken. In der Patsche sitzen/landen.)Staying cool/calm (etw. gelassen nehmen, sich nicht aus der Ruhe bringen lassen, ein starkes Nervenkostüm haben).
(There were bullet points in this when I posted it, but it looks like they disappeared somehow.)
Yeah, I think this is a good suggestion too There is a big list of them in one of my course books. I’ve looked a few up in Emanuels dictionary, some are there, some aren’t. The course book doesn’t do an amazing job of explaining them either which doesn’t help. e.g. it gives sich unterhalten as the definition of “ein Gespräch führen” etc
So judging by the comments that really seems to be an issue.
I’m not sure how I could cover that in an advent calendar post. Like… I don’t think there’s much to explain in general, so it would be just a big list. But I feel like you actually have that already.
Let me know what you’re looking for and I’ll see if it fits.
Do you have an idea how a short article could look like? Like… do you mean just a couple of such combinations and a few examples for them?
I know there are a lot of entries in the dictionary already, but they are scattered and this would be like a reinforcement… I was thinking along the lines of starting with a verb, let’s say, stehen, and note the most common Verbindungen, like “auf dem Schlauch stehen”, “unter Druck stehen”… or the other way round, start with a noun, e.g. Kenntnis, and see what Verbindungen are possible (doesn’t seem as feasible, but one never knows)… or maybe even a stehen vs setzen feature, like the difference between “unter Druck/zu Verfügung stehen/setzen” and so on… just a few ideas, I’m actually using flashcards, which I made myself, to try and learn this stuff, as I think it’s important…
AND, I had another idea, why not a few small articles about other ways of expressing the same or similar actions (I’ve been putting a lot of thought into not sounding like a kid all the time…). For example, an article dedicated to other ways of saying “machen”, so we don’t go “Ich mache das, hab’ das gemacht and jetzt werde ich so and so machen, aber zuerst muss ich auch etwas anderes machen… yuck”; you could do an article where you explain that we can use erledigen, unternehmen, anfertigen, vorbereiten, etc.
Hope this was useful :)
Reddit and Easy German have been a big help for me when it comes to learning different ways to describe stuff. Especially the everyday things like you mentioned.
On Reddit, r/de and r/fragreddit are some of my favorite places to browse. You can come across casual, everyday ways to talk about pretty much anything. Cleaning up after dinner, the right way to shower, your plans for the weekend. It’s a gold mine for prefix verbs.
I like the Easy German podcast for that too, and some of their super easy or slow German videos. They talk about their daily lives pretty often, so you can pick up a lot from that, and sometimes there are tips about how to say different things. The podcast transcript is helpful too (it costs like $10 a month and there are usually 2 podcast episodes per week).
Thanks for the tips :)))
Hallo,
Let’s start by entblößen some typos:
“quick and naughty look the meaning of” (quick and naughty look at the meaning of)
“if tuhere’s a difference” (if there’s a difference)
“The origin of bloß a decently old Germanic root *blautaz which carried a sense of weak, timid, soft.” (you need to rephrase this – “is the decently old…” maybe…)
“If I HAD to find name some difference” (If I HAD to name some difference)
Thanks, I FINALLY understand the meaning and nuances of bloß!!!
So, which is coming out first, this German twist on Lady Chatterley’s lover or the book on prefix verbs?
Bis bald!
Neither :).
The book progress is SUPER slow because the person who is doing the layout at the moment is super busy all the time. We’ll do a hand over to me soon though and I will do final touches on the text, and then the rest is really only “Fleißarbeit”.
“Die Prüfung ist in einem Monat – wie soll ich das bloß schaffen?
The exam is one month – how on earth am I supposed to pull that off?”
The exam is IN one month
“…by the trained muscles that squeezed against Heinrich’s short as if they wanted to make it burst.”
SHIRT instead of short (that conjured up an even naughtier image)
“Now, both these uses of bloß sound a tiny little bit old fashioned, or at least high register”
Hmm…not a typo but when i hear “high register” that typically/always is referring to the actual physical voice of someone. I think high falutin would work well here and covers what you were trying to say…though idk if that phrase is an Americanism or if it would be understood globally
highfalutin:
(especially of speech, writing, or ideas) pompous or pretentious.
“you don’t want any highfalutin jargon”
Thanks for these!!
I think I started using “High register” because someone used in the comments here way back in the day and I thought that was the standard way to express it.
I have never heard of highfalutin, and I’m sure most non-native English readers haven’t either, so I’d rather not use that one. If “high register” really isn’t it, then I’ll probably go for something more basic like “sounds fancy” :).
But I’m curious what other native speakers of English think about this.
I think “high register” is right, but maybe a little technical (using “register” in a linguistics kind of sense). I’m not sure there’s a better way to put it. “Fancy” or maybe “literary” could work.
I’m assuming “highfalutin” is an Americanism. Sounds very much like something out of the dialogue from a cheesy Western XD
Ha, you’re actually the person I took “high register” from :D.
Of course I don’t remember which comment it was, but I do remember that it was yours and I was like “I’ll use that from now on.”
lol I love that this is all my fault.
Sounds like you’ve landed on “elevated,” which I think is probably good.
Not fault but merit!
I associate “high register” with linguistics (my undergrad major) jargon and don’t expect to find it in other contexts. But I think of “highfalutin” as an unusual dialect term that even fewer people would use. I think it was used by characters in “The Beverly Hillbillies” a 1960s sit-com and meant to represent an Appalachian dialect.
“High register” is an infrequently used, “high register” way of saying this that not all native speakers might recognize, but can get from context :P
High-falutin’ would be surprising and amusing to see in an article by a non-native speaker, but maybe on brand for you. I saw this article https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/In-a-Word/2019/0926/Poking-holes-in-pretentiousness-with-highfalutin which also suggests “hoity-toity” which is kind of in the middle.
Edit: having actually looked at the context I think “high register” is fine and also “formal”
High Falutin sounds riddiculous tbh. I think it would be either terrible or amazing if you started using it. Probably the former tbh (please don’t actually start using it lol…)
And as Berlin Grabers mentioned it sounds exactly like something out of a cheesy western. I actually had the same though before i read their comment.
hoity toity would also sound ridiculous imo, but with none of the goofy charm high falutin might have..
Personally i didn’t really have a problem with high register and like the technical sounding thing although i
am not really familiar with the term. I’ll ask a friend tomorrow whose more in this linguistic world actually who might have some ideas….
For what its worth my old edition of “The New Penguin English Dictionary” lists words as formal or literary (as well as archaic, non-standard, dated, humourous, dialect, informal, slang, coarse slang, derogatory, offensive, taboo, and euphemism)
Informally I might go for “posh sounding” or “fancy” or “well posh” (but that last one might be more for a person than a thing… )
I’m going to put in a quick vote for “elevated” to cover the sense being discussed here. That said, I must admit to loving “high-falutin”, even if it’s a little too, umm, aaaaah, “unelevated/coarse/colloquial/US-centric/etc etc” to be used in such a context. And finally, harking back to an earlier discussion thread, I’d also love “shmancy” to be part of the conversation, even it fails by committing the same sin: an overindulgence of informality ;-)
Elevated could be an option..
I was just texting a friend who is very invovled with translation theory and he suggested elevated too.
Great, I think I’ll use that one from now on. It’s fairly intuitive and gets the idea across pretty well.
I like “shmancy” but it sounds a bit too posh to me to be a general term for “good” language.
After going through all the comments, I think I’ll go with “elevated” from now on.
just want to add that I’d probably go for posh or fancy if someone actually sounded posh rather than sophisticated. Like if someone was like “one has one’s luncheon at noon in the dinning room with sir Basil” i’d be like “posh”. But its not necessarily a good word for sophisticated language.
I also realised for me some of the more informal words that have been suggested can have an association/ undertone of populist anti-intellectualism (even if they haven’t been suggested in this spirit). Big topic.
“anti-intellectualism”
Wow, that’s one of the core values of YourDailyGerman that I fleshed out with my marketing team a few years ago. Screw them linguists, they don’t even talk to women irl.
(YourDailySarcasm signing out)
I’m not sure if you are Emanuel. I think you are more anti-establishment in your approach. Populist anti-interllectualism is a whole different thing.
I know, I was just kidding :).
Anti-establishment is a good fit. I always wanted to have like 1% of the spirit the the b board of 4chan. Well, okay, more like 0.01% but it’s there somewhere.
(And anti-science of course!)
“high falutin” – my brain keeps reading “felatio”. Such a weird term.