The meanings of German “eh”, “ehe” and “eher”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day.
One thing German is famous for are its long words – like  mit or  ohne or the crazy 5-letter monster wegen.
Those can be tough, but fortunately, German also has some really short words that are tough. You know… for balance.

We’ll talk about one of those today. And this one might actually be tough to hear because it’s basically just one sound.
Today we’ll talk about the meaning of

eh

Yup, eh is a thing.
And it’s actually quite common in daily speech because it’s one of the translations for anyway.
But I think even many advanced speakers are kind of not aware of it because it’s so easy to miss.

Today, we’ll learn what exactly it means and when to use it as anyway. 

And we’ll also talk about the words ehe and eher, which seem similar but mean quite different things. And we’ll talk about the noun die Ehe, which according to statistics is THE MAIN REASON for divorces.
“Wait, doesn’t Ehe mean marriage?”
Exactly!

So if you’re ready to jump in and learn some German, then let’s go.

And before we get to eh and how to use it, let’s start with at ehe and eher,  because those are a bit easier to grasp.

The Meanings of “ehe” and “eher”

The small ehe as well as the word eher are historically related to the English word early. The main German word for early is früh though, and it kind of forced ehe and eher to shift in meaning a bit.
eher can still be a translation for earlier if you want to go for a slightly elevated tone.

• Ich kann nicht eher kommen, da ich noch arbeiten muss.
• I can’t come earlier because I still have to work.
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But the more important use for  eher today is an abstract idea of likeliness.
It’s used in situations where one alternative is more realistic than the other…

• Reichen 10 Euro fürs Kino? Eher nicht oder?
• Will 10 Euro be enough for the movies? Probably not, I’d say.
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• 4 Euro für einen Fahrschein?? Eher laufe ich nach Hause als dass ich das bezahle.
• 4 Euro for a train ticket?? I’d rather walk home than paying that.
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• Morgen wird das Wetter eher schlecht.
• Tomorrow the weather will be more bad than good.
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Now, does that usage have anything to do with the original idea “earlier”?
I would argue yes.
We just need to think of the two options we’re talking about (good weather – bad weather, walking – paying, enough – not enough) as being at a different “distance” from reality, which is where we are.
And if we were to go toward the options we’d reach the optioncloser to us, the option we’d rather take… well… we’d get there “earlier”.
Okay, I know this is quite abstract. Feel free to ignore it.
What is important to mention is that this eher, this rather-eher doesn’t have that much to do with actual liking. You wouldn’t say…

• Ich trinke eher Bier als Wein.

…if you want to say that you prefer beer over wine.
Eher is more talking about probability. One is more probable than the other but they are somewhat close together… at least in many contexts. I think people use this rather-eher a bit more often than they use the actual temporal one but you can hear them in both meanings.

Cool. So that’s eher, but what about its former base form ehe.

Ehe itself is actually the more-form of a word e. Yap, just this one letter. It is the actual root of ehe and also of early. and it goes back to an Indo-European word for morning. The word e has disappeared since and all we have left are the more-form ehe and the most-form… what is the most-form you ask… it is erst… like das erste… like… the “earliest” time, the “earliest” item in a list and so on :)…
Anyway, so ehe used to be the more-form of e.
Ehe has changed a little and we have früher and eher now if we really want to say earlier, but  earlier-idea is still part of ehe…. for one thing in words like ehedem or ehemalig.

• Der ehemalige Präsident isst einen Apfel.
• The former president eats an apple.
  The earlier once president eats an apple (lit.)
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But ehe is also used alone. Then, it’s a temporal adverb meaning before. 

• Ehe Thomas etwas sagen konnte, war Maria schon zur Tür raus
• Before Thomas could say a word, Maria was already out the door.
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Note that the difference in sound between ehe and eher is not very big, but the difference in meaning is. So much so that Im not even sure people would understand you if you mix them up. That’s because they have different grammatical functions, and that always trips up the brain big time.

ehe is an intro-word that introduces a side sentence (subordinate clause) . Eher is a word for comparisons

• Thomas hat heute ehe Feierabend als gestern… WRONG. Needs “eher”
• Eher Thomas heute Feierabend machen darf, muss er noch eine Power Point Präsentation fertig machen….  WRONG. Needs “ehe”
  
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And since we’re talking about differences (I feel like we always are): is there a difference between ehe and bevor?
From  a purely temporal perspective ehe and  bevor  are doing the same thing:

• A happens, bevor/ehe B happens.

In reality though they are not always interchangeable. Not so much because of a difference in meaning but because ehe is really rare in comparison to bevor and might thus sound out of place especially in very basic every day sentences.

• Ehe/Bevor Thomas nach Hause fährt, fährt er erst noch in die Bar.
• Before  Thomas goes home, he first goes to the bar.
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This just sounds much better with bevor and can’t find an example where bevor wouldn’t work or sound bad…. so maybe just go with that.
All right.
Now, if used in spoken language this temporal–ehe is shortened to one syllable… eeeeh… which is obviously easier to pronounce than ehe. 

• Eh(e) ich zum eigentlichen Thema komm’, möcht’ ich mich bei ein paar Leuten bedanken.
• Before I get to the actual topic I would like to thank a few people.
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And for some reason, I really don’t know why, how and where, this eh has taken on a different meaning which is now the way more important one…. the ÜBER-important one.

The meaning of “eh”

Eh is one of those little words like halt or doch… but the meaning is much clearer… it is  anyway. Wow… how crystal clear :).
Now… eh is not anyway in general but the anyway in sense of “however the case may be” or ”

• “Mist. Wir haben keine Milch mehr.”
  “Macht nix… ich wollte nachher eh noch einkaufen.”
• “Crap. We’re out of milk.”
  “No problem…. I was gonna do groceries later anyway.”
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Milk or no milk… it doesn’t make a difference. We don’t need to change plans. I’ll just bring it with me later.

• “Warum kommst du nicht feiern?”
  “Ich muss meine Bachelorarbeit bis morgen fertig haben.”
  “Das schaffst du eh nicht, also kannst du genau so gut auch mitkommen.”
• “Why won’t you come party with us?”
  “I have to have finished my bachelor thesis by tomorrow.”
  “You won’t make that anyway, so you can just as well come with us.”
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Party or no party… it makes no difference for your finishing the thesis.

• Unsere Lehrerin hat uns heute gesagt, dass der Test unglaublich schwer sein wird und wir quasi keine Chance haben zu bestehen, aber das wusste ich eh schon.
• Our teacher told us today that the test will be incredibly difficult and that we have virtually no chance of passing it but I know that already anyway.
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• “Papa, was ist ein Credit Default Swap?”
  “Äh… das ist, wenn… äh… also du hast eine… äh… ach, das ist zu kompliziert, das verstehst du eh nicht.”
• “Daddy, what’s a credit default swamp?”
  “Oh… uh… that if when… er… so you got a … uhm… it’s too complicated actually, you wouldn’t understand anyway.”
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• “Das Ballet heute abend fällt aus, Schatz.”
  “Sehr gut! Ich hatte eh keinen Bock.”
• “The ballet tonight has been cancelled.”
  “Great. I didn’t wanne go anyway.”
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• “Kann ich dich heute abend spät anrufen?”
  “Ja, auf jeden Fall… ich bin heute wahrscheinlich eh bis um 1 wach.”
•  “Is it ok if  I call you somewhat late tonight?”
  “Yeah, definitely… I’ll probably be up till 1 am anyway.
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I hope you can get the idea of this eh. It is really hard to express it with words and anyway really is a good translation. Certainly not every anyway can be translated as eh. I can’t really get a hold of it so if you have examples where you have doubt, go ahead and ask and maybe we can zero in on eh a bit more.One thing I can say though is that eh DOESN’T work in questions.

• “Could you help me with my German homework?”
  “I don’t think so… you’re much better than I am.”
  “Could you help me anyway? I’d like some company.”

In a way this anyway is kind of the same as the one in all the other examples… better or not better… makes no difference, your help is always appreciated. But it is NOT eh in German

• Könntest du mir eh helfen?… NOPE

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and the correct phrasing would be

• Könntest du mir trotzdem helfen?
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Trotzdem means despite that and that is the important point. This anyway, the one in questions has some despite that in itself and that component is completely missing in eh. Try inserting despite that in the examples we had with eh… it makes no sense at all. Or it does but it changes the meaning quite a bit. So despite it being the same word in English… the underlying idea is quite different and that’s why eh doesn’t work for questions.

All right. Now, there are 2 main question we should talk about. First:

Are there synonyms for eh?

Yes. Sowieso. Sowieso is equally common and you can insert it in all the examples and nothing will change. Sure… it is much longer but it does have a certain flow to it… zow-V-zow… that doesn’t sound that bad and might spice up your phrase quite a bit.  A third possibility is so oder so and while this is not nearly as common but it may help you grasp the exact meaning a bit better… the idea that 2 alternatives are making no difference for something.
All right. The second question is this:

Can we also say ehe for this anyway-eh?

The answer is clearly… no! That would be super confusing because ehe does sound 100% time related.
The second question is:

Where do we put eh? What’s the position of eh in a sentence?

For anyway it is easy… it is at the end. For eh it is a little harder to say… and by little I mean much.
There are 2 positions where it CANNOT be. Just as any real particle (like doch or ja) it can’t be in position 1.

• Eh muss ich noch warten…. wrong

.
And because the verb is there ALL the time, it can’t be in position 2 either

• Ich eh muss noch warten...wrong

All other positions are possible and it depends on the sentence and the content where it’ll end up. For some sentences there is only one possible slot.

• Ich musste [eh] nochmal ins Zentrum fahren.
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Eh has to come there. Anywhere later would sound weird. But there are other examples where it is really pretty damn free.

• Ich rufe ihn [eh] wegen der Sache [eh] heute abend [eh] wahrscheinlich [eh] noch mal an.
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All of these are fine, sound idiomatic and the differences in meaning are really small if existent at all. If we wanted to really find out where it can be and where it can’t be we’d have to thoroughly talk about German sentence structure and that would be too much for now.
So let’s just settle for a few guidelines:

eh usually comes AFTER direct and indirect objects, especially when they are pronouns.

“Ich hätte es dir eh morgen beim Essen erzählt.”
“I would have told you tomorrow during lunch anyway”.

eh never comes after noch (mal) or wieder

if there is a nicht or kein in the sentence,
eh usually comes right before that

And if that doesn’t help… well just as for the position of nicht, it is not the worst advice to just listen to what your gut has to say.

As far as my gut is concerned, it has been saying “Send down some food!” for a while so I think I should eat something. But we’re eh done here I think. This was our German word of the day eh. It is related to ehe, eher and early but it has evolved into a very very common way of saying anyway in German.

Why did it take on that meaning?

I have no idea… but maybe it evolved from earlier to rather to in all cases imaginable to anyway… I don’t know if that makes sense.

But anyway… if you have any questions or suggestion just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.

Further reading:

• Word of the Day – “erst”
• Word of the Day – “trotzdem”
• more on bevor