Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a meaning at one of the most basic words ever:
es
Es can mean fusion crust and unicorn and towel. And even girl. Isn’t that fascinating.
Now you’re all like “Well, duh… it’s because es means it. Boring. Talk about something useful instead. We’d have a few ideas like conditional or written past. ”
And you’re right. Es doesn’t sound like an interesting word to talk about. It means it and that’s it. Except it isn’t. There are some differences between German es and English it and there’s specifically one use that trips up many learners because the es doesn’t seem to make sense.
So today we’ll take a detailed look at es. We’ll check out what it is used for, how it compares to English and how it is translated. It’ll be a little nerdy today but it’s worth it and at the end we’ll all be … esperts. Hahaha.
Meh… let’s find out of whether the explanation will be better than the jokes.
We can distinguish between four different use cases for es. They are not all completely different from each other but it’s helpful to treat them all separately. The first function is of course… the pronoun
Es – replacing stuff
The English it is a third person singular pronoun and it can replace anything that is not a human being. Chair, idea, dog, abstract concept… they all can be it.
German es is also third person singular, but German has a different system, commonly called crappy gender system. In German, it’s not about what a noun is but about what article it has. Es is the right choice whenever the noun has a das in the dictionary. And for things that have a der or a die es is NOT the right choice.
- Do you know the book? Yes, I know it.
- Kennst du das Buch? Ja ich kenne es.
- Do you know the tree. Yes, I know it.
- Kennst du den Baum? Ja, ich kenne es.... WRONG… like… really!
I’m sure it must be hard to believe for native speakers of English but the second example sounds super hyper turbo wrong. Baum is masculine. It is der Baum and not das Baum and so es cannot in any way refer to Baum. Es can only refer to grammatical neuters.
- Der Fuchs sieht das Huhn. Er will es fressen.
- The fox sees the chicken. It wants to eat it.
(in German, it sounds fine, no idea about the English version)
Grammatical gender is really calling the shots most of the time. The line only blurs a bit if we’re talking about an actual person.
- Kennst du das Mädchen? Ja, ich kenne es/sie.
- Do you know the girl? Yes, I know her.
Grammatically correct would be es but people do use sie too and both are allowed. With es it sounds a bit more technical, with sie it’s more personal. And the more distance there is between the word Mädchen and the pronoun, they more natural sie will feel.
So, es and it have the same function (replacing nouns) but they use different systems and not every it will be an es in German. When there’s a noun involved… mind the gender.
The only time when you don’t have to think twice is when you use es to replace … facts.
- “Thomas will be a bit late for the meeting.”
“I knew it.“
Here, it doesn’t stand for a specific noun but rather for a fact. The fact that Thomas will be late. For such facts, English uses it which makes perfect sense because it’s not a person. The Romance languages like French for example have only two genders, feminine and masculine, and so they had to pick one to use in these situations. Of course they went for masculine. Apparently they’re incredibly sexists and think men rule the wo… oh wait, maybe it’s just language. I don’t know. In either case, German went for the neuter es and so it works exactly like English.
- “Thomas wird ein bisschen zu spät zum Meeting kommen.”
“Ich wusste es.”
And with this example we’re already at our next use for es.
Replacing sentenc-es
In the example with Thomas not taking his job seriously enough the es was basically replacing a sentence (because facts are expressed by sentences). But it doesn’t always have to be a full statement. What matters is that es can replace things that are expressed with a verb.
- Es macht Spaß, im Regen joggen zu gehen.
- It‘s fun to go running in the rain.
Es stands for im Regen joggen zu gehen. This is the subject in the main sentence.
- “What is fun?”
“To go running in the rain.”
And we could technically put this subject into the first position.
- To go running in the rain is fun.
- Sleeping is fun.
The structure of these two sentences is exactly the same. But the running-part is rather long and especially in English we’re used to putting such side clauses after the main sentence. So we move it.
- _____ is fun, to go running in the rain.
Now we have an empty spot in our main sentence. And grammar is going bananas. “Ahhhhhhhh… empty spot in the beginning! Fill it. FILL IT!!!!”
But we’re used to grammar’s OCD so we’re just like “All right all right, we’ll insert a pronoun. Chill out dude.” And as we’ve learned the pronoun to replace sentences or verbs is… es, or it. In English, this it is often called a dummy pronoun or dummy subject. These constructions are very common
- Es ist langweilig, immer das gleiche zu essen.
- It‘s boring to eat the same all the time.
- Es war schön, dass du angerufen hast.
- It was nice that you called.
And they’re not limited to subjects. It also works for direct objects.
- Ich fände es wirklich extrem schön, [wenn du auch mal von alleine abwäschst].
- I really would appreciate it immensely [if you could do the dishes without me having to tell you].
The logic is exactly the same. We don’t want (or even can’t) integrate the whole part about the dishes into our main sentence, so we put it after and use the pronoun es instead.
What’s interesting is that the use of such a dummy-es is not always needed. It’s different for every verb. And not only that.
- Ich verstehe (es), wenn du nicht mitkommen willst.
- I understand ((it)) if you don’t want to come with.
- Ich verstehe (((((es))))), dass du nicht mitkommen willst.
- I understand (((((it)))))) that you don’t want to come with.
In the first example, at least for German, the es sounds fine, in the second not so much. So it ALSO depends on the context it is used in. And as if that wasn’t enough, in German it even depends on where the dummy is to be placed. An object dummy can never be placed in the beginning.
- Es verstehe ich, dass du nicht…. Wrong
A subject-dummy on the other hand works best in first position and may well sound out of place elsewhere
- It would be better for me, if I…
- Es wäre besser für mich, wenn ich….
- Für mich wäre (es) besser, wenn ich…
- Besser wäre (((es))) für mich, wenn ich…
(We can’t really recreate that in English because we can’t move around
the boxes as freely but I hope you get an impression anyway.)
In the first version 1 the es is a must have. Without it the sentence would sound like a question. In version 2 it is a nice-to-have. It sounds a bit better when it’s there but that might just be my personal preference. People use it either way. In version 3 finally it’s a should-probably-better-not-have. It’s not wrong, it just feels much more natural without it.
So the bottom line of all that… the use of a dummy es has a lot to with what’s idiomatic and it differs from German to English. That sucks but the good news is that all you need is a lot of Sprachgefühl. Well, okay I guess that isn’t really good news.
In either case, it’s not a big deal if you miss one or put on in too many. The only phrasing where es really MUST be used is this initial dummy subject we had in the beginning. And that’s exactly the same in English.
- Es ist superschön, dass Deutsch und Englisch in diesem Punkt gleich sind.
- It‘s awesome, that German and English are the same in that regard.
Now, this sentence brings us directly into our next section… because not every es in the beginning is a dummy subject.
es – tasty vanilla filler
When you’re learning German you’ll sooner or later come across a sentence like this:
- Es fährt um 10 ein Zug nach Berlin.
- At 10, there will be a train going to Berlin.
Such a sentence confuses many people. What’s with that es in the beginning. Is it the subject? Is it a translation for there will be?
When you try to look that up online or ask your teacher, chances are that it’ll be called a dummy subject or delayed subject or something. But that’s not really what’s going on. They’re similar but this es should be considered…. pure filler. Let’s take the example and see how we ended up with that. We know that German can move boxes around quite freely.
- [Nach Berlin] fährt [ein Zug] [um 10].
- [Um 10] fährt [ein Zug] [nach Berlin].
- [Ein Zug ] fährt [um 10] [nach Berlin].
All these are fine. However, sometimes the speaker feels like ALL the boxes should come after the verb for, you know, reasons. If we do that we’ll get this.
- ____ fährt [ein Zug] [um 10] [nach Berlin].
And we all know what that means. Grammar-tantrum. And for good reason because if position 1 is empty, the sentence sounds like a question. So we have to fill it and we fill it with the emptiest pronoun possible. Es.
Now you might be asking “Wait a minute… that is exactly the same explanation we had earlier. So why isn’t it a dummy-es?”
That is a good question. The thing is that the dummy-es stands for something. This one, the filler-es, stands for nothing.
“But doesn’t it just stand for train?”
Well, that would make sense but there are good arguments that the es is NOT standing for the subject.
- Three kids have seen the horse.
- [Drei Kinder] haben [das Pferd] gesehen.
- [Das Pferd] haben [drei Kinder] gesehen.
These are the normal versions. WE have two boxes here, the subject (three kids) and the direct object (the horse). Now, because, you know, reasons, we want to have both boxes after the verb. So we have to insert es so as to not have the first spot empty.
- Es haben [drei Kinder] [das Pferd] gesehen.
Es could be standing in for the horse. I mean why not, right? But the sentence wouldn’t change if we the kids see die Kuh (the cow). And then the es cannot stand for it anymore because Kuh is die. So, it’s not a dummy object. If es were the subject the verb should be hat, because es is singular. But the verb is haben, because kids is plural. That is a strong hint that es is NOT the subject.
But a hint alone is not enough. Here’s another example.
- Beim Meeting wurde gestern geredet.
- At the meeting was talked yesterday. (lit)
This is one of those weird subject-less passive constructions German can do. All we have is a location (at the meeting), a time (yesterday) and an activity (to talk) but no subject. Still, we can take this sentence and move all the boxes behind the verb.
- Es wurde gestern beim Meeting geredet.
Now we have an es. But we’ve established that the sentence has no subject and it doesn’t need one. In fact it can’t have one, because reden in active voice can’t really take an object. So cannot be es the subject here. It is really just a filler. Pure structure. Grammar wants position 1 to be filled and so we take the pronoun that carries the least information possible. Es.
These structures with such a filler-es are certainly special but they’re not rare. You can definitely hear them in daily conversations.
There’s one very important caveat to be made though, if you want to build these yourself. This whole “let’s move every box after the verb” only really works fine for impersonal third person statements.
- Es hat jemand Suppe gekocht.
- Es hat mein Bruder Suppe gekocht…. meh
- Es habe ich Suppe gekocht…. WRONG
The first one is fine, the second one is pushing it, the third one broke it. The structure simply doesn’t work when the subject is ich or du. I don’t really know why.
Anyways, English does not have such a filler-es, at least not that I can think of, so some of you are certainly wondering how this filler-es is translated. There is an there are are good translations but often you’ll just have to move the subject first … depends on what’s idiomatic in English.
- Es kommt ein Sturm.
- There’s a storm coming.
- Es wurden vier berühmte Gemälde gestohlen.
- There were four famous paintings being stolen… not really (or is it?)
- Four famous paintings were stolen.
Cool
So that was the filler-es and the big question that remains is
WHY? (imagine an echoe)
Why would German do that? Why would it move everything after the verb and then introduce a filler-es that means nothing and stands for nothing? And the answer is… no idea. German does it because it’s possible, I guess. And it’s not limited to a certain register of language. You can find examples in technical writing, in political talk, in the super market but also in novels and poetic lyrics.It’s even in a song title of a famous German Schlager.
- Es fährt ein Zug nach nirgendwo.
- There’s a train going to nowhere.
And I think we’ve actually deserved some corny Schlager because… we’re done. This was our detailed look at th
“NOT SO FAST!!”
What? Who… who said that??
“It was I, it”
Uhm … what?!
“It, you idiot. I’m it. It the ubiquitous. And you forgot about me. “
Oh… oh my goodness you’re right. I’m so sorry.
“No biggie.”
Damn… I guess Schlager will have to wait a little longer. I really thought we were done.
“Well, sorry man, for raining on your parade like that.”
Nah… it’s okay. It’s just what you do.
The es around us
German and English both have this weird es that we use mainly in context of weather.
- Es regnet.
- It is raining.
- Es ist warm.
- It’s warm.
- Morgen wird es schön.
- Tomorrow it‘ll be nice.
These were all more or less about climate but it’s not limited to weather.
- It seem like you’re hungry.
- Es sieht so aus, als ob du hungrig bist.
And in German it is also part of another a few very common structures
- In dem Film geht es um 5 Heere und einen Hobbit.
- The movie is about 5 armies and a hobbit.
- Um die Ecke von mir gibt es einen Spätie, der viele verschiedene coole und rare Biersorten hat.
- Around the corner from where I live, there’s a convenience store (night store) that has various cool and rare kinds of beer.
The German versions have a quite different structure than the English ones. The es is the subject in both cases. In the first one es “walks” around the topic of the movie and in the second one es, whatever it is, “gives” us this cool store. Thank you, es, by the way! I really appreciate it.
“You’re welcome.”
Now, in all these examples this es has a clear role (subject) but it doesn’t stand for anything… or at least it is totally subjective what it stands for. Like
“It’s raining.”
“What is raining?”
“What do you mean… it, I guess.”
The word is pure function and because it doesn’t stand for anything, not all languages have it. In Italian for example you’d just say
- Rains.
This makes perfect sense and it just sounds incomplete because of the grammar we’re used to in German and English.
Is this es really so different from the others? Well, they’re all close to each other. Like the pronoun and the dummy-es this weather-es has a grammatical function (in this case: subject), like the filler-es it doesn’t stand for ANYTHING. But unlike the dummy and the filler, it doesn’t disappear just because you change around stuff.
- Es ist heute schön draussen.
- Heute ist es draussen schön.
- It‘s nice outside today.
- Today it‘s nice outside.
But hey … I actually just got a call from the “who-cares”-police. And they’re right. You don’t need to be able to tell the different “es”s apart and analyze what they are grammatically. I just thought it would be good to give you an overview over the different things es can do and about the filler-es in particular because that is confusing for many people. A quick recap. Es can be:
- a pronoun for anything with a das, not to be used for die or der, no matter you’re talking about
- a pronoun for facts
- a dummy pronoun for sentences, usage highly depends on context
- a function-less and meaningless filler in the beginning of a sentence simply because the speaker chose to cram all the information after the verb.
- the weird es that makes our weather and “gives” us cool convenience stores
And now you can forget everything :).
Everything deleted? Good.Perfect time for a
Es- surprise quiz: Are you nerd enough?!
Which es are you dealing with? Will it stay in the sentence when the order is changed? (normal pronoun, sentence pronoun (dummy subject/object), filler, rain-“es”)
- Es ist warm in Berlin.
rain-es, In Berlin ist es warm.
- Es kommt ein Star nach Berlin.
filler, Nach Berlin kommt ein Star.
- Es geht darum, dass du nie abwäschst.
rain-es. Darum, dass du nie abwäschst geht es.
- Es ist schade, dass du nie abwäschst.
sentence pronoun/dummy subject, Schade ist ((((es)))), dass du nie abwäschst.
- Es gibt hier ein leckeres Bier.
rain-es, Hier gibt es ein leckeres Bier.
- Es heißt Störtebecker und ich trinke es echt gerne.
regular pronoun; Störtebecker heißt es und ich trinke es echt gerne.
- Es hat jemand angerufen.
filler; Jemand hat angerufen.
- Es hat viele Leute gestört, dass der Film so leise war.
dummy subject; Dass der Film so leise war, hat viele Leute gestört.
As always the solutions are in blinding yellow. Just mark them to read them. And don’t worry if you didn’t get everything correct. It’s really not that important.
If you have any questions about today’s post or if you have come across and es that you can’t really make sense of, just leave me a comment.
And now turn up the volume and enjoy some German Schlager*… from the 70s. I think Scarlett Johansson’s older sister is in the background…. gee,she has no sense of rhythm whatsoever.
(*Warning: video might lead to fremdschämen. Watch at your own peril)
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x-Ch4kqbuU”
Till next time :)
Hi Emanuel.
I have found the following sentence: es habe sich aber gelohnt und den Besitzer überzeugt dass er mehr ans Material beisteuerte als geplannt.
what is this “es habe”? I could not find an explanation anywhere.
That’s “Konjunktiv 1” of “haben”.
It’s used in writing for “reported speech”. The other is paraphrasing what someone else has said here and this is made immediately clear by this form.
Hey Emanuel, I’ve looked through the comments but I think there hasn’t been any question like the following:
What would the function of “es” in these sentences be?
a) Ich hatte es eilig. I was in a hurry.
b) Er meint es gut. He means well.
Are they the rain-es, except that they are not subject?
Nice examples! Yes, they function as direct object here, but they don’t really stand for anything.
Well, okay… actually in the sentence with “meinen” the “es” refers to “whatever he does”. But in the first one, the “es” really just fulfills “habens” desire for a direct object.
Hope that helps :)
Schöne Erklärung Emanuel. Sehr interessantes Thema. Ist also im folgenden Satz das zweite “es” ein “Dummy Subject”, das den Kasten für Grammatik ausfüllt? Steht es für die Stadt, die Besucher auf sich aufmerksam macht?
Immerhin, etwa eine halbe Million sind es jährlich, die es in
diese an Sehenswürdigkeiten so reiche Stadt lockt, allerdings vornehmlich Tagesausflügler.
Beste Wünsche.
Oh, das ist ein schönes Beispiel :D.
Das erste “es” wird von dem Relativesatz “gefüllt”, also ja… ein dummy.
Das zweite “es” ist so wie “es regnet”. Ein unspezifisches “es”. Es steht NICHT für die Stadt, denn “Stadt” ist weiblich.
Hilft das?
Hello!Looking at this sentence:
Es haben [drei Kinder] [die Kuh] gesehen
Can we say there is a similar logic to the da words in the sense that those are as well generic replacements where the case of the replaced term is not important?
“generic replacements”… yes, you can look at them that way. There’s a difference however to the “es” in your example, because that one literally has NO content. It stands for nothing and if we reshuffle the sentence it goes away.
The da-words do stand for something, and they do not go away just because we change word order.
So they’re more like “es” in this example:
– Ich finde es schön, dass du kommst.
The “es” is a stand-in for the dass-part, so it has “content”. The one in your example has nothing, it’s really just a filler.
Hope that helps.
This makes a lot of sense now! Thanks a lot, your blog really helped me looking at German grammar from a totally different perspective!
I didn’t expect learning could be this fun:-)
Es gibt noch viel zu lernen aber mit Emanuel gibt es keinen Bedarf zur Sorge.
Es gab keinen Fehler in deinem Satz.
Aber es wäre idiomatischer, zu sagen “keinen Grund zur Sorge” :)
Hi Emanuel,
There is an example in my textbook that reads “Die Kaffeemaschine ist nicht alt. Es ist eine neue Kaffeemaschine.” Next to this example is a little call-out box that looks like this: https://imgur.com/wu67tUm
Can you help me unterstand if this is just a really simple example dummy subjects?
Thank you!!
I wouldn’t really call it a dummy. It is a generic “it” that could be replaced with “das Ding”.
If you were talking about a person you wouldn’t use “es”; that’s the main indicator why it’s NOT a dummy.
– Maria ist schön. Sie (NOT: es) ist eine schöne Frau.
The note-box in the textbook is about adjectives being used without endings vs with endings. The “es” is not the focus there.
Hope that helps :)
Hello! I have a question. There is an example in your post about the tree. And of course we can not use “es”, because its masculin. So how can we replace “der Baum” in this sentence? With “ihn”, but its not lively being…
Hi Irina, you’d say “ich kenne ihn.” It doesn’t matter in German if you’re talking about a being or a thing. The grammatical gender (der, die, das) is what matters.
– der Baum – > er
– die Sonne – > sie
…
Hope that helps.
Wait, what am I saying :)… grammatically “Ich wirke daran” would be correct but it does NOT mean “I’m working on it” because “wirken” doesn’t mean “to work” in sense of humans doing work. It would be
“Ich arbeite daran.”
hey,very helpful Blog,omg that really helps me a lot to improve my Deutsch,btw,can u explain the difference between these 2 sentences?
Es sind die Sachen,die ich brauche,mir zu glingen
Es sind die Sachen,was ich brauche,mir zu glingen
which one is right? i really can’t tell the difference or how and when to use between was and die als pronoun in a sentence? if possible,can u explain it to me?
das wäre sehr nett von dir^^
The first sentence is more correct than the second one (“die” not “was”) but it’s not really correct either. Sounds like from an old German poem from 200 years ago. What were you trying to say?
As for “die” vs. “was”.. you could try and read the article on wo-words. The stuff I explain there is basically the answer to this question, too, even though the article is about wo-word (worauf vs. auf das and so on). It’s quite dense and might be scary at first but yeah.. give it a try.
Could you do a post explaining ‘es gibt’
Hmm… what exactly are you having trouble with? The difference to “es ist”?
I am having trouble with this difference. I would be grateful for a post on it.
Added to the to do list, as requested :)
An English-speaker note:
Ich verstehe (((((es))))), dass du nicht mitkommen willst.
I understand (((((it)))))) that you don’t want to come with.
The english sentence similarly to the german one does not sound quite right. I think this is because of dass/that, as they are definitive, and play a similar role to the word ‘it’ in the sentence.
Ich verstehe (es), wenn du nicht mitkommen willst.
I understand ((it)) if you don’t want to come with.
This sounds more proper, because ‘if’ is a very different word than ‘it’ and plays its own role.
That’s an interesting parallel, thank you!
When I read “Ich habe die Party gelassen, weil es kein Bier mehr gab.” I interpreted it as “I decided to give up the idea of hosting the party, because there was no more beer.”
As for “Das ist ihr sen Buch”, I did hear a child in Sachsen say “Das ist Francheska sein Bett” and similar things a few times. Although this child had three brothers and just one sister so that might partly explain it.
Thanks so much for this blog, it’s a joy to read and I always learn something new.
Hi, so i came across this sentence:
-Du kannst jetzt nicht schlafen, es sind Monster in der Nähe
-You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby
what does “es” mean? is it the filler es?
-Monster sind in der Nähe
-In der Nähe sind Monster
Are one of the three more right?
or is that normally how you say “there are” in german, literally “it are”, but i would think it should be “sie sind”
also, i thought “there are” translates to “es gibt”?
It’s definitely the filler. So don’t think too hard about translations. The other two options are just as correct. The one with monster first is the least idiomatic one, to me. The reason is that monster is the big news here, and that tends to come later in the sentence, not right in the beginning (more on that in my post on word order). Using the dummy-es allows us to have both these new pieces of info (nearby, monsters) in the latter half of the sentence. Hope that helps.
yes that helps a lot :). i thought about the context of the sentence and i feel like i’m starting to develop a sense of those word order forces you talked about. “Monster in der Nähe” is what defines the message you want to get across so the pieces want to stay together, but without the filler, you’d have to split the info and they would seem less relevant to each other
Ich werde es dir nie vergessen. / I will never forget you.
How does ‘es’ is relevant here ?
In this sentence, the “es” is a reference to a specific thing the person will not forgot. The actual translation would be:
– I will never forget that you did that (for me).
I think it’s more common in positive contexts but it works for negative memories, too.
Hope that helps.
Perfectly explained!! Thank you so much, you’re my hero of the month! hahaha
What about “Ich bin’s”?
That’s a filler. Or actually it’s more like a placeholder for “I am the one who is here/who just knocked”. Sometimes, the “es”-part gets filled with content in the same sentence
– Ich war es, der dein Bier getrunken hat.
– It was me/I who drank your beer.
In English has the same “it”. Just that it’s on the other side of the verb.
Vielen Dank für die Erklärung!
First of all, great post, as always started reading like “But i know it!”, but upon further reading I learned about things that bug me everyday.
So… not sure if someone already asked (there are tons of comments and a quick strg+f didn’t find it, and google did not help me), but I always struggle making sentences with “es gibt” on a nebensatz. I’ll try one:
. Ich habe die Party gelassen, weil es kein Bier mehr gab.
I always stop in the middle of the sentence and say “Es gab kein Bier mehr, also habe ich gelassen.”
I’m not sure whether this is right or not, and I can’t recall any examples I’ve read with this construction. Would you write some explanation with examples please?
Thanks in advance
Oh your sentences are fine as far as “es gibt” is concerned.
– … weil es blah blah blah gab.
is totally fine.
There are two mistakes with the translation of “to leave” though. You need “verlassen” and on top of that you can only use it with an object (“die Party”), so in the second sentence you should say
– Es gab kein Bier mehr, also bin ich gegangen.
Check out the post on “lassen” in case you haven’t read it yet.
But as far as “es gibt” goes, I think you got it and there are millions of such sentences:
https://www.google.de/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1DVCJ_enDE430DE443&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=active&q=%22weil%20es%20*%20gab%22
Let me know if you still have doubt
Emanuel, gibt es einen allgemeinen Sinn, in welchem die Vorsilbe inne benutzt wird?
I was going to comment humbly that an intimidating visual aspect of German is obviously the length of the words (I think this is relevant for a German is easy blog), and if Musikinstrumente, for example, needs to be said that way and breaking it up is just wrong, or those vague rules that if it is the “part of the same concept” or some other explanation equally unclear, then I saw this article so that you can see how the subject is looked at from the outside. Then again, some oriental languages have no punctuation, no spaces between words. How do you guys psychologically tackle a 40, 60, 80 character word, do you see the discrete components and put them together or do you see the whole first and deconstruct it after? Can one keep on going by adding suffixes like lieblings etc? There are probably better guidelines that the ones I have heard. Here is the article:
8 of our favorite ridiculously long German words
1. Lebensabschnittpartner
As David Sedaris noted in his New Yorker article about learning German, this word is most astutely described as another option for “partner” or “lover,” but with a more transient twist: “the person I am with today.” A more elegant, proper version of the term is lebensabschnittgefährter.
2. Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen
Twain’s frustrations with learning German are well documented in his book A Tramp Abroad. This term he notes as meaning “independencedeclarations” (sic), which is perhaps a parchment-saving way our own Declaration of Independence could have been titled.
3. Freundschaftsbezeigungen
Here’s one that even an English speaker might be able to break down, beginning with “freund,” which means “friend.” Twain also took umbrage at this “clumsy” term despite its sunny meaning: “demonstrations of friendship.”
4. … read the full article here
http://theweek.com/article/index/245258/8-of-our-favorite-ridiculously-long-german-words
I think my favorite one of that list Berzirksschornsteinfegermeister. It just feels very “real life”. Or to me it does because I grew up heating with coal. Also, it doesn’t “feel” long at all for some reason.
How do compound words get processed? There certainly is a lot of research on that but I don’t know too much about it. I would think that we do see the distinct compounds though. The brain is very fast because it’s trained and recognizes patterns. Finish for instance does have compounds too but to me Finish long words were just a long chain of letters and it would take me a second to partition it.
I’m a pretty good reader, meaning I can read off of a page at good speed with few mistakes and stutters but every now and then it does happen that I mis-parse…
– Fahrerlaubnis
This is not a good example because it’s too common and short but I might read “Fahrer + x” and then go like “Oh, ops”
By the way… for a very long time I was convinced the the word “beunruhigt” had two syllables and was pronounced “boinruigt”. I understood it fine, but I didn’t make the connection that it’s based on “unruhig”. I thought “beun” was some sort of rare prefix that meant something like “not” :)
By the way… I took the liberty to edit your comment a little. I shortened the article and included a link to the original. I hope that’s okay with you :)
Sure, thanks. Your answer led me to your link Finnish Grammar, and thought that what we call “simple” (compare English rules to German, or Spanish to vulgar Latin or Vulgar Latin to Classical Latin and so on to the protoproto…language) is in fact sophisticated, and only looks simple after being invented, just like swiping the screen of an iphone looks simple. It looks like doing away with cases and long words are trends, and that each “invention/simplification” probably comes at a trade off. I wonder if you feel the same way about this linguistic darwinism or if you see counter trends. I can see that the influence of foreign languages, or transitional stages within the trend, can complicate rules for a while, say, if one day “weil ich müde bin” and “weil ich bin müde”, for example, are equally correct, and an exception is created.Berzirksschornsteinfegermeister not feeling long at all….extraordinary!
That’s an interesting question. I personally don’t believe in a trend for simplification. There are several reasons for it. 1) Language is at the bottom of it just a bunch of sounds in a row that express something. Based on that,more efficiency would mean less sounds to convey a meaning. I imagine though, that when man started to talk one sound could indeed express many things. So language started out easy and then went on to complex monsters like Ancient Greek or Arabic. That means that a trend for simplification must have started at a later stage. But there’s no reason for it other than temporary trends. 2) English speakers often find that no cases are easier and more efficient than cases. But is that really the … case? Think about the insane German system of local prepositions. “In die Schule” “auf den Markt” “zu Aldi” “ans Meer”… 4 different prepositions just to mark something as a destination. In Finnish there are two cases for that and they are very clearly distinguished. You can hardly go wrong. Another example is origin – That’s the book of my sister. It’s by Stephanie Meyer. I took it from her. Three different prepositions to mark origin. That is more complex than having one case for that. 3) What is “simple” anyway? English has done away with a lot of small information carrying bits and pieces. A good example are verbs. Most can work with and without an direct object and the meaning can change significantly. An utterance itself might seem simple and short compared to a German sentence, but to decode it you need the utterance plus context. – The robot sells well. This can mean two things. People buy a lot of those robots or the robot is a good sales man. We need context to understand it – Der Roboter verlauft gut. – Der Roboter verkauft sich gut. The second one is ambiguous but on a whole the German sentences are much less context dependent than the English one and the difference is just one syllable. The context needed to clarify the English one would be more Byte than that one syllable, I think, so information-wise context dependent language can be actually more complex and harder to understand. 4) I think there are counter trends. I already mentioned the preposition vs. case argument. In my opinion cases are more effective as soon as you have more than one preposition to chose from. Ultimately, at least if we’re talking about cases expressed through endings, both, preposition and case, are just a sound added to convey the meaning. Whether you call it case or preposition is largely academic. Anyway…. here are some example where I think German is getting more complex: The trend to split up da-words: – Da habe ich gestern von geträumt. These are increasingly common and now it’s not only part of the verb that gets suspended but also the prepositional part of the da-word. – Da habe ich direkt… Read more »
Oh, I just thought “weil ich bin müde” was considered incorrect, period. Bad example, then. I think all of your arguments are plausible, some of the examples, perplexing (what’s the gain from splitting the da word?, on the dative used as genitive, by reading your blog, it seems as if German is beginning to say bye,bye to the genitive case, and the attack is not even rational anymore…curious: das ist ihm sein Buch, is like that’s his book, just his, and nobody else’s, especially his, or provides no significant variance to das ist sein Buch?) On the whole, I agree fully with your point 1; on 2, yes, intellectually I can see that, and also think that the prepositions’ mission is to make sure no natives will ever be confused with locals when speaking the language :) , but cannot help but seeing a clear trend in staying away from cases, even in Finnish some are noted as not used as often anymore..not to mention Latin’s five noun declensions with 6 cases each; on your 3 , I take the opposite view here: people realize that language always occurs in a context known to its users, and that the risk for ambiguity is low, therefore they “invent” that a duplication is not required; on your 4, Impossible for me to judge, the first example is a crazy construction, again,why? Whats the gain vs damit?; on your 5, …you skipped it! :) I agree, though in principle:); on your 6, actually that is a trend that makes good sense to me, especially in the past tenses; it becomes more and more important to place information in a precise temporal context, and language responds by inventing ways to do that, it may have overkilled at some point, but two tenses is not ripe enough, especially when the world of possibility and subjunctive is about to comes about.
I see your point with the cycles you talk about, just like initially there were different laws for stealing a chicken, a cow, a horse….there was then the realization of replacing things with value (that is the kind of simplification I was talking about, what is really a higher level of abstraction) , and now stealing value is really not enough in the era of internet id theft and other crimes, for example. Laziness is a great motivator for people to work and invent…Thanks for your response, I enjoyed it very much. Let’s give the German genitive a couple of decades and see…you realize that your blog might then be German WAS easy, you don’t want to be right this time…!
What’s the gain of splitting the da-word? I don’t know :). But I find myself doing it a lot, and more than I used to 10 years ago (though that is not a trustworthy judgement, for I wasn’t into languages back then). What it does do is make for a nice arc. The verb split does that, too. You have a set up, then the middle and then the pay off at the end. Just feels like a nice unit. It might also be a rhythm thing. – Da WEIß ich nichts VON. The “da” is a lightly stressed upbeat before the first main emphasis comes. dut DUN dut dut DUNN. A triplet by the way :). – DAvon WEIß ich NICHTS. This is less rhythmically balanced. The stress on “da” and on “nichts” are very light so we only have this prominent “weiß” there with stuff left and right. Another possible reason, or catalyst (might be the better word), could have to do with “nicht” – Ich warte nicht auf den Bus. This is the default-negation and the “nicht” denies the target of the waiting, not the waiting itself. – Ich warte auf den Bus nicht. This is possible, too, but only with specific pronunciation and in certain contexts. The other one is the default-negation (every sentence has a default-negation and then some for special occasions). If we do the same with a da-word and the “standard”-system we’d get. – Darauf warte ich nicht. Now, we have the “nicht” final, suggesting that it denies “warten” much rather than the target. – Da warte ich nicht drauf. This fixes it. Now the “nicht” is more about the whole target, just like in the version where “bus” was spelled out. Never mind that it’s “drauf” here btw…. that just happens if the prepositions starts with a vowel. As for the Genitive, I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Over the last centuries the use of Genitive in writing has sky-rocketed. It’s the use that changes. And for the prepositions, this seems to be a standard trend… you have a combination of words like to which a noun is connected using Genitive. – an Statt des Brotes – instead of the bred This word combination then turns out so useful that it gets contracted and ends up as a word of its own…. a preposition – (an)statt des In the beginning it still has the original Genitive that connected one noun to another noun but over time these new prepositions tend to switch to Dative. What’s interesting about the “ihm sein” is that there’s no female equivalent – Das ist ihr sein Buch… nope – Ds ist ihr ihr Buch… nope nope So I don’t think this is going to ever be standard grammar. But “wem sein?”… who knows. It’s really wide spread so maybe in 20 years it’s fine to say it. Generally, you’re right that there is a trend among the European languages toward being more analytic (as opposed to synthetic).… Read more »
By the way… regarding the weil-construction. That is actually an example where the language is getting more complex because the “weil”-sentence with the verb second is a different kind of reason and has a different feel to it than the one with the verb final. And both versions are not always interchangeable.
Du meinst wegen “innehaben” und “innehalten”?
Ich glaube, der Kern ist schon “innen” aber hier und da wird der SEHR abstrakt interpretiert. Von ” etwas innehalten” zu “etwas stoppen” zu “selbst stoppen”.
As I know,some German verbs come with subject “es” like ” gelingen” …have these verbs some special properties ? which type of es is here?
Can you give me some commen german verbs of this type?
Excuse my bad Englich … I’m foreign … I’m trying to be polite .. I hope so
Mayby I’ll here learn both Englich and Germany :-)
Don’t worry about your English. It’s perfectly understandable and I make my fair share of mistakes too.
So… the verb “gelingen” does not automatically come with an “es”
– Die Suppe gelingt mir.
– Das ist mir gut gelungen.
The “es” is the standard sentence-replacing pronoun we had.
– Der Kuchen gelingt mir.
– Es gelingt mir, die Tür zu öffnen.
In the first sentence an entity ( the cake) turns out a success, in the second it’s an activity.
Hope that helps :)
Sehr hilfreich danke!
Aber ich verstehe noch nicht genau wie man “es sind” benutzen würde. Mein Gehirn vergleicht das immer mit Englisch, was überhaupt nicht hilfreich ist!
Könntest du bitte uns ein paar mehr Beispiele geben?
zB, würde man diese Phrasen so benutzen:
1) es sind zwischen Dezember und Januar die Wochen, in denen man eine kleine Pause von der Arbeit nehmen kann.
2) es sind nur die Beispiele die fehlen, bevor man die ganzen Sätze verstehen kann
3) es sind einfach die Sachen, was man braucht, zu gelingen.
(Entschuldigung wenn sie sehr falsch wäre – ich bin gar nicht sicher!)
1 und 2 sind perfekt! Beispiel 1 ist ziemlich konstruiert. Man würde es so nicht sagen, aber technisch ist es möglich. Beispiel 2 ist richtig und auch idiomatisch. Bei Beispiel 3 sind ein paar Fehler drin
– Es sind einfach die Sachen, die man braucht…
“Sachen” ist Plural, und das Relativpronomone hat immer das Geschlecht und die Nummer von der Sache, auf die es verweist.
– … zu gelingen.
ich denke mal, du wolltest sagen “to succeed”. “gelingen” ist nur “succeed” im Sinne von “to be a success”. Not “to be successfull”. A turkey for Christmas can “mir gelingen” meaning that I cooked it well. Aber wenn du sagen willst “I succeed at something” dann musst du sagen
– Ich habe Erfolg. /Ich bin erfolgreich.
also
– … um Erfolg zu haben.
Ich glaube, in dem Beispiel wäre “Das” besser als “es” da du direkt auf etwas zeigst.
Hier mal je ein Beispiel für “es sind” für jedes “es”
regular pronoun:
– Ich habe ein paar Ideen. Es sind keine super Ideed aber sie sind auch nicht schlecht.
sentence pronoun:
– Es sind zwei verschiedene Sachen, viel zu wissen und viel zu reden.
Dummy
– Es sind 3 Fahrräder an der Laterne angeschlossen
raining-es
– Es sind 7 Kilometer von Berlin zur Ostsee (nicht wirklich, leider)
Ich hoffe, das hilft ein bisschen
I’ve seen the sentence, “Es sind einfache Mädchen,” and it translated to “They are simple girls.” Is this use of “es” common?
It’s definitely possible but to make a definite judgement I’d need to know how the German sentence continues.
– Es sind einfache Mädchen.
This by itself would most likely be
– They are simple/normal girls.
“And we all know what that means. Grammar-tantrum.” -(blank) fährt…….
Is the tantrum because German requires the verb to be in second place? About.com on German syntax: “No matter which element begins a German declarative sentence (a statement), the verb is always the second element” It sounds as there is no possible compromise about that…..It can also explain other parts of your post.
There’s no exception insofar as you can’t just start the sentence with the verb. Because that will make it look like a question (or one of the other special sentence types)… so yes, the tantrum is about that.
As for the About.com definition… well, that’s what we tell students but in fact, there is compromise.
(warning… this will suck and shatter what you believed in)
– Den Filter sauber machen muss man einmal im Monat.
– Das Bier in den Kühlschrank gestellt hat Maria.
– Den ganzen Tag mit der Bahn fahren konnte man früher mal für 3 Mark.
These totally don’t look like the classic verb-second-sentence. But they are correct (if unusual) and they actually are verb-second. It’s a huge topic but it boils down to “What exactly is the verb and what is additional info”. And that’s quite often open to interpretation.
I ich glaube, die Verbzweitstellung bedeutet nicht, dass kein Verb an der ersten Stelle vorkommen kann, sondern dass ein (infinites) Verb sich an der zweiten Stellen befinden muss. Ansonsten wäre das Auftreten eines Verbes an der letzten Stelle auch unmöglich. Die Regel ist also nicht exklusiv zu interpretieren.
Thanks. So, now we can’t trust the internet !?..Outrageous….Actually this about.com approach of referring to “elements” is similar to your boxes, and quite useful. I suppose that when they say “no matter”, they really mean ….”to you, wretched soul, but truth is more complicated” But I can feel their good faith, and understand now the need of leaving “element” undefined, especially if “what exactly is the verb and what is additional info” is a topic, which sounds very interesting indeed.
I can’t vouch for about.com, but in this instance they’re literally correct. No matter which element begins a German declarative sentence, the verb IS always the second element [even when there is no apparent verb, which is then at least assumed to be there]. Which doesn’t exclude the possibility of a verb occurring as a part of the first element or the last element.
Here’s a challenge:
– Gestern in der Disko habe ich eine wunderschöne Frau gesehen.
The weird thing is that it totally does feel like one element. And I think it might be simply because the “verb second”-rule is soooo strong :)
Yes, I know about these cases. One could also remember about something like “Hinzu kommt auch…”, where hinzu is, of course, part of the verb. If not for the insistence on Verbzweitstellung, one could have written it as one word, “hinzukommt auch…”, and formally this would have to be the first element… So there are cases when we say that it’s in the second place only in order to save the general rule ;)
“Der Universität zum Jubiläum gratulierte auch Bundesminister Dorothee Wilms, die in den fünfziger Jahren in Köln studiert hatte.”
Google: mehrfache Vorfeldbesetzung
http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/lili/personen/ssahel/Wortstellung/vorfeld.html
http://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/4605/thesis.pdf
http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/~stefan/PS/mehr-vf-lb.pdf
http://repository.cc.sophia.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/123456789/34552/2/200000176582_000173000_17.pdf
Elements, boxes, constituents… it’s all the same stuff. I just like boxes better because a box can contain things that can be mistaken for one element each
– Mein Fahrrad und mein Pferd sind schnell.
It’s one box (who-box) but I can easily see people going like “Wait, isn’t that two elements”
But anyways, I agree with about.com on that one. It’s not helpful in any way to confront beginners with something like that. And it’s not really complicated because you never have to do such a structure yourself. Natives just let one slip once in a while and it’s good to be aware that it’s all kind of in flux. These sentences are not really exceptions… more bendings. Testing the limits :) As dense and stiff as it seems, German still leaves surprisingly lot of room for interpretation (best example is word order)
Hello Emanuel, I follow your blog and I really think that what you do is just great, that you genuinely like helping people, day after day, just as much as you like German and languages, and that your generosity rings so sincere that it is hard to miss, I am very impressed. I hope Santa brings you everything you asked for, and I hope you asked for a lot, ’cause you give a lot; it is always nice to stumble upon good people no matter which position of the sentence they come up, gestern Abend in meinem Flugzeut habe ich bei mir so gedacht.
Vielen Dank für die lieben Worte :)