Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time, we’ll take a look at something that Germans really love.
Which one of these three do you think it is:
a) Bier
b) making smartass comments and remarks noone asked for
c) sparen
The answer is of course, that Germans love all these three things equally.
But today, we’ll look at the meaning of
sparen
Sparen is the German brother of English to spare and the two do share a core idea, which is pretty well captured by the phrase to not touch.
But the two verbs have different takes on it, and as a result, they’re not really translations. I mean, sometimes they are, but just as often they’re not.
So let’s take a look.
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Hi Emanuel –
I heard this sentence:
Du dachtest seine Wut blieb dir erspart.
Since the action of “sparing” is coming from someone other than “you” this is why erparen is used? Is this sort of the outcome (vs the action) of sparing or not sparing someone something? Not sure if I am articulating this question very well?
Thanks for your patience.
Melinda.
how accurate is ‘treat carefully’ as a definition of schonen?
is schonen related to schon and schön?
I don’t know “tread carefully” enough to answer that. To me, it has a vibe of “being careful” which is not part of “schonen” at all.
I actually have an article on “schonen”, but I forgot to enter the relevant vocabulary in my dictionary, so it possibly didn’t show up.
Here it is:
https://yourdailygerman.com/schonen-verschonen-meaning/
Spoiler: yes, “schonen” is related to “schon” and “schön” :)
Thank you for the very helpful reply.
[typo; should have been “treat carefully”! But as this definition might have been a minefield perhaps tread was a good error!]
Oh, I see :).
Yes, “treat carefully” has an overlap, but the focus of “schonen” is more on the idea of “not challenging as much as you’d normally would”.
Der Cartoon sagt fast alles, was wichtig ist xD
Aber… wenn ein Freund viele Bier von meinem Kühlschrank trinkt, könnte ich dann sagen: Hey Alter, spar einige für die Reste von uns!
Jetzt (als ob du schon nicht genug Empfehlungen hast..): I make a grocery run, run to the grocery store, etc.
Danke für den super Artikel!
Nee, das passt nicht. Da würde man sagen “(übrig) lassen” :).
Das “spare” in dem Satz ist mehr wie “verschonen”, aber “verschonen” passt nicht für Bier.
Aah, also “Lass einige für die Reste von uns!” Das kann ich mir merken.
Danke!
Auf english I think I’d say “Whoa. Bro, save some for the rest of us!”
“Lass ein paar für den Rest von uns”.
Ihr als Gruppe seid ein Rest. “die Reste” von euch wären eher the leftovers of your guys’ food :)
1) Hallo, Leute
Herzlich willkommen zur unsere Sendung ,, Einhörner Gesprach”. Bei uns gibt es die besten Gespräche, aber alle weißen das schon,also lass uns beginnen.
Unsere heutige Folge geht es um den Wort “Sparen”
E = Einhorn
E1 : Du bist schone züruck. wie war die Wohung ? Sollten wir sie meiten.
E2 : Ich wollte über sie nicht sprechen. Aber hör auf meinen Rat. erspare du dir den Besuch und verschone deine Augen davon,was ich gesehen habe. das hätte ich sparen können
E1 : Okay. ich vertraue dir.
Die Ende.
2)
Now a bit in english since i was abit confused about the difference between ersparen and sich sparen.
I looked up a bit. and i saw sth, “Erspar mir das” but is it not reserves for sparing others? i am legit confused since the examples support that
So i though a bit und this is my conculsiin
Spare yourself = Spare du dir
spare myself sth = Ich spare mir etwas
Spare me this = Erspar mir das
Spare sb sth = Erspar Jemand das
and Erspar du dir = …..
3) Empfehlung
Ich habe den Wort “trag” schone empfehlt aber ich wurde das nochmal machen
4) A word
Again in english
There is a word i saw here on an article before but i cannot remember it.
I can remember few proprites.
its a Trennbare Verb und it beings with “auf”
it has sth to do with allowance, Spending money.
there was another word like it. ans the difference between them was being stasfied with the amount or sth.
i know this is really vague so you dont have to reall try guessing. i am sure i will be able to find on my own one day
Ein sehr süßer Dialog :).
Und weniger Fehler als früher. Du bist besser geworden.
For your questions…
2) I am not gonna answer that actually, because starting with “to spare” is the wrong way.
Take the phrasings:
– sich etwas sparen können
– jemandem/sich etwas ersparen
– etwas sparen
and try to grasp what those mean. Don’t make a list of all uses of to spare and try to match “sparen” on to that. It’s not helpful in this case.
3) Empfehlung noted :)
4) That’s a tough one. The only one I can think of is “aufheben” but that’s not really about allowance. So yeah… not sure what you mean there.
2) I though about them and I initially wrote a long split paragraph about the phrases but decide to keep it somewhere else lol.
4) Yea sorry, I am an idiot. I found it. it began with aus and not auf. the similar word begin with hin. Do you want the answer?
Yes please
2)?
4) auskommen und hinkommen
Ah, ja genau… die beiden passen mit Geld :)
Is there much difference between “sparen” and “speichern”?
Good question!!
“Speichern” is “put in storage”, if you will. Today, it’s mostly used for data, but 100 years back we used it for crops and water mainly.
The difference is that the focus is on purely the keeping in stock… there is no direct option to “spending”, like there is with “sparen”
That said… Dagobert (the rich uncle of Donald Duck) has a Geldspeicher in the German version of the cartoon.
cool! thanks!
I don’t think we have anything with *quite* the meaning of “Spar dich reich” (which is sooo great!) — but at least in the U.S. it is very common for commercials or advertisements to say “BUY AND SAVE!!”
Down my local pub, during happy hour (when the beer is a little cheaper), we say “the more you drink, the more you save”. Would that be something like “Je man mehr trinkt,desto spart man” ?
Almost! You forgot to carry over the second “more”. And then, sentence structure… have you read my article on “je.. desto”, by any chance?
I have now read your article, so it is “Je man mehr trinkt, desto mehr spart man”
Hmm… still not. The order in the “je”-part is wrong. Why did you chose that order of things, if I may ask?
I wanted to keep the adverb next to the verb, but yes I do see that the mehr should be after “je”
Yeah, this is really one of the few instances where English and German use the same structure :)
Hallo liebe Leute. I would just like to say “Tausend Dank” for the people who made it possible for me to be a member of the German is Easy family. I have just fallen in love with the German language, so this means so much to me that’s why ich möchte Ihnen sagen, wie Dankbar ich Ihnen bin. Mögen all Ihre Wünsche in Erfüllung gehen, Ich kann Ihnen gar nicht genug danken ❤
Awesome article!
Thank you so much German is Easy! Thanks Emanuel for let me inside your awesome blog and family! I’m extremely grateful for the sponsored scholarship and I’ll make great use of it! And thanks of course to all those members that have paid a little extra in order to help out people like me who can’t afford the membership.
Viele Grüße aus Brasilien,
David
Great Artikel Emanuel! 5 out of 5! If I rember at least one thing, the quiz at the end made sure to cement in my brain that “verschonen” and “Sparen” are to save (property) and save (money) respectively. The tornado analogy was graphic and stuck well.
Ha, yeah, I think I actually did a better job capturing the difference between verschonen and sparen in the quizz than in the article :)
Doing the downloading was successful when done directly.
Here are a few notes about English: protocol has one l.
When “spare” in English is a bit awkward (early on) : I would say “don’t bother.”
Skip the shower
Spare me (deep-six the “with”) your excuses.
Wie stets gibt es in diesem Artikel viel zu lernen, und dabei etwas raffiniertes, etwas komisches, etwas daß mich lächeln macht. Danke.
Danke für die Korrekturen und das schöne Feedback :)!
Und wow… gute Verwendung von “stets”.
Eine kleine Korrektur:
– … etwas, das mich zum Lächeln bringt.
“machen” funktioniert in dem Kontext nicht.
Maybe not necessarily an active-vocabulary candidate, but I’ve heard/read einsparen now and then over the years. Just noticed an example in an email to our church about the budget being presented to outfit our new rental space:
Seems like it’s maybe a little more in the direction of “cut costs” or “keep expenditures low” in a specific situation, rather than sparen more generally?
True “einsparen” is quite common, too. You’re pretty spot on with the notion of “cutting costs”, that’s what you usually use “einsparen” for. And also, it does have a business-y tone. I don’t think I have ever heard it in a normal household in context of cutting back on spending of any kind.
“A penny saved is a penny earned!” = it’s better to save than spend and earn again.
I would say
…every time you go shopping
…every time you shop
…with every shop (more British)
“it’s better to save than spend and earn again.”… I’m wondering… is that used in the US as well? Because I feel like making debt is much more ingrained into the culture there than it is here.
You’d be surprised how far down the list Germany is for European countries on saving. It’s due to a lot of different factors, but lower home ownership (as a savings vehicle) and higher income inequality (vs. peers) are usually cited as the main culprits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth_in_Europe
That’s interesting :). But not really a contradiction. What I was referring to is purely “savings”, not items of value like property. Germans hoard cash, kind of.
Hi Emanual, warum nicht “spare”, sonder “spar” beim Satz “Ich glaube, das Duschen spar ich mir heute.”? Danke.
I spoken German (and chat German) we almost always skip the “-e” for the “ich”. If you have to write a test, then put it there, but if you speak, don’t bother, you can just skip it as well :).
“Save while you spend” is a fairly popular marketing slogan for customer reward schemes.
“Every time you shop” or “with every shopping trip” are also both idiomatic.
A related word to “scarce” but with more of a focus on “thinly distributed” (rather like my hair) is “sparse”, which I think may be a translation of “spärlich”.
every shopping trip sounds good… Specially because Eikaufen does not mean shopping for groceries alone…
Oh wow, I completely forgot “spärlich”… that’s a nice one, glad you mentioned that!!
So would a homeless person say “Haben Sie extra Kleingeld, bitte?” if he was asking people on the street for some of their “spare change” – coins they were willing to give him?
They might, though I feel like “ein bisschen Kleingeld” is more idiomatic here. “extra” would imply that you don’t need it, which is a bit weird in context of money. Like… whether or not it’s extra is completely up to each person :)
I think that’s precisely the implication with “spare change” – for us Amis, coins are generally considered a nuisance and we’re happy to get rid of them.
I like coins, actually… it gives the “bill” more value in my head and I’m less likely to touch it.
Like… if you have coins, then breaking a 20 is actually a thing. “Ohhhh, I am touching this 20.”
Makes you more aware of your expenses :D… (this comment was brought to you by Sparfuchs)
I went to a Sparkasse in Nürnburg last Fall to break a 100 euro bill that I got from an atm, but they would not do it. Is a Sparkasse not a bank?
Sparkassen are banks…. I’ve never tried to break a bill here, though. People really do use €100 bills to pay for stuff.
While we’re at it and since you know both worlds (Berlin and Bavaria) … could I pay with a 100 Euro bill for two “Maß Bier” without discussion in a beer garden?
Because Berlin bars really detest bills above 50.
Hmmm… That I haven’t tried. But I’ve definitely seen popcorn and drinks in a movie theater paid for with a 100 with no issue, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that would work. Maybe that’s a regional attitude thing, because I do remember getting hassled a bit about paying for stuff with a 50 in Berlin sometimes.
Either way, for an American, it’s pretty strange to use anything bigger than a 20, and lots of my countrymen don’t carry cash at all. I think in most places in the US, you might as well try to use DM to pay for something as a $100 bill.
It might be because Berlin is pretty poor compared to Munich and maybe in Munich, many people used to “flex” with their high bills. So the “Gastro” got used to it. In Berlin, flexing wealth is not that big of a thing.
Could be… although the friend I was with who used the 100 at the theater is a truck driver from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern XD
Hmm. Wenn ich in Göttingen einen Kaffee bestelle, und versuche, mit einem Fünfziger zu bezahlen, verdreht die Kollegin die Augen ein Bisschen und fragt mir, ob ich _vielleicht_ etwas kleineres hätte. Ich habe gelernt, mich im Voraus zu entschuldigen: “Es tut mir leid, ich hab kein Kleingeld. Können Sie auf einen Fünfziger rausgeben?” Damit bekomme ich meistens keinen Ärger sondern ein Lächeln + 48,51 EUR zurück. (In den USA würde man mit höchstens einem $20-Schein bezahlen, weil die Bankautomaten in der Regel nichts größeres ausspucken.)
fragt mich (den doppelten Akkusativ mit “fragen” vergesse ich ständig)
Ja, das ist eigentlich eine echt seltene Ausnahme, Doppelakkusativ.
It is a bank, but if you don’t have an account, they might pretend like only customers can break it.
I think legally, they should break it, just like any store should accept it. The reality is different though :).
For instance you can NOT pay with a 100 Euro bill in a bar in Berlin. And having a 200 Euro bill is like having no money at all.
If anyone wants to experience how money is really just an agreement… that’s the perfect scenario. Get a 200 Euro bill and try to pay for 6 beers with it.
Hallo, Emmanuel!
“Pay us!”
“Like… what does that even mean?”
Das klingt nach so vielen Chefs, für die ich gearbeitet habe!
Eine andere mögliche Übetsetzung…
jetzt als Premiumkunde anmelden und bei jedem Einkauf bares Geld sparen.
Sign up now as a premium customer and save cash every time you shop!
(In English, if cash is “hard”, it’s almost always “cold hard”, but here it sounds a bit extreme. Ich weiß nicht warum.)
Dein Freund im Süden der
USA mit einem durch und
durch deutschen Nachnamen,
john bauman
(wir haben ein “n” verloren)
(Glaubst du, meine Vorfahren haben
Dinge gebaut oder auf einer Farm
gearbeitet? Niemand in meiner Familie
kennt die Antwort.)
Hmm, ich glaube dein Name kommt eher von “Baumeister” als “Bauer” … also jemand der Häuser baut.
Es kann aber auch sein, dass es eigentlich Bowmann war, und dann irgendwie anders geschrieben wurde :). Aber vielleicht war Bowmann auch mal Baumann XD. So viele Möglichkeiten.
Liebe Grüße in die Südstaaten!! (ich war noch nie da, aber ich will mal hin)
Nach der Pandemie komm bitte nach Nashville, besonders wenn du Country-Musik magst. Du kannst in meinem Haus bleiben und ich bringe dich zu allen interessanten Orten. Wenn du Elvis magst, können wir vier Stunden nach Westen nach Memphis fahren, um Graceland, Elvis’ Haus, zu besuchen. Es ist interessant zu sehen, wie jemand dekoriert, der keinen guten Geschmack hat und plötzlich viel Geld bekommt
” der keinen guten Geschmack hat und plötzlich viel Geld bekommt”… hahaha, that made me laugh :).
Thanks for the offer! I might actually get back to it. We just have to wait till that Corona stuff is over/under control.
Oh, entschuldige, dass ich auf Englisch geschrieben habe. Ich komme bei den Kommentaren manchmal durcheinander :D
Die dritte Staffel von Dark ist endlich da! Ich habe ein paar Folgen gesehen und……………das hätte ich mir sparen können…. …….würde ich nicht sagen. Ich finde es super :)
The #1 most common thing I hear is with every purchase. Or just plain old save money every time you buy groceries! I thought I didn’t watch many commercials, but suddenly my brain is full of options.
P.S. Did the interns do this week’s graphic? It’s pretty effective :)
I just noticed that “hard cash” would actually kind of mean “coins” which are worth way less than “soft cash” (aka bills). This expression must be fairly old, I guess :).
Ist Dark wirklich so cool? Und muss ich die ersten beiden Staffeln kennen um die dritte zu gucken. Ich bin immer sehr skeptisch, wenn es Hype gibt :)
I wouldn’t say that hard cash means coins. Hard cash means just that :cash. While soft cash (never heard of this phrase) means other types of payment: credit cards, PayPal, etc. Exactly as ‘hard copy” means a paper copy of a document, while soft copy means the same document sent by email.
yeah, you’re totally right. I just found the name “hard” weird, because there’s nothing hard about a bill (same for paper).
Ich bin normalerweise auch ein bisschen skeptisch :) Ob sie die beste Serie aller Zeiten ist, nein, aber mir gefällt sie sehr gut. Die Geschichte ist stimmig und zum größten Teil spannend (nur ab und zu ein bisschen langatmig). Ist mMn einen Blick wert, wenn man Fan von Fantasy oder Science-Fiction ist, z.B. wenn dir Stranger Things gefällt.
Das hab ich auch nicht gesehen :).
Aber vielleicht gucke ich mal in Dark rein. Aber erst, wenn der Herbst kommt :D
here is an explanation re the origin of the two meanings. If one spares the consumption, then one saves. Savings provide the ability to expand future output–to prosper in the future.
That makes perfect sense :). But now we have to switch the order… from prosperous to scarce to savings.