Hello everyone,
it’s December. Hooray. Finally, the gray, dreadful November is gone. That’s right November, you suck!!!!!
Okay, okay, I was born in you, I’m sorry … but hey… you are really really gray, man!
Anyway, it’s December now, the awesome/trippy WordPress snow is back in and I though this year we could do an advent calendar.
And what better to hide behind the door than chocolate? Exactly… one million dollars.
Or some German vocab :).
Seriously though… those of you who have been around for a while know that I am working on a book. Yup. Still. I don’t know when it’ll be done, but it’s much “doner” than last year and so I thought it’s time for another peek.
The book will be about prefixes (yeah, sounds boring but it really isn’t) and one part of it will be an Explictionary…. a dictionary with the most common prefix verbs WITH explanations and examples.
And instead of just having it sit on my hard drive we might just as well just have a look at it right now – one prefix verb a day :).
So get ready for today’s word versetzen
versetzen
Literally, it means “to set/place in a different position”. Not too crazy. The thing is that German also has verstellen, verlegen, umstellen and a few more that have the same literal meaning, so we’ll need to make a little list about when to use it.
“Versetzen” is not the most common one, and it’s not used too literally either. It’s mostly used for people.
One important use is moving someone in context of job positions, as in moving him or her to a new department or a new city.
Another common use is the phrasing “jemanden in die Lage versetzen” (lit.: put someone into the situation) which means as much as “to enable”.
Then there is the super important prefix version of the prefix version… yeah, I know… “sich rein/hineinversetzen in” which means “putting yourself in someone’s position (mentally)”.
One niche-meaning is “to not show up for an appointment, to stand someone up”, but I have no idea about the logic behind that.
Another niche meaning is “to move someone up” in school. Oh and it’s used to move mountains.
The ge-form adjective versetzt is pretty common in sense of an offset between two things.
die Versetzung – the displacement, transfer (for jobs), moving up (school)
der Versatz – the offset
- Selbstvertrauen kann Berge versetzen.
- Self confidence can move mountains.
- Thomas wird nach Berlin versetzt.
- Thomas is transferred to Berlin. (job-wise)
- Maria hat mich zweimal versetzt.
- Maria stood me up twice.
- Der Workshop soll die Teilnehmer in die Lage versetzen, selbst zu lernen.
- The workshop aims at enabling the participants to learn by themselves.
- Versuch bitte mal, dich in mich reinzuversetzen.
- Please try to see things from my perspective.
- Bei einem Kanon fangen die Sänger zeitversetzt an zu singen.
- In a canon (singing in a round) the singers start singing with an offset.
———————
And that’s it. If you have thoughts or questions about the word or if you have suggestions about the format, just leave me a comment.
Bis morgen :)
Was für ein nettes „Goldklumpchen“! Die verschiedene Beduetungen von einem Verb, mit Beispiele…
Haha, yeah, I like the fact that some really nice articles are kind of hidden :).
Since you mentioned Goldklümpchen I’ll just plug my side huste here
https://nuggets.yourdailygerman.com/
I’m still working on it, but yeah…
Aha, cool! Das ist super, wenn man jeden Tag so ein bisschen neues lernen möchte!
I would like to learn Chinese.
[link removed]
I would like no spam ;)
Danke schön.
Hey so I’ve often wondered what’s the best way to say like “I moved my car from this parking lot, to that parking lot.” Would versetzen work? What would be the most natural way to say move/change position in this sense?
Well, in that sense “umparken” would be the best match. “Umstellen” would also work, I think. “umsetzen” sounds a bit like you came with a tow truck to move it.
I am not sure if you get this post, Emanuel. I love the trinkling snow, the promise of chocolate, $1 million dollars, and etcetera. I haven’t got to versatzen (without peeking). I am (really) 52, but I do find your posts funner, than any English grammar books. I will go back and look at the verb of the day. Thanks.
Yeah, I get all comments :). Thanks for the nice feedback and viel Spaß weiter hier!
Alles Gute zum verspätetem Geburtstag, Emanuel! Ich hoffe, dass zwar er I’m November stand, war es trotzdem wunderschön & dich Spaß bracht! (°u°) *(^^)* :D
Grüße,
Königin der Menschkinder ∆ ^.^∆
(Wenn days geht Mich an, wann genau war er? :)
Danke dir! Der war am 6. Aber psssst :).
Ein paar Korrekturen:
– Alles gute zum verspäteten (not “m”)… there already is an “am” at the “zum”
– Ich hoffe, dass er zwar er im November war (not “stand”)… “zwar” doesn’t work here. You need “obwohl”.
– … war er (not “es”… der Geburtstag) trotzdem wunderschön und hat (you can’t skip that because the first part has “sein” as the verb) dir (not “dich) Spaß gebracht. (I am receiving (dative) the Spaß (accusative)
Hoffe, das hilft.
Oh bestimmt! ^^
Werde ich mich erinnern.
Wieso ist es aber, dass man nie im Voraus jemanden zum Geburtstag wünschen in Deutschland? Woher kam dieser Custom denn?
Keine Ahnung, aber das bringt Unglück.
I am returning to studying German after 38 years, and everything in your blog has been helpful. I’ve had to jump in at the level where I left off, so there is a lot of reviewing and learning stuff I never learned in the first place. Ich wünsche nur, dass das Buch schone hier war!
Danke für das liebe Feedback :). Viel Spaß weiter beim Lernen!
How about something like “I am considering joining the club.” Or “Considering the circumstances, …”
I assume there are specific contexts which suit some of the words better than others but I cannot quite figure them out.
“consider to do something” – darüber nachdenken , etwas zu tun/etwas in Betracht ziehen
“Considering something (information)” – etwas in Betracht ziehen, in Anbetracht der Umstände (cirumstances)
You could use Linguee.com to find phrases like these with how they’re translated to German.
Hey, I love your blog, it has really helped me in learning the language. Anyway I wanted to ask you if you could explain the proper translation of the English verb “to consider”. I don’t quite understand which word is the best to when I try to translate the word, I always get 10 different words that could work like „betrachten”, „berücksichtigen”, „erwägen”, „überlegen”, „beachten”, etc.
That completely depends on what you’re using it for. Do you have a specific situation or usage in mind?
Guten Tag! Es freut mich, eine neue Post zu finden!
When you say “Bei einem Kanon” at the last example, how does Kanon translate? Do you mean the musical-composition Canon?
Yes, that one. I just used a dictionary but I don’t remember which one right now. Is “canon” the better choice?
“canon” is correct English for that musical concept, but most English speakers cannot understand this meaning of “canon”..only music majors.
canon = a big gun
canon = all the history of a subject (only Star Wars fans will use it this way commonly!)
canon = a singing style of each singer repeating the previous singer at some delay (almost nobody knows this one)
The only common phrase in English for that is singing “in a round” which many children learn when singing Row Row Row your boat.
But when you used the word “circular” it completely removed the meaning…it sounds like you are describing the physical layout…like the singers are sitting in a circle.
“a big gun” is a cannon (two ens).
You forgot one versetzen: To take something to a pawn-shop.
You’re totally right, that one is missing. But I really need to ignore some or the book will be 1000 pages.
Yes, I do mean Nürnberg. I can’t seem to log in as ‘myself’ any more (my previous self, that is…. I can only comment as Anonymous). Has something changed in the log-in/comment process?
No, I didn’t change anything. By “logging in” do you mean your WordPress-account? Because for the comments there was never any log in required. Doesn’t it give you the option to enter a name though?
Testing comment process (sorry)
I think that as a teacher/mentor, you should never say something like “Na ja, das ist ein Gefühl und Gefühlen sind nur durch Übungen und Verwendung erworben” (or something grammatically correct to that effect). Even if true, it is depressing. Something along the lines of “The differences are subtle and plenty, and I’ll do my best to give you the main tools to disambiguate the usages” conveys something more positive :-) Nur Übung macht den Meister, sure, but when every rock hides a mountain, it can get quite depressing!
M.
Ah, I guess you’re referring to that one sentence in the first paragraph of the explanation :). I get that it must be frustrating and I tried to phrase it a little differently. It’s hard though. The only thing I can say is that most of the uses are related to people… well, that’s something I guess :).
Vielen Dank for the input. I’ll definitely keep it in mind when reading through everything again.
That is very appreciated! And you wrote *when to use it* when you meant *when to use which/them*; I take the blame for that one :-) One original contribution of your style is indeed to lighten up the learning, and to painlessly put knowledge in our heads; if you yourself point at the pain by saying “you’ll never get it, really.” then we loose the “German is easy” touch :-) Thanks very much for the change!
There is a cool course I did at the Bildungzentrum on verb prefixes. I am sure you have done HEAPS of research and work. But the lady who ran the course MIGHT be a useful contact if you were interested in a peer review or similar. Your blog actually reminds me a bit of the way she presented her course. NOT the craaaaazy stuff like November you suck balls, but the actual grammar stuff…!
Do you mean the Verb-course at Bildunsgzentrum Nürnberg? (that’s what I found searching for it and someone reading this might be like “wow, what’s that course… I need it). Danke.