Knowing relations between words can help understand their meanings and build a more connected vocabulary network. Here, you can explore parents and offspring and discover the whole family.
- shows how many children or parents the word has
- get the translations and a link
Loading word family…
Sources for Etymology:
- Check "anschauen" on DWDS.de
Biggest German Dictionary, great for etymology, usage frequency and collocations) - "anschauen" on Wiktionary (English version)
(For etymological connections across European languages. Not always accurate) - Etymonline.com - Origins of English words
My favorite source for the origin of English words.
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
Hi Emmanuel. Im not sure if this is where requests go (??) but I don’t understand the difference between schauen and anschauen. Im reading a book that uses both frequently, and they seem to be fairly interchangable, but I suspect there’s situations where you can only use one not the other?? (full disclosure: I only really need to talk about looking at good-looking people, and watching TV. I don’t really need to know the other uses.)
So I think there’s a good deal of personal preference in how these are used, at least in the specific sense of “watching content” or “looking at content”.
Me personally, I never use either because I am Team “gucken”, but the two work the same.
For me “anschauen” is what I’d use for statues, pictures, people and art. Or short clips.
“schauen” is the “long form”, for watching a movie. And you can absolutely not use “schauen” with an object that’s not a movie or long clip.
This sounds really really wrong to me. Either a movie or TV series, or (and that’s the other use) a direction.
Let me know if that helps.
I always come to YDG for help with these kinds of questions.
It feels to me (based on what you said) that for most things anschauen is ‘looking at’ and schauen is ‘watching’. This seems to work in most all cases. I feel personally that if the object is in motion or there is movement, you watch it: I was watching a man run on the beach. I was watching the colors of the sky change. But: I was looking at the sky (no motion).
Movies/Videos are both a static place but with a moving image – thus a problem. One watches a movie. Yes, one can look at a movie, but…err… That said, the directions would be the opposite – but maybe just different. In English, one would look behind them, one would look forward to the future. Here German uses schauen – but it needs nach to function. So it is really nachschauen and not anschauen or schauen (IMO).
Ich habe aber eine andere Frage. Wann benutzt man sich(dat) Schauen? Ich habe einen Satz in meinen Flashkarten “Wir schauen uns jetzt ein bestimmtes Problem an”. This is definitely anschauen territory – but what does the reflexive addition do? And…if it does something unique, can I use that feature with other verbs? Danke!
To me, it feels similar to the Dative in “Ich wasche mir die Hände.”
You mark yourself as beneficiary of the action even though that’s already clear enough.
– Ich schaue den Baum an.
– Ich schaue mir den Baum an.
The first feels more one way, me just looking at it, while the second feels more two-way, so I’m taking something from this act of looking at the tree.
Does that help?
that for most things anschauen is ‘looking at’ and schauen is ‘watching’.
Actually, “schauen” is pretty much only used for video content.
You wouldn’t use “schauen” for watching birds.