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.
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Sources for Etymology:
- Check "beziehungsweise" on DWDS.de
Biggest German Dictionary, great for etymology, usage frequency and collocations) - "beziehungsweise" 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.
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I also watched the Easy German video on this word…and I wonder if maybe the first translation in English-German dictionaries is not the first definition in German minds. I totally agree with sc42’s description of the English word “respectively” below.
In the video, Cari mentions that the first definition from Duden is that it indicates a minor correction to further clarify – like saying “or actually / or rather / or more precisely” in English. Definitely **not** “respectively” in English.
“Go put on your shoes beziehungsweise your snow boots.” (she says to the child, looking out the window at all the snow)
Sounds like that’s the main usage / definition of the word in German…but maybe not the favorite translation of English-German Dictionaries? Yes/no?
Cari says the second definition from Duden is like “im anderen Fall”…or maybe a fancy way of saying “und.” Cari also said that the use of “beziehungsweise” under this second definition is less common. I think this is where “respectively” in English would come into play. Cari’s example involved a parent telling someone the ages of their children. You could say, “My kids Maria and Thomas are 4 and 6 respectively.” Makes it a little fancier…and further emphasizes that the ages are listed in the order of the names that you said.
Hmmm, I’ll have to check out the video.
I think saying “minor correction”, while not wrong, may be misleading to learners, as they’ll focus too much on that whole correction part.
To me, I think the most common way to use it is as a kind of presenting an alternative. Like an “oder”.
For the age example I would just use “und”.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s mostly what it is, just a different way to say “oder” or “und”. Colloquially, anyway.
I read this as “oder”.
And this as “und”.
But sometimes I see “oder bzw.” or “und bzw.” or even all three together:
Which makes me wonder if it’s a filler word. Something that gives you time to think, maybe.
Actually yes. Thinking of it this way is the best approach. It’s not a filler, it’s a marker of “rephrasing”, which may include modifying the information conveyed, not just changing how you say it.
Really looking forward to this article!
Meanwhile, here are my thoughts, if I am wildly off please let me know!
Respectively is a word I think of as expanding brackets as in a mathematical expression.
It goes somethings like this: (A + B) respectively (X + Y) = AX + BY.
For example, “The T-shirt and trousers cost 10 and 20 pounds, respectively.” This means “The T-shirt costs 10 pounds and the trousers cost 20 pounds.” You can also add more terms, but this is very rare (One example I found in the news: “The 2022–2030 global health sector strategies on, respectively, HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections guide the health sector in implementing strategically focused responses to achieve the goals of ending AIDS, viral hepatitis B and C and sexually transmitted infections by 2030.” Wow, what a sentence)
The way I have seen bzw. being used, my guess is that it is also a sort of expanding-brackets, but not in the same way.
It is more like: A bzw B blah blah = A blah blah. Und auch B blah blah.
Wow, great analysis.
And you’re right – “beziehungsweise” does not really do the same. It’s more like a vague “or” that can be inclusive or exclusive.
That helped me brainstorm a little, actually, but still I can’t really grasp the difference well enough to write about it. I’ll get there, though :)
And wow… that long sentence SUCKED :D
I’m craving for that article!
Although I saw Easy German’s video about it, but I feel it didn’t cover the whole thing thoroughly.
Faith in you Emanuel xD
Hahahaha, I’ve been shying away from this for years. I just don’t really know what to say about it, other than giving examples. Maybe I should watch the Easy German take and check some comments there to get an inspiration of what the problem might be.
I think that’s my issue… I don’t really understand what people find confusing. Any help is appreciated :)
We find it confusing for its versatility, and don’t really know when to use it :P
So giving examples would be a great help, and you’ve tackled some really tough topics, and I’m sure you can tackle this one as well!