vergehen

spoken past: ist vergangen
written past (preterite): verging

Meanings

1.
to pass, to wither
(Mainly for time, pain and anger, that pass. NOT for you passing time. That's "verbringen". Also used in sense of withering, dying, but it sounds quite epic there.)
2.
to go away
("mir vergeht etwas" - for appetite and desire.)
3.
to molest, to rape
("sich+Acc vergehen an+Dative" - sounds less "violent" than "vergewaltigen" but its essentially the same. The spoken past is built with "haben" for this one.)
Read more
Relatives (beta)
Discussion

Read more

We haven't talked about this word in an article in detail. Just leave your questions in the discussion section here, and I'll answer all them :)

Word Family

Root: *ghē-

Questions and Comments

🗨
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
1 Comment
Newest
Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Marilynnnn
Marilynnnn
1 month ago

Songstress Nena uses vergehen in “Was immer du tust”(https://youtu.be/lEGRZbPnf30), the seventh track on her *Bongo Girl* album.

“Du zweifelst an dir, deine Angst macht dich schwach / Die Jahre vergehn (pass by/vanish) und du suchst / Leider nur in vergangener (past) Zeit”

“Vergehen* was also in her song “Ganz oben”(https://www.reddit.com/r/NenaGabrieleKerner/comments/iqpmx2/ganz_oben/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) from the “Nur geträumt” concert.

“In Stunden, Sekunden / Die so schnell vergehen (pass quickly) / Ganz oben, ganz oben / Ganz oben wo die Geister toben.

It also makes a cameo appearance in a third Nena song “Rette mich”(https://www.reddit.com/r/NenaGabrieleKerner/comments/iwb2l4/new_a2_vocabulary_words_in_rette_mich/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share).

“träumst du von vergang’nen Feten (parties) / …die so schnell vergehen.”

Vergangen means “past.” It derives from *vergehen*. German is Easy covers it hete (https://yourdailygerman.com/dictionary/?s=Vergehen) and so does “Leo” (https://dict.leo.org/german-english/vergehen) which also has some cool German expressions at the end.

It is curious that both in “Was immer du tust” and in *Rette mich* we have a double use of “vergehen” and “vergangen*. I am wondering whether that is unique.

Thank you for sharing any thoughts you may have.

Reply
wpdiscuz   wpDiscuz


Never miss out!

Join over 20.000 German learners and get my epic newsletter whenever I post a new article :)

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

☾
Train Your Pronunciation
x
?
close info
What is this?

With the pronunciation tool, you can check how well you pronounce a word or sentence. It uses an AI system that is being developed by EF languages for that purpose. The AI takes your input, and compares it to how a native speaker would sound. Then, it gives you feedback for each word and the sentence as a whole.

How does it work?

You put in a word or sentence or load and example from the site. Then you hit record to start and again to stop. You'll then get feedback on how you did, for each individual word and in total. The AI grades sound, emphasis and rhythm. The recording is limited to 20 seconds and will stop automatically.

How do I know what to improve if I got a low score

That's beyond what an automatic system like this can do. It's not a tool to perfect your pronunciation. It's more about giving you a rough estimate and giving you the option to actually speak. But to really iron out mistakes, you need feedback from a native speaker.

My results vary a lot

Quite a bit depends on the quality of your microphone. If there's a lot of noise around you, the AI will struggle with that. Also, the AI does better with sentences. For short words, it's not as good. Lastly, the AI is still being developed and struggles with some important words.

The recording is not working

The recording button should change color and pulsate while recording. If nothing happens, the most likely problem is that your browser is blocking the microphone. You can allow mic access by clicking on the icon left of the address in the address bar (on most browsers).

What do the colors mean
red: not very good (<20% match) yellow: okay (<50% match)
light green: good (<80% match)
green: amazing (80-99% match)
green+outline: perfect (100%)
_
Difficulty (only for AI exercises):