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 "hindurch" on DWDS.de
Biggest German Dictionary, great for etymology, usage frequency and collocations) - "hindurch" 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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could you give an example or two of when you might want to use hindurch instead of durch please?
I was looking this up cus i encountered “durch” + “hindurch” in a sentence – my understanding thats kinda an intensification of “durch”?
If you have “durch X hindurch” in a sentence, then you’re 99% certainly looking at a prefix verb “hindurchverben”. Which normally would be just “durchverben”, but “durch X durch” sounds a little shitty, so even in spoken German people something add the “hin”.
– Ich fahre durch den Tunnel hindurch.
Does that help?
ok. And the doubling is necessary? Or is this kind of similar to the doubling in “um etwas herum gehen” where its not really necessary
Without the preoposition:
Ich fahre den Tunnel hindurch
has a potentially different meaning ?
So generally, if you’d skip something you’d skip the prefix.
– Ich fahre durch den Tunnel.
THe prefix is in essence a generic indication of directionality, so if you have another indication of directionality for the verb, you don’t really need the prefix anymore.
However, Germans are so used to the flow of the prefix at the end, that they will tend to use it, and skipping it sounds a bit literary or truncated.
– Ich fahre durch den Tunnel.
Also, the “(hin)durch” still adds a secondary sense of “to where”.
– Ich fahre durch den Tunnel in die Stadt.
In this one, there’s no room for a prefix anymore.
Now about this:
– Ich fahre den Tunnel hindurch.
To me, this doesn’t work because “hindurchfahren” normally doesn’t take a direct object.
I’m not 100% sure though, because it has a resiudal feel of “Ich fahre den Tunnel entlang.” which does work.
interesting this is such a helpful answer. I feel like i understood something new about the essence of german…