lesen

Word type: verb
Based on: *les-, *leg-

Perfect (spoken past): hat gelesen

Preterite (written past): las

Meanings

1.

to read

(The orinal sense of the family was about collecting, picking. "lesen" then went on to focus on "picking up letters" but the old sense lives on in a few related words.)

How useful:

Opposite (closest): schreiben

Examples

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Word of the Day - "lesen"

"lesen" means "to read" in German. Today, we'll explore its various prefix versions and see some really fascinating connections to English and quality food.

Vocab:

lesen, vorlesen, die Vorlesung, durchlesen, nachlesen, verlesen

Word Family

Root: *les-, *leg-

Already in Ancient Greek and Latin it was used in the context of “selecting words” and “gathering meaning” and became the origin of plenty of words that revolve around language and ideas. Like logic, lexicon, legal, dialect, ideologue, apology, select and many more.

The German lesen today means to read, but the original sense of gathering, picking is also still alive in words like auflesen or Weinlese.

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