1. to have to do with, to concern, to have an effect on (Think of a tax increase on cigarettes, but you don't smoke, so you're not going to be affected. )
Meanings
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A fun look at the weird double meaning of "treffen" and the difference between "treffen" and "sich treffen".
A fun look at "angehen" how (or if) its various meanings connect. Also: how to say "That's none of your business." and the super useful phrasing "was... angeht"
I’m trying to nail the meaning of this one precisely. In certain contexts its clear but I’m wondering if you can use it precisely as you might “to refer to” or “to relate to”
“The codename “The Dark One ” referred to Thomas”
Does this work:
“Der Deckname “The Dark One” betrifft Thomas”
“The use of the dativ case relates to the preposition nach”
Die Andwendung von Dativ betrifft der Präposition “nach”
I was also wondering if these sentences could also use
beziehen sich auf and whether betreffen and beziehen sich auf are somewhat interchangable.
Danke dir!
No, “betreffen” does not work to make an assignment like
– A = B
Which is what your first example is basically about.
The second one makes no sense to me neither in German nor English. It sounds like a really convoluted try to say something simple.
“betreffen” is a mix of “having to do with” and “concerning”.
The object of “betreffen” is a thing or person that is “concerned or affected” by the subject.
“beziehen auf” can sometimes be similar, but usually it’s not.
Thanks. My second example is definitely a bit convoluted but it was essentially about pinpointing something that relates to something else.
Btw the way when you say “it has to do with” i understood this definition as synonymous with something like “es geht um”. For example “in this book the heroes dilemma has to do with a longing for a misremembered past”.
Im guessing now betreffen doesnt really have this sense of „have to do“?
It’s closer to that sense than to “beziehen auf”, but yeah… not really it. Good to see that the translation is a bit clearer now. It was quite open to interpretation before, especially without examples.
I see. I think if you felt like adding a few more examples it might become clearer : )
What did you mean by smoking by the way?
Can you use the verb for phsysics? Like talking about how the moon’s gravitational field affects the earth?
What I meant with smoking is that a non-smoker won’t be “betroffen” by a tax increase on tobacco.
The earth is indeed “betroffen” by the gravitational field of the moon, but that’d be a weird context for the word. There’s too much of “A concerns B” in it to be used for physics.
As for the examples… I am going to eventually add examples to all posts, but I’m also laying out a tool that pulls examples from my database without them being specifically assigned to one word. But for this one I’d say check out a few on Linguee and let me know if there’s anything unclear.
That said, I actually removed one of the ideas I had as translations and added a little note. Maybe it’s more clear now.