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"werden" means "to become". And it builds the future. And the passive. OMG. Today, we'll find out all about it. Also: 'become' and 'bekommen' explained :).

We'll explore why the verb "werden" is used for future AND passive voice and how to do it. Also: a really peculiar feature of German passive voice.

A fun overview over facial expressions in German. We'll go over all kinds of things that you can do with your face with lots of examples.
Vocab:
lachen, lächeln, der Mund, die Augen, blinzeln, hochnäsig, rümpfen, runzeln

Word Family
This is one of several roots that had at their core the idea of:
turning, winding, bending
The most obvious English offspring are words like worm, warp, weird, wrestle, wrist and more (see below).
But also -ward, worry, worth and wrong belong to the family, each with their own… ahem… twist on the original sense.
But the root is also the origin of the Latin verb *vertere. This verb meant to bend and it’s the origin of dozens of words like versus, vertebra, invert, subvert, versatile and me … I mean… introvert.
The three most important relatives in German are werden (“turning toward, winding up” -> to become), der Wert (“what you give versus what you get” -> worth) and werfen (“winding motion with your hand”- to throw).
Here’s an (incomplete) list of English relatives and how they tie in with the original sense:
- -ward (“winding in a direction”)
- warp
- weird (“twisted”)
- worm, vermin
- wrestle, wrist (“winding, bending”)
- wrinkle, wriggle, wrangle,… (all about “twisting” in some way)
- wrong (originally “twisting your mouth”)
- worry (originally “to strangle the throat”)
- worth (originally what you give “versus” something else)
- versus (“turn toward”)
- version (“what you turn out, rendition”)
- vertebra (“what bends”)
- versatile (“turns in many directions”)
- invert (“turn backward”)
- convert (“to turn to”)
- extrovert (“turned outward”)
- introvert (me)
- pervert (“turned beyond”)
- subvert (Star Wars expectations)
- anniversary (“turn of the year”)
- universe (all wrapped in one)
I noticed ward and wardst given as an options for präteritum in Duden. Not sure I’ve ever encountered this elsewhere. Is it an old spelling or something ?
Old forms, rather than old spelling.
You can find it in old fairy-tale style writing, for sure.
The me personally, I always thought of this as a form of “war” not “werden”. But the result is the same in this example.
“wardst” would definitely raise an eyebrow if I were to see that anywhere.
The me personally, I always thought of this as a form of “war” not “werden”. But the result is the same in this example. Yes, I can see how you might think this. This is an interesting overlap somehow…
These things are interesting! I probably read it as a kid many times and my brain just filed it under “war” and I never got to a point where I’d have to rethink that.
For years, probably until I was 13 or 14, I thought “beunruhigt” was a special word consiting of “beun” and “ruhig” and I read “boinruhigt” in my head. As if “beun” was a special, poetic prefix.
I was quite disappointed when it dawned on me that it’s “just” be+un+ruhig
I did have to go and check up the etymology of werden up just to be sure there wasn’t some weird connection between ward and war, cus that would make total sense.
I’m sure i had similar experiences but i can’t think of any exactly like that off the top of my head…
I know that for a while (probably aged 6 or 7 or something) I was reading the word “stomach”
and made no connection to the word “stomach” I’d heard many times. But thats english spelling for you.
I’m sure you know this already right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti