Hello everyone,
ad welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we will have a look… actually a gaze at the meaning of:
merken
Merken is one hell of a word…. I don’t think that I would be taking much of a risk if I bet… 10 Cent that every German uses, hears or reads merken or one of its dairyta… diriv… devira… uh… its children at least 10 times a day. And yet, merken is often overlooked by many learners because whichever word it can translate to in English seems to have a better “default” translation in German… for example, merken is often a translation of to remember.But most of you know remember as erinnern… comprehensive dictionaries might list merken, too, but pshhhh… who cares for just some synonym.
However, merken is much more than that. Merken is all over the place and is one of the most impote… important 200 verbs. I would even go as far as to say that it is more important than sein and haben combined… Hain which is the German word for grove … and if you don’t find that very convincing consider this: we even named our current chancellor after merken. And our chancellor is a pretty powerful and important person and I think she even has like really good connections to our government, too … so you see… merken is one hell of a word … hah, they have no idea yet that its grammar is an even bigger he… oh wait… did I write that last part out loud??? Oh crap, I will have to edit that out in post… get it ? … in POST.. like blog post.. What’s that? You want more plays on words? What? Oh you want to learn about merken and NO plays on words anymore… oh… okay then, let’s start.
So… there are actually 2 merkens with totally different meanings and significantly different grammar… there is a “normal” merken and a reflexive or self-referential merken, a sich merken.
merken
Possible translations for the normal merken are to notice, to realize and to feel… if I had to give a definition of it myself I’d say it is is the process of becoming or being aware of a fact with a focus on intuition and not so much logic or mere unimodal sensual perception… yap… let’s stick with the translations :).
Merken can mean all those words but the usage is a little tricky. Sometimes merken is really by far the best translation and in other seemingly similar situations it would sound pretty odd.
So let’s list some characteristics of merken to really get a feeling for when to use it. First of, merken always takes some time. It is not an instant realization but a process.
Also, it tends to be a bit unclear in the modality of perception. If you notice something just with your eyes or your ears, merken is not a good choice.
With regards to the context we can say that merken is not often used for simple things like a table or heat and NEVER for persons. You cannot merken someone.
So what can you merken? Well… we could call it facts, maybe… so, things like
- It is late.
- Thomas is angry.
Grammatically speaking facts are information that needs to be phrased.. so you need a verb to state it. That means merken is probably a good translation for either of the above mentioned words (to realize, to feel, to notice, to sense) if a subordinate clause is involved. By the way… short word for Subordinate Claus is Elf … badumm tish…
Examples!
- Ich merke, dass du schlechte Laune hast.
- I sense that you are in a bad mood.
- Ich habe nicht gemerkt, wie die Zeit vergangen ist.
- I didn’t feel the time passing.
- Merkst du nicht, dass du mich gerade nervst?
- Don’t you realize that you’re going on my nerves right now?
So… in phrasing like these merken is by FAR the best choice. You should not use fühlen in any of the examples. Fühlen just is too connected to tactile perception on the one hand an to the soul on the other… merken is a little less involved… kind of like the 2 following sentences.
- I feel your anger. vs. I sense your anger. (please native speakers, let me know if I am mistaken here)
Now, would merken be a good choice in these sentences? No, because merken is used for facts, but here we just have a thing… the anger.
- Ich merke deinen Ärger.
Technically, that is correct I guess but it sounds odd to me. Let’s rephrase it using and fact.
- Ich merke, dass du sehr ärgerlich bist.
This is much much better.Let’s just look at a couple of more situation.
- I noticed that you put on make up.
Is this something for merken? We do notice a fact here… you put on make up…. so based on that merken should be okay. Still it is not a good choice for 2 reasons. Firstly, I doesn’t take very long to notice that and secondly the noticing is purely based on visuals. You might as well say „I see that you put on make up.“ There is nothing left to intuition here…
- I sense that you put on make up today.
That would be weird. Like … a blind one could maybe say it to his friend because he hears the lipstick or he smells the fine perfume of the products or the grumpy waiter in the coffee shop they always go to has been extra friendly… but I digress. So merken is not good here. Let’s try one more.
- Marc didn’t notice Mary.
Is that a merken case? Super-No, clearly not because you cannot merken people, it is not a fact AND it is likely based on visual only AND it was likely very quick. You can just check to insert a slowly in the examples. If it doesn’t work, then merken won’t either.
- Marc slowly noticed Mary.
Now, let’s rephrase.
- Marc noticed that Marie was there, too.
Here, merken would be okay because we have a fact, we can insert slowly and we’re not clear as to how he noticed it (see, hear, smell, clothes laying around, clean kitchen… intuition).
So…. I really hope that helped you to get kind of grasp of how merken works. Here are some more examples that do work well with merken
- Am Anfang hat mir der Job Spaß gemacht, aber dann habe ich gemerkt, wie langweilig er ist.
- In the beginning I enjoyed the job but then I realized how boring it was.
- „Ich war gerade kurz bei Maria…“
„Oh Gott, die ist heute richtig gestresst…“ #
„Ja das habe ich gemerkt.“ - „I just dropped by at Marias…“
„Oh god, she is like sooo stressed today…“
„Yeah, I noticed .“
One little note on grammar… merken ALWAYS needs an object or a sentence to explain what is being realized. In grammar jargon, we could say, merken is super-transitive… so it is not just sort-of-transitive like so many English verbs…
- Yeah, I noticed.
There is no object here. It is just assumed that I noticed whatever has been said before. This doesn’t work in German. You can’t just say:
- Ich habe gemerkt.
There has to be at least a reference there, a direct object, if you’re into grammar lingo.
- Das habe ich gemerkt.
Alright, so to recap, merken is to somewhat slowly notice a fact (not a person or a thing) using senses and intuition.
sich merken
And now on to the second merken… the sich merken. Fortunately the meaning of that one a little easier grasp as it is basically to memorize. Now you may say „Pshhhh who needs that? I never use memorize so why should I remember that word in German?“
Well, you should remember that because that last sentence would actually be translated using sich merken. The thing is, English speakers use to remember a whole lot and it has a really broad meaning. Dictionaries suggest erinnern as a translation but that only covers one facet of remember… the actual recall.
There are about 5 different ways to remember is translated to German. I think I will do a post on that at some point but for now I’ll just say sich merken covers the memory part of to remember. When you say
- Why should I remember that?
then you are not asking why you should recall that but why you should make an effort to keep it „recallable“ or simply to memorize it. This very question cannot be translated with erinnern… sich merken is what you need here.
- Warum sollte ich mir das merken?
Some more examples.
- Thomas kann sich keine Namen merken.
- Thomas can’t memorize names. (lit.)
- Thomas is bad with names.
- Ich muss mir dringend merken, wie man das macht.
- I absolutely have to remember how to do that.
- Merk dir das!
- Remember that!
Now, I think most of you are not totally comfortable with the whole reflexivenonreflexivewhichpronounusedativeoraccusativecase-thing. So what’s up with the whole sich, mir, dir and how does a self reference make any sense with to memorize?
Well, a look at the etomylg..ngn..l.. the origin of merken will clarify a lot of things. Both merkens, this one and the one we already talked about, come from the Germanic mark, as in landmark or text marker. While the English to mark has a narrow meaning, the German merken has broadened incredibly but still… the relation is still visible sometimes.
- Mark my words!
- Merk dir meine Worte!
This example also make sit understandable why there is a self reference in the German sentences… like I mark something for myself. I admit, it feels a bit redundant but this is how we say it in German… and because we have cases we don’t say for me but rather the case that expresses that idea… the dative.
- Ich merke mir…
- Du merkst dir…
- Er merkt sich…
Now, I can certainly mark something for someone else… like the typos for the student. So can I merken something for someone else? No, that does not work, because it is the combination between the self reference sich and merken that makes it to memorize.
- Ich merke dir…WRONG
This is complete nonsense. There is no self-reference so it is NOT perceived as to memorize but as the first merken… to sense or to notice… and you can not sense something to someone else…. like “Yo, I sense you some of my joy.”
So… to sum this one up… sich merken literally means to memorize but it is also a translation for to remember and we do use it as such a lot. No one would ever say
- Oh das ist interessant, ich muss mich daran erinnern…. is weird
- Oh das ist interessant, ich muss mir das merken.
- Oh that’s interesting, I have to remember that.
The crucial thing is the self reference in dative case. If that is missing, it does NOT mean to memorize anymore. People would understand the normal merken then and this can be incredibly confusing.
- Ich merke deine Telefonnummer…. WRONG
- I sense your phonenumber… oh do you? So you’re psychic huh?
The best thing would be if you just learn it by sound. Don’t think too much about cases and reflexive… just say “Ich merke mir…” “Du merkst dir ... ” until it comes out automatically.
We are almost done for today but I wanted to give you 2 words that have merken in them. The first one is merklich is relating to the first meaning of merken so it shouldn’t be too surprising that a possible translation is noticable. I am too laz.. have problems to come up with basic examples here so I would refer you to linguee (which is a great web site by the way). There you can see all kinds of translations but the core idea is always… stands out or can/has been marked.
Then there is the word merkwürdig, which is an example for a word that comes from the memorize-merken. Würdig can mean either dignified or worthy. Here it means the latter so merkwürdig should logically be worth to remember or remarkable… which again shows the origins of merken. Well, it certainly meant that once, but it has shifted and now it means strange.
- Du bist heute merkwürdig still.
- You are strangely/ remarkably quiet today.
- I have no credit on my phone. That is strange.
- Ich habe kein Guthaben auf dem Handy. Das ist merkwürdig.
So it has narrowed down basically… strange things are sure worth remembering but not all things that ar wroth rembeergin aer sra.. uh you know what, I think it’s enough for today. I just can’t concentrate anymore :).
So… this was our German Word of the Day merken. It comes from the word to mark, it means to slowly notice a fact, and adding a self reference like myself changes the meaning to to memorize or to remember.
If you have any questions or suggestions, leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Is there a difference between merken and bemerken? Is there a pattern between all of the non-separable prefixes that can help one decide what the word means (for example be-, ver- (verkaufen, verlieren, verleihen), er- (ertrunken), ent- (enkommen), emp- (empfangen), etc)?
Hi Allison,
yes there is a difference between merken and bemerken. I actually was planning to discuss it but then I simply forgot… so I will add it. The main thing is that bemerken is fast… like you sit in a café and you wanne pay and you realize that your wallet is not there…. that is bemerken because it is quick… snap… oh.. wallet gone. In the same situation you can also realize that your wallet is at home… that would be merken, because it needs intuition. How do you know your wallet is at home and not anywhere else…
as for the non-seperable prefixes in general… there is no such system, at least none that I know of. They have a notion of sorts but very very broad and still with exceptions that shatter everything. Take ver for instance… verkaufen, verlieren, vergessen implies that ver is something with away… but then we have verstehen or verbessern which doesn’t really fit in there.
Maybe I will discuss those at some point … I probably should but that will be somewhat elobrate I guess :)
Hope I could help
Many many thanks for your great post!!!
I have a doubt now on these comments… Would “bemerken” be a synonym of “einfallen”?
Not at all. “bemerken” is about noticing facts, “einfallen” is about things/ideas coming to your mind out of the blue, either because you remember or you come up with it.
“auffallen” is kind of a synonym though.
https://yourdailygerman.com/auffallen-meaning-to-notice-german/
The main difference is grammar.
– Mir ist aufgefallen, dass du neue Haare hast.
– Ich habe bemerkt, dass du neue Haare hast.
Hey, dude. How are you?
Another good post, as always :)
I have a question, though: Can the first usage of merken be a synonym for feststellen?
Thanks!
Hi Filipe,
glad you liked it :). I found it difficult to write and I am not sure whether or not it was too complicated, so good to hear it made sense to you … as for your question… spontaneously I would have said: yes, at times. Then I checked Duden (like merriam webster)
http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/merken
They don’t list feststellen as a synonym, which was a surprise for me. So I checked feststellen. And voila, there they use merken even to outline the meaning-bubble of feststellen… and it is also in the (LONG) list of synonyms:
http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/feststellen
So… then I checked Leo and they have feststellen listed as translation for both, notice and realize… so… there must be some overlap between merken and feststellen. But it is small… not because of meaning but because of tone.
Feststellen is more a “take for reality”… if you look at Leo for feststellen you see all kinds of technical sounding things. So feststellen is science, merken is soul. In a scientific paper, where they gradually came to realize something they would NEVER say merken they would use feststellen.
Wir haben gemerkt (NO!!!) / festgestellt, dass unser Versuchsaufbau zu falschen Ergebnissen geführt hat.
We realized, that our experimental setup led to erroneous results.
Hmm, the way you put it, the difference seems to be quite simple. I will try to keep it in mind.
Thanks, dude :)
For your first usage of merken, in your example “Marc slowly noticed Mary”, but “gradually” might be the more appropriate English word. “Slowly” isn’t totally incorrect here, but it gives more the impression of physical movement (I’m imagining this super slo-mo scene where Marc’s head turns around to notice Mary); whereas “gradually” would have more to do with his perception of his surroundings.
Does your advice “You can just check to insert a slowly in the examples” still work properly if it’s “You can just check to insert a gradually in the examples”?
First of, thank you for telling me this :). These are the little things only native speakers know … I am so envious :)… anyways, my point with that was that it doesn’t really make sense to me in German…. slowly is “langsam” and gradually in your context would be “nach und nach” , there is the word graduell but that is really barely used (Germans don’t fancy Latin all that much)… anyway… neither of the German words for gradually or slowly makes sense to me … like how can you only gradually notice a person or a thing like a table… so the point was if the noticing is by default something that happens rather quickly, then don’t use merken. The example was supposed to illustrate that it doesn’t work there.
Now, unfortunately the word gradually doesn’t really feel weird to me. While the more German translations don’t make much sense, the English phrase seems to be fine. So… (sorry for the long talk here)… does the sentence make sense with gradually Can you gradually notice a person ? Because if yes, I will have to change the article (which is not bad because I have to fit in bemerken anyway, which btw is the proper word for the example we are talking about)…
Thanks! I think I’m getting the hang of the word now. What do you think of the following example? 1. When you merken something you “get the sense of something” in english. 2. Every person possesses their own invisible marker that they use to merken (don’t worry I will try to explain..). I like “to get the sense of something” over “to notice” or “to feel” or simply “to sense” because I think it might sum up the feeling of the word a bit better (or at least from what I understand to be the feeling of the word based on your WOTD). I’m also reasonably sure “to get the sense of something” stays true to all of your rules: 1. You cannot merken people. “Marc didn’t get the sense Mary” (doesn’t work) 2. Facts versus things. “I’m getting the sense of your anger” (still sounds wrong) versus “I’m getting the sense that you’re angry” (sounds better) 3. Merken doesn’t work when based purely on visuals aka something that you immediately notice. “I’m getting the sense that you put on make up today” (you wouldn’t say this in that kind of scenario either) 4. Merken always needs a reference. Now yes, using your example: „I just dropped by at Marias…“ „Oh god, she is like sooo stressed today…“ „Yeah, I noticed .“ the first person in the exchange could technically still reply “Yeah, I got the sense” instead of “yeah, I noticed” and still be understood. But it just doesn’t sound 100% correct (for me at least) unless you reply in full: “Yeah, I got the sense that she was”. I feel that just by default “to get the sense of something” already has the added effect or feeling of process to it, so therefore isn’t as immediate or simple sounding as to just notice or feel something. Also I think that you might be able to notice something slowly. I may be wrong about this and it might just be and example of bad english but the passage: “I was eating lunch when I slowly noticed Gemma. She had been standing there the whole time.” sounds okay to me. Now what about that invisible memory marker? You’ll need it when it comes to memorising things aka sich merken. You’re not “getting the sense of something” here, instead you’re actually marking yourself with your own invisible memory marker (hence the reflexive mich, sich etc) kind of in the same vein as writing a telephone number on your own hand so as not to forget it. So you’re marking yourself with your marker aka taking note. And by the way you DO NOT write on other people because frankly it’s just rude and everyone already has their own memory marker for when it comes to self writing. I think this marker example covers all of your points and rules about sich merken in a roundabout way (at least it is helping me to get my head around it), although I still… Read more »
HI Robert,
first of thanks for taking the time for writing all that. I enjoyed reading it… and then reading it again ;)…
so, here are my thoughts … I was not aware of the expression “to get the sense of” and I would have understood the “sense” in there as the “sense” in sense of “make sense”… but as it is more the sensation-sense it does make sense (oh god, what an awful sentence). Especially if it fits in all my examples… so it seems to be a good translation. There is a large overlap between the 2 but there are large areas where it doesn’t work… at least not from English to German. So maybe “getting the sense” is broader than merken. I checked Linguee… they use all kinds of words in the German translations and merken would work pretty much nowhere in these examples because its meaning does not extend to field like “getting an overview” or “get an impression”
http://www.linguee.com/english-german/translation/get+a+sense.html
Another difference between merken and “getting a sense” is the fact that merken implies truth… you wouldn’t use merken if whatever you perceive or understand is not 100 % real…. so it is like to realize. When you say it you imply that, at least in your world, that particular fact is real and true. It is not just an impression. I think “getting a sense” is different there.Now I might be completely mistaken though. So here is an example to illustrate what I mean.
I got the sense that she was angry (so it was surprising to hear that she was not).
This would NOT work with merken (just as it doesn’t with to realize or to notice).
So “to get the sense of sth.” does match merken in a lot of areas where notice or feel don’t but there are other areas where the latter are closer…. anyway… except for things like “tree” translations that match in all regards are rare.
As for the sich merken… I really like your idea with the writing on someone else’s hand and that you simply don’t do that :)… I am not 100 % sure whether I understood your internal marker right but you need to be careful… the grammar does NOT imply that you mark yourself. It is not “I mark myself” but I mark that for myself”. That is why it is “mir” and not “mich”. So maybe we shouldn’t call it reflexive at all. The thing being marked is the thing and not you. It doesn’t really matter and as long as the other picture helps you understand then there is no need to object it, but don’t think of merken as a reflexive…
it is more like
“Ich kaufe mir ein Auto”
“I buy a car (for myself)”
In German, we say this self referential pronoun a lot even if it is redundant … but for merken it has to be there….
Anyways, thanks again for your comment :).
Hmm cool, thanks for making things a bit clearer for me. Hopefully I still have room in my brain somewhere to fit in everything there is to know about bemerken now too :).
Oh and I also have an unrelated question to ask you or perhaps somebody else on here that might know: I have twice now seen people wearing hats that say müze on them.. but I thought it was spelled mütze? Is this some kind of ironic thing? I’m probably just getting confused and I actually don’t even know that many words for hat anyway (I thought I at least knew this one) but what is going on here?
I have never seen that ever… MüZe is short for Mütterzentrum (thanks Google) … but there is also this
http://www.spreadshirt.de/mueze-kb-show-C4408A21781184
which is sported by those:
http://www.myvideo.de/webstars/DieAussenseiter
I don’t know whether it is really supposed to mean Mütterzentrum … but maybe it does :)
once again, a great interesting post! This blog really makes my day :D
Please keep it up! It’s because of people like you that I don’t give up on learning German!
Oh, and your English is excellent (better than most “Native” English speakers). Of course, anyone can poke around and find flaws in peoples’ English (so don’t let that discourage you).
Thanks a lot for this very helpful post! Could you please explain to us what the difference is between “erkennen” and “merken”/”bemerken”? “erkennen” is translated as “to realize” in English.
For instance, if you wanted to translate “I realized that I had left my wallet at home” could you in some cases use “erstellen” instead of “bemerken”? Or for “I realized that I was wasting my time”, could you use “erstellen” instead of “merken”?
Hey Kraneh, thanks for your nice feedback :)
Erkennen has 2 meanings… ok actually it is kind of just one but anyway. The first usage is pretty much to recognize.
Ich erkenne dich an der Stimme.
I recognize you by your voice.
The other one is to realize but this one is used for rather big or serious insights.
Ich erkenne jetzt, wie dumm ich war.
Now, I realize how stupid I have been.
You can’t use it for everyday realizations like “ops, I forgot my wallet.”
Those are merken/bemerken territory. Both these verbs have a sensual aspect… like you see something or hear something. Erkennen in the abstract sense doesn’t have that. It is a thing of the conscious and the spirit as opposed to mere perception.
I hope that helps, if not keep asking :)
Got it :) Thank you for the explanation!
realize in English has two meanings
1. recognise the reality of X
2. make X real
erstellen can only translate the second meaning and then only rarely. For the second meaning you usually use “verwirklichen” or “umsetzen”
Or “realisieren” of course :)
How about this situation, minute 6:30:
I’m pretty sure “Lily”, the girl coming out of the elevator, says “gemerkt” and not “bemerkt”. Wouldn’t “noticing/realizing” someone’s absence be done most likely visually and in a short time, in fact instantly? (either you are at work or you aren’t). Thank you.
hehe… nice one :)….
so noticing someones absence can be a rather quick thing when you consider that someone is in a certain place, say, a chair and then all of a sudden he or she is gone.
However, this is some kind of company or office and people are not in one very spot there. So she wants to know if anyone realized that she was not in that large office. In order to realize that one would have to look everywhere first, or someone maybe asks for her and gets the info that she is gone as a reply. So her absence is something you cannot notice with just one look because she might just be at the coffee machine or in the restroom in that moment.
So of someone had “merked” her absence the thought would probably have sounded something like this: “Hey I wonder where Lily is… is she actually here or is she not here… wow, seems like she really is not here… weird.”
The thought of bemerken would have been: “Hey wait a second. Lily isn’t here.” “And how do you know that, maybe she is just gettin’ a coffee.” “No, I can sense it … she is not here.”
If we were talking about a meeting here, with a power-point presentation and dim lighting during which she snuck out and back in, then it would be on the edge between bemerken and merken.
I hope that makes sense :)
So, is it even possible to say in German what is meant in English by “I just noticed you (there).”? Since merken is inapplicable, here are some candidates:
“Ich habe dich gerade bemerkt.”
“Mir fällt gerade auf, dass du da bist.”
“Mir fällt dich gerade auf.”
Any of these work?
Good question! I’ll tackle the versions one by one:
“Ich habe dich gerade bemerkt.”
This is fine and expresses what you want to express. However, I would use a little more complex phrasing that is a bit more precise in that you actually recognized the person being in a specific location as opposed to “existing”
“Ich habe gerade bemerkt, das du da bist.”
Obviously very similar to your candidate number 2:
“Mir fällt gerade auf, dass du da bist.”
Something is weird about this and at first I wasn’t able to say what it is but I think it is the use of present tense… the moment of noticing is rather short. After that, the deed is done. So for present tense to make sense you would have to say it right the second you notice the person which is impossible because you’re not even done noticing.
You also used past in the original English sentence and present would be weird for the same reason… so let’s make it:
“Mir ist gerade aufgefallen, dass du da bist.”
This is fine… maybe a little tiny bit arrogant.
“Mir fällt dich gerade auf”
This is wrong because it has no subject. The subject should be “du”… and I’ll also change it to past.
“Mir bist du gerade aufgefallen.”
This is correct but it means something slightly different. This phrasing is usually used if someone has spotted a potential mate. So you sit in a bar, you see this person and you finally walk over and ten years later you’re married and you tell your kid “Er/sie ist mir sofort aufgefallen.”
Auffallen in general is more “to stick out” so “mir auffallen” is to stick out to me… hope that clears it up a little :)
Hi, I love your blogs, they really help me learn and distinguish words :) I just have one question: You say merken sich is the memorize type of remember, so if I wanted to say “Do you remember bla bla..” I should use erinnern? Also, what’s the difference between merken sich, erinnern and entsinnen?
Hey man, I almost forgot you but then “habe ich mich erinnert” :)… so … for those kind of questions you’d either use
“Erinnerst du dich…”
or, if the event is somewhat normal and mundane
“Weißt du noch…”
“Do you still know…”
This sounds better in many occasions. Erinnern sounds … well…bigger.
Using merken in these cases doesn’t really work unless you’re inquiring about something of which you know that someone learned it (preferably from you but that is not mandatory)… for instance how to set the alarm on the new phone… then people might also use this:
“Hast du dir gemerkt…”
This clearly makes a reference back to the moment of learning so that’s why merken works here.
As for entsinnen… this is clearly like sich erinnern… but you can only ever use it with a self reference. SO you can’t entsinnen someone else. That doesn’t make sense…. and generally entsinnen is quite rare. You will almost never see it, especially not in the second person singular, or any past form except third person singular (thanks to novels) :)… hope that helps a bit
Hallo! Danke für alles! Deine Blog ist sehr hilfreich!
I can’t get enough of these! I’m trying to learn German right now in College, but I get more out of 1 of your articles than I do 5 of my classes! lol
I think you have the “feeling-anger” and “sensing-anger” for English correct. Feel is more tangible, sensing is more intuitive. However, I would like to mention that both of those sentences sound weird in spoken English if only because of their implied context. I mean, if you realistically told someone “I feel/sense your anger” they’d probably respond with something like, “No shit Sherlock!”…. :D Also there’s a sort of creepy undertone in telling someone you sense their anger that is reserved mainly for Sith Lords. I’m sure you knew this already and were just using them as grammatical examples, I just couldn’t resist.
Again, thanks for the wonderful blogs, please keep them coming, they help so much!
Merken is a family name Also spelled Merkin.
And Merkel :)
Thanks, I was struggling to understand “merken and sich merken” and you’ve really helped.
Freut mich. Ich hoffe du kannst dir das alles merken :)
Muss mir alles hier merken, denn ich habe “merken” bestimmt sehr oft total falsch benutzt…
Kannst du “wahrnehmen” im Sinne von “notice” ein bisschen erklären? Handelt es sich eher um die Tatsache von “noticing” als um das Ereignis davon? Kann man etwas/jemanden langsam/plötzlich wahrnehmen oder ist es einfach so, dass man etw./jmdn. entweder wahrnimmt oder nicht? Ist “wahrnehmen” eher wissenschaftlich wie “feststellen” oder intuitiv wie “merken” oder keines von beiden?
Vom Gefühl her würde ich sagen “wahrnehmen” ist ziemlich ähnlich zu “to perceive”. Das gilt auch für die Ableitungen
Die Tiefenwahrnehmung – depth perception
wahrnehmbar – perceivable
wahrgenommen – perceived
Es kann beides sein… rein nervenbasiert, und auch intuitiv.
“Feststellen” klingt viel aktiver und es ist mehr wie “to notice”, was ja mit “to note down” auch eine sehr aktive KOmponente in sich trägt. Ich würde sagen, “wahrnehmen” ist also eher wie “merken”.
WAW! Danke danke! I was a bit lost with merken but now I found myself ;)
So far I was using the verb “mich einprägen” for memorize and it worked but perhaps I should move to “mich merken”. Are both synonyms?
Thx!
They are similar but “einprägen” sounds like much more effort. Like really learning by heart. One quick note… they both come with a self reference but it’s not “mich”. It’s mir
– Ich merke mir etwas.
– Ich präge mir etwas ein.
The mir expresses that you are receiving something in some way (here’s it’s the mental mark). The memory itself is the direct object.
This is incredibly useful as always Mark. Keep up the good work!
Thanks. Will do.
Sie schreiben so gut und interessant, dass es toll waere, Ihr Schreiben auf Deutsch zu lessen.
I think what is confusing for me regarding the first use of “merken” is that it’s range seems to have a different range than both “to notice” or “to realize” in English. Take this situation as an example.
You “notice” that a strange man walks into a bar, and as he gets closer, you “realize” that he is your father.
In this case, you wouldn’t say, you noticed that he is your father. It seems to me that realize in English can have a sense of change, an enlightenment or a surprise, but merken can have both (Am I correct?). I feel as though “to realize” in English most closely resembles “merken” in this sentence that you provided:
Am Anfang hat mir der Job Spaß gemacht, aber dann habe ich gemerkt, wie langweilig er ist.
There is a twist, maybe a surprise.
„Ich war gerade kurz bei Maria…“
„Oh Gott, die ist heute richtig gestresst…“ #
„Ja das habe ich gemerkt.“
To me, the English translation would be “to notice”. If you used “realize”, I would understand it as though they were counting on Maria to finish the project by to day, but it’s “dawning on them” that she is no state to complete the work on time.
Is my understanding that merken straddles both to notice and to realize in English?
Great examples! Yes, “merken” overlaps with both but it doesn’t fully cover them either. In the bar example I would use “erkennen” for “to realize”, mostly because it is based on pure vision. “merken” is a bit more mind based. And for the entering the bar, I would probably use “bemerken” because entering a bar is just too short an action.
Hope that helps :)
Hello! Thank you for writing a very helpful post!
I would like to ask the difference between ‘bemerken’ vs ‘anmerken’? I read about ‘anmerken’ means ‘to notice or to see something in someone’. It sounds similar to ‘bemerken’ to me because it seems like ‘anmerken’ is also ‘noticing something in a short time’?
Thank you again!
“bemerken” and “anmerken” do overlap indeed, when you look at the translations. First, there is the sense of “giving a bit of (side) information about something”. That use is rare for “bemerken” though and you can pretty much only find it in books, where “bemerken” is sometimes used as a speech tag.
– “Ich bin müde” bemerkte Thomas.
– “I’m tired.” Thomas said/noted/remarked.
“anmerken” is much more common in such a context but it leans more toward giving a comment.
– Ich will nur anmerken, dass das teuer ist.
– I just wanted to put it out there/say it, that it’s expensive.
The other sense is the sense of noticing and there it’s mainly the grammar/phrasing that’s different.
– etwas (acc) bemerken
– jemandem etwas (acc) anmerken
“bemerken” is more general about noticing, while “anmerken” only works in a sense of noticing something about someone and you do need the full phrase
– Ich habe Thomas nicht angemerkt, wie müde er war.
– I didn’t notice about Thomas, how tired he was.
– Ich habe nicht bemerkt, wie müde Thomas war.
The “anmerken” version sounds a bit more personal and focused on Thomas hiding something.
Let me know if that helps.
Hallöchen
A quick question.
Ich merke, dass du schlechte Laune hast.
I sense that you are in a bad mood.
is ok, but
Ich merke deinen Ärger.
I sense your anger
Is not?
I don’t understand,, are they not essentially saying the same thing? Also is a bad mood not subjective, is that really stating a fact….Maybe thats a bit philosophical but I have definitely had people ask me why I was in a bad mood, when I wasn’t at all (concentrating, tired etc)..
Great question!!
So yeah, they are saying the same thing, but that doesn’t mean that both are idiomatic.
For learning a language, any language, it is very very helpful to differentiate between two distinct things: I call them “facts” and “entities”.
“Entities” are objects, living beings, thoughts expressed as a NOUN.
So a “cat” is an entity, “joy” is an entity and you are an entity.
Mind you, I am not talking about the real world. I am talking about a sentence as a sort of “scene”.
Why am I not saying “noun” then? Because pronouns are also entities. They stand for entities.
On the other side we have what I call facts. Those are bits of information that are not (or can not be) expressed by using an entity. We need an entire sentence to convey the information.
– Ich weiß, [was du gestern gesagt hast]
It is hard to phrase the part in brackets as one noun phrase. This is what I call “fact”, but it’s purely about the phrasing, not about how true or false it is. I just can’t think of a better label to put on it (sentence doesn’t work, because it’s not always a sentence)
Making this distinction between entities and “facts” is super helpful because often those two things have COMPLETELY different grammars.
And they can also make a difference with what’s idiomatic and what isn’t.
In the example in question, we’re phrasing the same thing once as an entity (deinen Ärger) and once as a fact (dass du ärgerlich bist).
The thing with “merken” is that it doesn’t sounds too idiomatic with specified entities.
– Ich merke etwas/Ich merke es.
These are fine.
– Ich merke die Kälte.
This is not wrong, but it sounds a bit odd. You’d use “spüren”.
So yeah… “Ich merke deinen Ärger” is NOT WRONG. People might even say it. But they won’t say it often and if you want to speak idiomatic German, it’s best to not use “merken” with entities.
Hope that helps :)
Amidst merken/bemerken/feststellen in the “realize” constellation, where would you put “sich klar werden”? E.g., “Mir wurde gerade klar, dass…”
I should add: I’ve heard that on TV, but I hear “ich hab gerade festgestellt” fairly often in person. Is the other one literally like saying “it became clear to me” in English? (IE, a big deal, kind of dramatic-sounding).
“festgestellt” sounds a bit too proactive to me to be “it became clear to me”.
I’m actually surprised you’d hear that in person a lot. In a professional context? Or among friends? It’s certainly not a phrasing I use in my day to day, but that’s just personal preference, after all.
Hmmm… that’s a sudden insight into a question you’ve had before (maybe even subconsciously) . So you wouldn’t use it for realizing that someone is in the room for instance.
Also, it only works for facts, not for objects and things that can actually be sensed.
“to come to a realization” is a good fit, I think.
Does that help?