Hello everyone,
and welcome to a new German Word of the Day. This time we will have a look at the meaning of:
der Mut
Mut... 3 letters that can make all the difference. Mut can get you a date with that really awesome person, Mut can make you ask for a pay raise or/and tell your boss what you REALLY think about him. Mut can make you speak up in German class, it makes you stand up for your beliefs and – if you have too much of it – Mut can even make you poke a sleeping lion with a stick in the middle of the savanna. Exactly.
Mut is the German word for courage. And Mut is 114% hairy, testosterone laden, beer drinking, weight lifting, ubermasculine “D E R” … of course! Men do brave things. Women do crave rings. That’s why it is der Mut and die Ring. And since we’re on tha… what? Oh, it is der Ring? … oh… … that’s confusing. Not as much as THIS though….
Back to language.
Here’s an example for der Mut:
- Mut kommt von innen.
- Courage comes from within.
It sure does. But there is another path to Mut that is much faster … alcohol. Already the munchkins knew that. “A drunk lion is not a cowardly one.”, they said. And… what do you think why people who want to encourage you say “Just give it a shot.”… haha.
Anyway… what makes the word Mut interesting are the many many words that are built with it. For one thing, there is the adjective mutig which means couragieuouuous … or simply brave.
- Der Löwe ist nicht mutig.
- The lion is not brave.
The opposite of mutig is feige. But that has a pretty negative sound to it. Maybe that’s why in the German version version the book I’ve been alluding to (“Harry Potter und der Zauberer von Oz”) they changed it to ängstlich…. so it is der ängstliche Löwe, not der feige Löwe…. we could actually skip the adjective all together and just say “the lion“. Because at the end of the day, EVERY lion is but a big pussy.
But let’s be serious now and get to the nouns… and oh my goodness are there many different kinds of Mut. Of course there are not too many different kinds of courage. But courage is not the original meaning of Mut. Mut is related to mood and they come from an Indo-European root *mē- which conveyed the idea of “to really really want something”. From there, the words slowly shifted in meaning toward the feeling aspect. Mut used to be the feeling that drives you, the desire for something. In English it then softened quite a bit and today it is your emotional state. In German, Mut also took this path at first but eventually it ended up as the word for the thing that let’s you overcome your fears… which makes sense. If you really really want something you’ll risk more to get it.
So this what Mut means today . But the old meaning of “temporary state of mind and soul” is still around… in the compound nouns.
moody nouns
Take for instance the word Unmut. Un– expresses the idea of not… for example, unreadable is unlesbar.
And sometimes the German un- is used to add the very general idea of negativity. Unwetter (thunderstorm) is a “negative weather”, Unzeit (untimeliness) is an inconvenient or bad time. And so Unmut is just sort of a negative mood (displeasure, resentment). So here, Mut doesn’t mean courage. It is just the mindset basically. Same for Hochmut which means something like arrogance or hauteur. It’s not high courage, it is basically a “high mindset” … high in a negative way… as in stuck up. There is a nice idiom in German which sounds really dramatic :)
- Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall.
- Pride goes before a fall.
Or take Übermut. Über means over so literally our mindset is over. Over what? Over target. It is beyond what is good for us. Here, we could also think of Mut as courage… over-courage. I looked up Übermut on Leo and I actually don’t like any of the translations there (presumption, high spirit). But there is a nice idiom with Übermut so here you go
- Übermut tut selten gut.
- Over-courage seldom serves well.(lit.)
- Being overly confident is rarely a good thing.
Now… I don’t want to talk about all of the Muts in detail. Many of them are kind of rare anyway. So we’ll just do a quick list. I’ll add a translation but they are what I deem is the least ambiguous word after cross-checking on Leo. So some words are really really weird and might be totally not idiomatic in English… so just focus on the explanations.
What’s also important is that you can almost always create an adjective by just saying… blah-mütig. With Umlaut? Yes, with Umlaut. Why with Umlaut? Because that’s how German rolls. I’ll use either adjective or noun here, depending on what’s more common
- Schwermut (melancholia, gloom) – your thoughts and feelings are
“heavy” (schwer), you’re depressed and feeling blue - Wehmut (wistfulness) – close to melancholy but here you’re really
genuinely sad about something - Gleichmut (stoicism) – your mind is balanced, equaled out, you’re okay
with whatever comes at you - Langmut (longanimaty, patience) – your mind set is ready to wait, to
give things time - Großmut (magnanimousness… yeah… I have no idea either) – you’re
willing to give, forgive and be lenient - Sanftmut (gentleness) – you’re acting “suave, mild and kind”, you
don’t scream or shout or bitch at people, you’re basically like a warm
comfy blanket - Edelmut (nobleness) – your mind set is that of a noble man… in a
positive way. All the good stuff you know about medieval knights…
that is edelmütig
- gutmütig (of good nature) – you’re friendly and nice and you don’t
want to do bad - kleinmütig (fainthearted) – your mind set is small and doesn’t allow for
bold visions. Things are as they are and you’re just a little tiny nobody
who can’t change it - missmutig (ill-humored) – that is self explanatory I think… and yes,
there is no Umlaut here ;) - wankelmütig (fickle) – your views change all the time, you can easily be
swayed and swayed back… for those of you who are into cars… you
may have heard of the Wankelmotor.. same wankel :) - freimütig (up-front, frank) – you’re open and say what you know and
think… not always a good thing - reumütig (rueful, remorseful) – the word Reue means remorse, bereuen
means to regret, so reumütig is “to be of a regretful mind“
So… quite a few words. And there are actually 3 more which don’t really fit the system. The first one is Demut which means humility. This word is actually based on the really old meaning of Mut … you know, idea of wanting something. The de-part comes from the same root as the German word dienen. Dienen means to serve so Demut is kind of “the will to serve”… not too far from humility I guess.
Then, there is the word die Anmut which means grace. Hmmm… An often means on… so let’s try this.
- on + courage = grace?
Not really….
- on + mood = grace?
not quite… what else could we try
- on + really really want something = grace?
I don’t know… grace can lead to really really wanting something but the other way around… like… people at the 70% off pile… not all that graceful.
In reality the word Anmut is actually based on a verb anmuten. And that brings us to the verbs with Mut.
Just one last noun real quick… there is die Armut and this means poverty. That seems like quite a stretch and in fact, it has nothing to do with Mut. The parts are actually arm and ut. But now on to the verbs.
verbs with Mut
Back a few centuries, there used to be a verb muten. And that basically meant to want something. People wanted all kinds of things back then… but ironically not this verb. So it disappeared. But there were prefix-versions of it too… of course. And those survived.
The first one is anmuten and that used to be something like to lead on, to tease… you make someone want you. And that is where Anmut(grace) comes from.
Today, the words anmuten has changed quite a bit. It is just a rare word for to seem or to appear…. the use cases are really limited and it often doesn’t work so it’s enough to have it as a word you can just understand.
The next verb, and by far the most important one, is vermuten . It means to suppose or to guess. Oh dear ver-prefix… thank you for another “how on earth”-moment :).
- Ich vermute, dass morgen gutes Wetter wird.
- I suspect/suppose that tomorrow the weather will be good.
- Vermutlich kommt Thomas wieder zu spät.
- Presumably, Thomas will be late again.
- “Weißt du, wieso der Kaffee immer so schnell alle ist?”
“Ich weiß es nicht aber ich habe eine Vermutung… der neue nimmt immer was mit nach hause.” - “Do you know why the coffee runs out so fast.”
“I don’t know it for fact but I have a surmise/theory.. the new guy always takes some home.”
So… the ver-prefix sometimes, I repeat, sometimes expresses the idea of for. For example to forgive means vergeben. And if we now say that whatever we “suppose” is one of 2 alternatives and we “want” that alternative… like… that would be our choice if we had to bet money on which alternative will become reality… then we kind of muten (want) for that alternative … like, that’s what we would put our money on because we consider it likely and that doesn’t mean this is also the outcome we personally would wa… what? That explanation is confusing and hard to follow? Well… I’m sorry… it’s not my fault that German prefixes are so overly demanding…. and speaking of overly demanding… that brings us to our last verb… zumuten or die Zumutung. Once again it comes from the old want-muten and the prefix zu then adds the.. ah screw it… I won’t even try.
- Diese Suppe ist eine Zumutung.
- This soup is an impertinence /imposition.
- Mein Pferd war müde. Ich konnte ihm nicht zumuten, die Nacht durchzureiten.
- My horse was tired. I couldn’t impose on it to ride the whole night through. (lit.)
- My horse was tired. Riding through the night would have been too much to ask.
So we took a rest and continued the next day. Little did we know we were being watched…
And that’s it. We’re done for today. Sure there is more to say… there is the word Gemüt which means something like character or personality.
- Dieser Film ist nichts für sanfte Gemüter.
- This movie is not for gentle(sensitive) minds.
and there is the famous German gemütlich which means cozy or comfy. But hey… every languages need its little secrets. Keeps it interesting… okay, frankly I am just too lazy :). I’d rather do a little ridle… if Mut is courage, what is the word for the person who has it?
Mutter.
So—-this was our German Word of the Day der Mut. It means courage but there are dozens of compound nouns in which it still has about the same meaning as it’s English brother mood.
If you have any questions or suggestions just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Bobo der ubermut!!
Bob Leben Research Professor Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research University of Colorado, Boulder
Do you mean this :)?
http://books.google.de/books?id=tBKcgAUIoQcC&pg=PA23&dq=%22Bobo+der+%C3%BCberm%C3%BCtig+wind!!%22&hl=de&sa=X&ei=VbteUoG6DYqRtQawu4CwDA&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Bobo%20der%20%C3%BCberm%C3%BCtig%20wind!!%22&f=false
“I looked up Übermut on Leo and I actually don’t like any of the translations there (presumption, high spirit).”
It’s not English, but we use the Greek word “Hubris”!
Oh that is a good call… also in German, we have “die Hybris” but I think it is a little shifted towards being a megalomaniac. Trying that difficult trick with the skateboard is “Übermut” but not really “Hybris” :)
You’re doing a fine job, i like your blog a lot:) keep up the good job!
Grüße aus Rumänien
Danke, das freut mich … Gruss zurück aus Berlin :)
“Eine feige Feige” – a cowardly fig – that’s how I’ll remember that particular adjective.
Your blog is going from strength to strength, please keep publishing so I can keep reading and learning!
nice Eselsbrücke :)
Wait a second…. der Mut aber die Wehmut.. what the hell.
Oh… very good question. I didn’t even realize that. On the Etymology Webpage I use they say it probably changed its gender by taking “die Demut” as a role model… so basically because it rhymes. But then at “Demut” they don’t talk abut it at all…
http://www.dwds.de/?qu=wehmut&submit_button=Suche&view=1
I’ll ask that in a forum. But there is no doubt that the word is related to der Mut.
Anyway… that is just great… because now there is an exception for the gender rule for compound nouns too “Always like the last word”… hmmm … except :D
So… turns out you discovered quite a big flaw in the post. Actually almost half of the Muts there are feminine. It is not that I didn’t know it. I just didn’t think of it at all :)…
I asked in a forum why this is and the answer is basically that the old Germanic muot used to have 2 accepted genders … “der” and “die”… just as “Ketchup” (der /das) and some other words today. Here’s the link. It’s in German but maybe you can read it anyway.
http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/8316/wie-kommt-es-zu-einem-wechselnden-genus-beim-suffix-mut
Thanks a billion for pointing that out!!!
Huahauhauhauaha, nice question, dude!
hello Emmanuel, excellent post on Mut ! How can absprechen mean both to agree and to deny? vielen Dank, Lucius
Hahahahaha…. oh the “ab” prefix… it is a little special. Your example is great but I have an even better one…
– Ich muss die Tür abschließen.
– I have to lock the door.
– Ich muss mein Fahrrad abschließen
– I have to unlock my bike.
To lock the bike would be “anschließen”.
With the door the ab means something like “of” or “up” (shut up) and with the bike it means “off”… as in off of the lantern. However, some People do use abschließen with bike also as to lock it. So yeah… the “ab”-prefix is special :).
As for your verbs… it is actually less confusing than it sounds because both possible translations have a limited range in German.
Absprechen doesn’t simply “to agree” but “to agree with someone on something”. It can also mean to coordinate with one another
– Wir müssen noch einen Termin absprechen.
– We have to agree on an appointment/make out an appointment
– Wir sprechen uns ab, was das Auto angeht.
– We’ll organize ourselves as far as the car is concerned
I hope you can make sense of that :)…
but absprechen does not mean this:
– “Beer is better than wine.”
“I agree.”
That would be zustimmen and if you were to use absprechen no one would understand it. It is just something entirely different for a native speaker of German.
The other absprechen is even more limited… it only works in the following construction
– Ich spreche dem Arzt seine Kompetenz ab.
so… jemandem etwas absprechen… and it means
“To deny the skills”
– I openly doubt/denounce the doctors competence.
I can’t think of a better way to translate it. If yu tell a friend:
– “Doktor Horse has no idea what he does.”
Then this you have abgesprochen the competence. You didn’t take it away, you didn’t restrict Access, you just claim that someone does not have something None-physical (skill, character trait).
So… it is definitely not this:
– I deny you access.
That would be “verweigern” and absprechen would be very confusing again.
So… the second one is incredibly rare and as far as speaking goes, it is enough to remember the coordinating-one :)
I didn’t know about this verb, but I like to think of “ab” as an away-idea (abschnitten for example).
Then “Wir müssen noch einen Termin absprechen.” would mean something like “we have to speak about the appointment so that it goes away, it’s settled”.
But as I’m not a native speaker it could very possibily not be like this.
Oh, and I was meaning abschneiden of course
Thank you Enrico. Your example is conceptually useful to get around absprechen and also the ‘ab’ prefix, ie ab away in a more figurative sense in addition to literal interpretations such as abbrechen break off. I don’t know if I should say grazie mille or muchas gracias depending on whether Enrico is italian or spanish, Lucius
Oh I think your idea is quite good actually… that can explain a lot of “ab”s… like “Ab um 9 haben wir auf”… like… “away from 9 into the future we’re open”
And that explanation with “absprechen”… it totally makes sense to me. The original meaning is more the denying one… it used to be something like “to tell a verdict”… like… “I hereby declare that your goat now belongs to the king.”
And from that legally binding verdict it somehow shifted to just an accord. But that is seems farther fetched than yours… and we’re not doing etymology here, whatever works best is king :D
Thank you very much !! very clear reply! Lucius
Hey there,
What do you think the prefix ab usually represents? Like enrico said, I always thought of it as an “away” addition, like absagen or abfahren. If so, do you have any idea how it translates in abschliessen where it means to lock a door or finalise something (a deal)?
Well, if you finalize something you will be done with it. It’s not on the agenda anymore. Your paths will separate.
And if you look a door, the stuff behind the door is more out of reach than if you had just shut it. The stuff is “away-er”, the separation between inside and outside is stronger.
A good help with understanding the underlying idea is the word “closure”…
Yeah, I see it now, The idea of finalizing is what I also got from Enrico, but the door one was on a deeper level. Thanks for helping me clear that up!
Hallo Emmanuel, Another great post as always. Keep it going!!. I have a request. Could you kindly do a post on subjunctive I and II next time?.
Thank you, Anba.
Ohhhh the subjunctive 2… trust me I would love to write about that but I think that’ll have to wait for a while. I have just a Little too many open ends in the course section which I have to finish first. But I given a short round up on it as an answer to a question fron another user…
http://askaboutgerman.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/german-conditional-2-werden-sein-haben/
so maybe this answers at least some of your questions :)
“Mut can make you speak up in German class, it makes you stand up for your believes and – ” The word “believes” used here is the verb in the present tense. The correct noun is “beliefs.” When spoken quickly they tend to sound the same. Easy mistake to make.
If you don’t mind, I’ll post a couple phrases that help sort out like sounding words in english that you may find useful. (they’re good for native english speakers learning their own grammar as well:
(1) I’m going to add two sugar cubes too!
(2) They’re there for their afternoon tea.
(3) I am figuratively dying for a cuppa.
(4) Less milk and fewer sugar lumps. (related to “much” – an uncountable thing like water or oil; “many” – countable things like bottles and cars)
(5) Don’t lose the loose-leaf tea!
(6) The caffeine effect can affect us all.
Hope you like them!
BTW, I love your grammar explanations!!!
Hahaha… those are great!! Number 5) is my favorite and I’ll definitely use that one numerous times because I think I always make a mistake there… just the way I did with “seperate” before someone here told me:
“I smell a rat in separat” and that has helped tons since :D… Danke!!
How about the name Helmut, does it mean anything?
On Wikipedia they say it either Comes from “heil” (healthy) or from ” hiltja” (Kampf – fight, battle)… I think the latter might be a Little more probably since there are many names with “hil”… like “Hildegard” or the infamous really Germanic ones like “Brunhild, Reinhild”…
However, I was not able to find or dig up real words that come from “hiltja”… seems like the root has died out completely.
Griasgood, Emmanuel!
You mean, the “Hel” in front in “Helmut” had its roots in “hiltja”?
Well, I don’t know for sure, but I’d say it does. “Helmut Kohl” would be “fight minded cabbage” :D
I noticed how ‘to much to ask for’ in German is translated as ‘I couldn’t impose on such and such’ with zumuten. Could you perhaps shed a light a bit more on this construction?
Sorry for the late reply… I totally “vergaß”… so, my feeling is that “too much to ask for” is not very well translated using “zumuten”…
– Das kann/will ich ihr nicht zumuten.
This sounds more like
– I can’t/don’t want to burden her with that (task).
If I ask you 3 things like “can you clean my place, lend me 1000 bucks and go to work for me” and you said “yes” and if I then said “and could you also give me the key to your car? then that would be a moment to tag on an “but that would be too much to ask, I guess”
Zumuten” wouldn’t work here because it is more on the order side if you know what I mean… I don’t know if this helps. I am honestly a bit lost as to what exactly to say :)..
Hallo Emmanuel!
I was wondering if you could shed some light on a wee question I have :) What is the difference between, for example, ‘Ich habe beendet’ and ‘Ich war beendet’?
Danke im Vorraus und Grüße aus Schottland!
John
That is easy :)
– Ich war beendet.
– I was ended.
That doesn’t really mean anything unless you’re the teapot in Alice in Wonderland describing how you were made. “Beendet” does not really mean “finished” in context of persons.
– Ich habe beendet.
– I have finished.
You’ve finished some work you did… however, the sentence sounds incomplete to German ears. Verbs with a “be-” ALWAYS need an object… because literally “beenden” means “to inflict end on something”… okay…. not literally but abstractly :)… anyway, people would be like “What? What have you finished.” So … even if everyone in the room is full aware of what you’ve done you need to say
– Ich habe es/das beendet.
If you just need a generic “I have finished/I’m finished”… then go for.
– Ich bin fertig.
Hope that helps und Gruss zurück nach Schottland
What about ermutigen? I kept on coming across (and forgetting) this word until I found this blog – surely it’s worthy of a mention?
Oh definitely, I think I simply forgot it. It is the usual “er-” thing… (which I have yet to cover so I won’t spoil it here in detail)… kind of like “en-” in English. Thanks for bringing that up :)
Deine Blog immer macht mir Gluck! Fast jeden tag ich etwas gelernt! ^o^ (did I say it right :o ?)
Just one thing though; if sanfte Gemüter means sensitive minds, then what does ’empfindlich’ mean? Nun ich bin wirklich verwirrt >~<. Vielen dank :)
Some corrections:
– Dein Blog macht mich glücklich
“Glück” is a noun (happiness, luck) but we need “happy, lucky” here.
– Fast jeden Tag lerne ich etwas./Fast jeden Tag habe ich etwas gelernt.
If you use the ge-form you need “haben” or “sein” in there…. so “I learned” is “ich habe gelernt” instead of just “ich gelernt” But in this case, since you’re still reading ( I hope :), I would just use present tense.
Now for “sensitive”:
“Sanft” is actually more like “soft, tender” in context with character or taste. You can have a sanfte Stimme or you can put your hand on someones shoulder in a “sanft” way. So a “sanftes Gemüt” is literally a “soft mood/character”… you don’t need much force to unnerve it and it doesn’t exert much force. People who have a “sanftes Gemüt” can’t watch horror movies for example because they’re too soft (like me). And that’s where it overlaps with “sensitive”. But in most cases “sensitive” is “empfindlich”.
Hope that helps.
Bedeutet dass man empfindlich seien können, aber nicht sanft?
Ich bin empfindlich.
Statt sanft?
Eigentlich dachte ich nie dass du es lesen wirst! :0
Doch, du kannst auch sanft sein. Wenn man sagt, ein Mensch ist sanft, dann heißt das soviel wie “tender”… der Dalai Lama hat eine sanfte Art. Aber ob er empfindlich ist, weiß ich nicht. Empfindlich wird oft im Sinne von “overly sensitive” verwendet.
Although the article does contain some useful information it is often unclear and the goofy style in which it is written detracts from the presentation. It would also be helpful if the author used proper English regarding the use of adverbs and the -ly. Also it is “every language” not “every languages”.
The author is not an English native speaker and he does not get payed for his work. That’s why he does not proofread. Hence the (at times high number of) mistakes.
here in albania, mut means shit :,)
Haha… how do you say it? Does it sound similar? And what is “Mut” ?