Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German word of the Day. And today, we’ll do something really special, because today, we’ll have a look at the meaning of the non-separable prefix
er-
And out of all prefixes, er- is definitely the most distinguished one.
Like… imagine the non-separable prefixes meet for Christmas dinner, in this old family mansion. Be- is the nerdy hacker type, with a light form of Asperger’s. Ent- is kind of the emo teen who doesn’t eat anything but the salad and only opens their mouth to challenge or better yet shatter one of the others’ views on something.
Ver- is the young urban professional, involved in a lot of projects and with the millennial penchant for sarcasm and nihilism. And zer-… well zer- is the black sheep of the family who shows up drunk, provokes fights and interrupts interesting conversations about wine or philosophy. The kind of conversations er- would be leading.
Er-, who holds several Master’s degrees in philosophy, literature and anthropology, is friendly, intelligent, hard-working and a true wine connoisseur. And so no one suspected er- when they found the dead body of ge- at midnight in the hallway. Little did they know that there wa….
“Uhm… Emanuel, is that what your explanation is gonna look like? Because if so, then I’ll go check out some othe…”
Nah, don’t worry. I just liked the image and wanted to give you a “feel” for the prefixes.
But of course we’ll do a real explanation.
So are you ready to jump in?
Then let’s go.
er- is definitely one of the harder ones to grasp.If we were to collect the most common er-verbs and their translations we’d get a Pollock painting of meanings – wild splashes of meaning-paint without any order to them. What we need to do is to step further away. Because then we’ll see that Pollock’s seemingly wild splashes of color are ACTUALLY in a museum, and we understand that they’re core idea is actually: art.
Okay, that comparison is a bit silly. But there is some truth to it. The individual translations of er-verbs look random. But when we step away we can start that they zigzag around a grander theme.
And that theme is… drumroll…
“reaching an endpoint”
Going for a destination or goal AND reaching it. And in fact, there’s one er-verb that actually embodies that core theme – erreichen.
Erreichen is the er-version of reichen, which is the German brother of to reach. It’s quite an interesting family, and we’ve talked about it in a separate article, so I’ll leave the link below if you’re interested.
What matters today is that erreichen means to reach, but while reaching can also be about the attempt to reach something, erreichen really means that you reach it.
Or in other words: reaching for the stars would NOT be erreichen, actually reaching them would be.
- Sehr geehrte Fahrgäste, in 10 Minuten erreichen wir Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
- Dear travelers, in 10 minutes we will reach Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
- Die Einhörner haben ihr Ziel der Waldherrschaft nicht erreicht.
- The unicorns have not reached their goal of forest dominion.
This sense of reaching a goal is what er- adds to verbs. It shifts them from”doing the activity” to “reaching a goal by doing the activity“. It adds success to process, if you will.
Think of erreichen as the generic version. And the various er-verbs basically just specify HOW you reach a goal. And what that goal is, of course.
One possible goal of an activity is the goal of getting stuff.
And that’s a really great one to start with…
The Goal of Getting Stuff
Adding er- to a verb can change it from doing the activity, to getting something through doing the activity. And, because er- has a slight penchant for grandeur, there’s usually an implication of long or intense effort.
What makes this really great for learners is that this idea is actually one where er- is what linguists would call highly productive.
That means that the idea is so clearly fleshed out and ingrained to a native speaker’s brain, that you can make up new words that’ll immediately feel natural to other native speakers.
Case in point: ertwittern. The verb twittern, which as you might guess is the German version of to tweet, has been around no longer than the company Twitter. And yet, everyone who knows Twitter will immediately understand, or I should say “feel”, that ertwittern means getting something through a process of sending tweets.
- Irans Opposition ertwittert Neuauszählung.
- Iran’s opposition gets a recount through sending Tweets.
(that’s an ACTUAL newspaper headline from 2009)
That is an actual newspaper headline from 2009, 3 years after the company was founded. And they didn’t even use quotes for it. That’s how idiomatic it feels.
Here’s a couple more examples…
- Das Kind hat sich ein Pony erweint.
- The kid got a pony through [a serious effort at] crying.
- Thomas hat sich eine Gehaltserhöhung erschleimt.
- Thomas got a raise through [consistently] sucking up to his boss.
Those two are also “made up”. I’m sure someone somewhere has used them before, and every German speaker will immediately understand them, but you won’t find them in a dictionary.
But inventing words only works because there are many established er-verbs out there that follow the same principle.
- Du errätst nie, wen ich heute getroffen habe.
- You’ll never guess [correctly], who I met today.
Lit.: “get through guessing”
- Maria hat sich einen guten Ruf erarbeitet.
- Maria got a good reputation through consistent work.
Those are pretty clear, I think, but of course not all examples are as straightforward. Erkaufen for instance. Just like kaufen it means to buy, and kaufen by itself already implies “getting something”. So here, the er- can’t really add any meaning. What it does add, though, is this vibe of grandeur that I mentioned earlier. Kaufen is for normal buying with money. Erkaufen is for the more metaphorical kaufen, and it fits well for epic scenarios … like the war for the magical forest for instance.
- Durch die Zerstörung des Einhornluftschiffs haben sich die Eichhörnchen ein wenig Zeit erkauft.
- By destroying the unicorn zeppelin, the squirrels bought themselves some time.
Another less strict example is erwarten which literally should mean “get something through waiting”, but which can mean both to await and to expect. And while there is definitely waiting involved in expectations, there is not guarantee that we actually get it. So the er- is taking some “liberty” here.
- Die Prinzessin erwartet mich.
- The princess awaits me/expects me.
- Ich habe mehr erwartet.
- I expected more.
And then, there are of course examples that have had one of those infamous “meaning shifts” that obscure the underlying logic.
Like erfahren for example.
Taken literally, it means “to get through driving”. And indeed, cyclists at the Tour de France can “erfahren” themselves a win.
But the normal meaning is a different one. Fahren is a brother of to fare and back a few hundred years, it had a more general sense of travelling. And erfahren would just mean “getting/reaching something by travelling“.
One of the things you get through travelling, besides one bazillion of photos, are… experiences.
And that’s exactly what erfahren focused on. Well, actually, the verb itself has shifted more toward the idea of learning in the sense of hearing some new information. But the related words like still focused on experience.
- Ich habe erfahren, dass Marias Nachbarn ausziehen.
- I found out/learned, that Maria’s neighbors are moving out.
- Wir suchen jemand mit viel Erfahrung.
- We’re looking for someone with a lot of experience.
- Squirlon ist ein erfahrener Einhornjäger.
- Squirlon is an experienced unicorn hunter.
And while we’re at it, let’s also mention erleben and das Erlebnis which also mean experience and which come from the idea of “getting something through living”.
- Mein Opa hat viel erlebt.
- My grandpa has seen a lot.
- Das war ein schönes Erlebnis.
- That was a nice experience.
Cool.
Now of course we could go through more examples, but I actually think that we’re pretty comfy with this idea now. And getting stuff really isn’t all that fulfilling a goal after a while.
So let’s move on to a “higher” or “deeper” kind of goal – the goal of reaching a state.
The Goal of Reaching a State
The idea is pretty clear, I think and so we’ll start right with one most important verbs for German learners… the verb erklären. Which of course means to explain.
- Manche Sachen bei Sprachen kann man nicht erklären.
- Some things about language we can’t explain.
I don’t think we need an Erklärung (explanation) here. “getting into a state of being clear” – that’s exactly what explaining is all about. And we can also see a bit of this er-“grandeur” here. German also has the verb klären but klären is quite pragmatic. There’s a misunderstanding or a doubt and klären clears that up. Like… I’m confused as to who needs to clean the bathroom today.
Erklären is more cerebral and goes for this moment of insight. Like… I’m confused as to why we need to clean the bathroom today.
Meh, not sure if it’s clear what I mean, actually. But I have a much better example: the pair aufwachen and erwachen. Both options are about getting into the state of being awake, but only aufwachen is a good fit for the waking up we do every day, with the grumpiness and the stiffness, bad breath and morning face. That’s not noble enough for erwachen. That one are for more poetic awakening. Like nature after a long winter. Or a princess after a long sleep.
- Ich bin heute um 7 aufgewacht.
- I woke up at 7 today.
- Die Prinzessin erwacht jeden Morgen mit perfekten Haaren.
- The princess awakens every morning with perfect hair.
I guess it’s the same in English with to wake up and to awaken, by the way. And speaking of awakening… that’s a cue for another nice example: erleuchten and beleuchten.
Leuchten, which is related to the English word light, is about emitting light and erleuchten and beleuchten are both about “making something lit/bright”. But because of this “grand” or “epic” vibe of er- it doesn’t fit for all contexts.
Technically, the light in our fridge does erleuchten the chaos fridge but you wouldn’t say it that way because it sounds a little … too grand. Erleuchten fits well for candles poetically lighting a room or stars lighting the sky.
Or for a thought enlightening someone.
- Unzählige Kerzen erleuchten den Tempel.
- Uncountable numbers of candles light up the temple.
- Buddah ist Tag und Nacht beleuchtet.
- Buddah is shone light on/lit day and night.
- Buddah war erleuchtet.
- Buddah was enlightened.
Not all verbs are THAT epic, of course. Erhöhen and erwärmen for example mean what they look like: to heat up and to make higher. And then there are some that are a little more on the abstract side. Like erkennen for example, which means to recognize.
- Ich habe dich sofort erkannt.
- I immediately recognized you.
Actually, it’s not THAT twisted. Recognizing something is to get into the state of knowing what it is.
And overall, I’d say verbs in this group are easy to make sense of.
You have to be somewhat careful though, when it comes to guessing.
Because this idea of er- is NOT productive anymore.
Erschönen would make perfect sense as “to make beautiful”. But it just doesn’t FEEL right to a native speaker, and might not even understand it.
The pool of verbs for this idea is “fixed” and they have their fixed assigned meanings, and often there’s a tiny twist that makes perfect sense in context but that’s hard to guess from the outside.
Like… while erwärmen does mean to heat up, erkälten does NOT mean to cool down, but instead to catch a cold.
- Ich habe mich erkältet.
- I caught a cold.
And if a price is to high for us and we were to erniedrigen it, it would sound something like this:
“Price! You’re too high you loser!! Pull down your pants!”
“But… but… here, in front of everybody?!?!?”
“Yes, down with them. And then jump up and down.”
Because erniedrigen is not about literally lowering something, but about the figurative version of making someone small.
So as I said, it’s usually not a problem to get the meaning when you see it in context, but don’t try to invent er-verbs that are about reaching a state. It’s most likely not gonna work.
All right.
Now… again, we could go over more example, but I think you got an idea of this use of er-, and we still have a lot to explore.
There’s actually a third type of goal we need to mention. A final one.
Final Destination
A rather dark goal, actually.
Because do you remember the mystery from the beginning? The murder of ge- at the traditional Christmas dinner of the prefixes. Everyone suspected zer- but ent- finally discovered who really did it… it was er-.
- Er- hat ge- um Mitternacht erschossen.
- Er- shot ge- to death at midnight.
“How could you do that???” the other prefixes asked, shocked by the reveal.
But er- replied with a stoic face “It’s in my nature.”
The other prefixes looked baffled. But it is true.The idea of death is indeed part of the core of er- and there are many er-verbs that are either about dying or killing.
- erschlagen (beat to death)
- erstechen (stab to death)
- erdrücken (squeeze to death)
- ertrinken (drown by yourself)
- ersticken (suffocate by yourself)
- erfrieren (freeze to death)
The list goes on.
And it makes perfect sense, because death is in some way a destination.
Schießen by itself just is to shoot, erschießen is shoot “all the way”. And frieren is just to be freezing. Erfrieren is to freeze “all the way”. This vibe of “reaching the goal” is still the same. It just seems different because it’s a different goal this time.
Actually, if you think about it, the ideas of er- are kind of a metaphor for life. While we move toward the final destination, we get stuff and we reach states and and maybe we even get enlightened for a bit.
Well, okay… what’s missing is the idea of beginning, which er- doesn’t express.
Or does it? Have we really seen all there is to see?
And where does it er- itself actually come from? How did it get its idea.
And also … what about words like erfinden or ergeben or der Erfolg that don’t really fit in with what we’ve learned today.
All that is what we’ll talk about in part two :).
Yeah, boohoo. I know. But come on, everything is a mini-series these days.
And for today, we’ve really done enough :).
As usual, I have whipped up a little quiz for recap, but I didn’t really know what to ask, so I kept it brief.
And of course, if you have any questions or suggestions just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Want to continue with part two? Find it here:
German Prefix “er-” explained – Part Two
If you erase the pony, could “Das Kind hat sich erweint” alternatively be understood as “The child cried itself to death.” ?
Uh… now that you said it, i guess it’s technically possible to understand it that way, but the context needs to be 1000% clear. I would not have understood it without your explanation and instead would have said, that it’s wrong/incomplete.
What’s the difference between öffnen and eröffnen?
“eröffnen” is for opening in the sense of starting, like for an event or a business.
https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning/offen/offnen/eroffnen/
Ausgezeichnet.
Aufrichtes Dank
i really liked your post and found it both educational and page-turner or page-scroller. i will most definetly try to use this site more regularly and it is my aim to post a comment written in deutsch. thank you for creating this beautiful website
Vielen Dank und ich bin gespannt auf den Kommentar auf Deutsch (#nopressureatall)
Ertrinken has always sounded funny to me. So a person sets up to drink and then ends up drowning instead? That´s not how it works. Or is it?
Well, you drink involuntarily, actually. Think of Baywatch.. they always cough up water when they get CPR on the beach. You “drink out”, if you will. It’s a weird word, no doubt, but I think it fits in pretty well with the theme.
Haha, that´s a great trip down the memory lane and a mental image. Thank you for your creative explanations of history and philosophy of the words. It really makes learning a pleasure
I just came across a nice and humorously formal use of “er-” in the book Das Parfum:
“Schließlich waren ihm der größte Dufthandel Frankreichs, sein Reichtum und das Amt des Zweiten Konsuls nicht gnadenhalber in den Schoß gefallen, sondern er hatte sie sich erkämpft, ertrotzt, erschlichen, …”
Super interessant und schön erklärt. Meine Frau lernt gerade Deutsch mit deiner Seite als hauptsächliches Werkzeug. Als ich meine Magisterarbeit geschrieben habe, habe ich Victor Klemperer zitiert. M.E. passt dieses Zitat ausgerechnet zu diesem Artikel: „Unter dem Einzelwort erschließt sich das Denken einer Epoche“
Danke für das tolle Feedback! Ich freu mich sehr, wenn Muttersprachler hier auch lesen und es gut finden :)
Bin aber kein Muttersprachler – bin Schwede, aber mit einem MA in deutscher Linguistik (Politolinguistik) :-) Und finde deine Erklärungen und Beispiele super schön! Bei deinem Artikel zu “er-” könnte man auch eine Parallele zu den perfektiven Aspekten in slawischen Verben sehen, z.B. Russisch: читать/прочитать – lesen/bis zum Ende lesen. Auf jeden Fall ganz toll erklärt! Und meine Frau freut sich auch!
Diese Parallele gibt es auf jeden Fall. Ich habe eine Mini-Serie über Präfixe im Allgemeinen geschrieben (cross-language). Die könnte dir auch gefallen:
https://yourdailygerman.com/function-prefixes-languages/
Das ist der erste Teil
Gibt es in Schwedisch auch so viele Präfixverben wie in Deutsch? Oder ist es eher wie Englisch?
Schwedisch ist ja, wie Englisch, eine analytische und keine synthetische Sprache. Das heißt nicht, dass es keine Präfixverben gibt. Es gibt aber auch Partikelverben, wo das Partikel dem Verb nachgestellt wird – im Beispiel oben würde man z.B. “lesen” mit “läsa” übersetzen, “bis zum Ende lesen” könnte man ganz einfach mit “läsa ut” (*lesen aus – auslesen) übersetzen. Es gibt also manche Fälle, wo tatsächlich ein Präfix benutzt wird (z.B. dela/sönderdela zu teilen/zerteilen, wo “sönder” natürlich ein Kognat zu “sonder” im Deutschen ist). Normal ist es eher, dass aus dem Präfix, ein postposioniertes Partikel wird, was nicht selten auch den perfektiven Aspekt (wie in den slawischen Sprachen) erzielt. Schlagen/zerschlagen – slå/slå sönder, erschlagen – slå ihjäl (wobei “ihjäl” nur als Partikel funktionieren kann).
Allerdings, wenn das Partikel nicht gleich alleinstehend als Präposition eingesetzt werden kann (wie z.B. “ver-” oder “-er”) wird das Verb trotzdem präfigiert: bieten/verbieten – bjuda/förbjuda, klären/erklären – klara/förklara.
Manchmal geht beides: zusammenfügen – sammanfoga oder foga samman.
:-)
Danke dir! Und dein Deutsch ist absolut perfekt ;)
Ich danke dir! Auch für die Komplimente! Mir fehlen einfach die linguistischen Gespräche… könnte ewig weitermachen… am liebsten uff Berlinerisch… :-)
Und – beim nächsten Mal fangen wir mit der Betonung der postpositionierten Partikel an. Schwedisch ist grammatisch gesehen sehr einfach, aber Aussprache (mit zwei verschiedenen ”Töne”, wie im Chinesischen) und Betonung sind kompliziert. Tómten (das Grundstück) und tòmten (der Weihnachtsmann) zum Beispiel. Stöta PÅ (zufälligerweise begegnen) oder STÖta på (jemanden anmachen) sind gute Beispiele. Ich habe so viele deutschen Priester in Schweden gehört, die einfach die Töne nicht hingekriegt haben: ”Im Namen des Vaters, des Sohnes und der heiligen Ente” – ánden statt ànden…
Uff, ja, die Schwedische Aussprache ist mir ein absolutes Rätsel. Ich sehe Parallelen auf Papier, aber ich höre NIX. Ich habe keine Ahnung, welcher sound mit welchem korrespondiert. So nah, und doch so fern!
Ditt kannste och noch, oda watt. Is ja dea Wahnsinn!!
Ick freu ma uff jedn Fall , dass eena mit linguistischm Wissn hia trotzdem watt interessant findet. ick hab ja keene Ausbildung uff dem Jebiet :)
Hallo Emmanuel! Meine erste Kommentar seit dem Abonnieren:) als Deutschlernende bin ich immer sehr begeistert von deinem Artikel!
Nun habe ich eigentlich eine Frage: Wie kann man das Wort “erschließen” verstehen, wie z.B. in “neu erschlossene Gebiete”, was eigentlich “etw. öffnen/zugänglich machen” bedeutet? Ich bin ganz verwirrt, warum bedeutet “erschließen” das Gegenteil von “schließen”?
Das verstehst du, wenn Teil 2 fertig ist ;)
Braucht man eine Erlaubnis, um Mitglied der Grünen zu werden?
Keine Ahnung… ich glaube, nicht. Warum? Willst die deutsche Politik erobern :)?
Das war ein sehr ERhellender Beitrag! Mit viel Humor ERklärt.
Ich lerne Englisch mit Hilfe deiner Artikel und verstehe meine Muttersprache damit besser! Einige Besonderheiten der deutschen Sprache ERschließen sich mir erst jetzt!
Many thanks!
Danke für das schöne Feedback. ich freue mich immer sehr, wenn Muttersprachler meine Sachen auch lesen. Der ultimative Test, ob ich Quatsch erzähle :)
Danke sehr für den tollen Artikel!! Ich hatte nie so eine ausführliche Erklärung zum Präfix “er-” gelesen :) Ich konnte mich nur oberflächlich daran erinnern, dass einige “er-” Verben eine Art “fancy” klingende Nuance hatten.
Am meisten hat es mir gefallen, zu lernen, woran die Muttersprachler intuitiv denken, wenn sie dieses Präfix sehen/hören und wie sich neue “inoffizielle” Wörter damit bilden lassen, die jeder aber verstehen würde. In meiner Muttersprache (Spanisch) haben wir andere Arten, Begriffe zu erfinden, aber die Idee etwas durch eine bestimmte Aktion zu erreichen kann man nicht so idiomatisch und kompakt ausdrücken, also es ist super diese Einsicht in die intuitive Wortbildung zu bekommen :)
Danke für das tolle Feedback. Und Glückwunsch zu deinem Deutsch. Das war fast perfekt!!
KENNEDY ERMÖRDERT! Eine schlagzeile im Süddeutsche Zeitung November 1963. Dann lebt ich im Bad Cannstatt bei Stuttgart. Ich war in US Army. Not just murdered, assassinated! -er to the worst. Larry
Small corrections :)
“ermordet”
Thanks. My dictionary also says Ermordung but that’s not the way I remember it
The person doing it is “der Mörder”, so maybe that’s where you got the Umlaut :)
mind 110% blown with erklären – I think learning words by rote and then finding out there’s rhyme and reason to it makes one feel ultra erleuchtet :)
Also this isn’t big, but I think Buddha is spelt with a -ha in english usually? But I liked this article a lot, especially in how you get us to get a ‘feel’ for the prefixes – I like always the emphasis of getting to know where things fit in in a native speaker’s head :D
Also! I’m too embarrassed to respond to the string of comments about ent-‘s gender, but I think if it’s personified, it should be treated as a grammatical person, regardless of whether it actually is or not
Ok im done thank you lots!!!
I think Ent- has to be “he” because the Entwives are lost *nerrrrrrd*
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (took me a few seconds, it’s been a while)
Epic username :D!
Thanks a lot for the great feedback. And I bet you’re right about Buddha. I have Buddha-dyslexia. LIke… I really can’t get my brain to memorize how to spell this.
Same with Reggaeh… I frequently type into Mixcloud (my streaming service of chocie) and I ALWAYS mess it up.
It doesn’t always perfectly make sense but I’ve heard the er- prefix in German compared to the en- prefix in English. It makes sense a lot of the time for me and if it doesn’t make perfect sense in the moment, it at least gets me in the ballpark of what the word might mean in context… and then ask or I look it up later. Maybe that is helpful to add here.
Thanks for adding that :)
It can work, but it’s kind of a hit and miss.
Some sources also say that “er-” corresponds to English “re-“.
If it works, that’s great. It’s just important not to get too hung up on it and expect it to work all the time.
It was great!! Thank you! Alles wird fur mich erleuchtet.
Hallo! Danke für den tollen Artikel. Eine Frage an dich –
Warum ist es nicht “mit vieler Erfahrung”?
Great question!!
“Erfahrung” in this context is considered uncountable. So the “viel” is not really an adjective but a “numeral” and doesn’t get adjective endings.
It’s the same as water, for example.
– Ich habe viel Wasser getrunken.
– Ich habe viel Erfahrung gesammelt.
That said, Erfahrung CAN be seen as countable as well. So you can use it plural.
Hope that helps.
A great piece of work,that only an enlightened Scorpio can manufacture!
For me, I’m getting the same vibe in translation from using the English phrases “by the ways of” or “by the means of”. Erleben: by the means of living.
Erklären: by the means of clearing up…
Erfahren: by the way of travelling….
Yup, that fits nicely!
Do you perceive a different nuance between “through” and “by means of”?
Congratulations. Hilarious yet informative Christmas dinner. Thanks!