“Pretending in German”
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Hello everyone,
and welcome to day number 5 of this year’s Advent Calendar.
And behind today’s door is a piece of yummy little “How to say in German”-candy.
Because today, we’ll find out
How to translate pretend
And this verb really is one where dictionaries can lead you astray.
Like… here’s a typical list of translations.
to pretend
- vorgeben
- vortäuschen
- so tun als ob
And now which one would you pick?
I mean, now you’re probably thinking like
“Hmmm, it’s probably that last one, otherwise he wouldn’t be talking like this.”
And you’re right, that’s the one.
But without the context, I think most people would pick vorgeben, because it seems to be the most basic one. Or vortäuschen, if you happen to know täuschen.
And so tun als ob looks like this weird phrasing that’s just kind of there as another option, but the reality is… so tun als ob is by far the best translation for to pretend. We could say it is THE translation for to pretend.
And it makes perfect sense as a phrasing because literally, it is “do as if” and that is in essence the same as English phrase to act as if. That’s the best way to remember it, actually. When Germans say to pretend, they say “act/do as if“.
Time for some examples.
- “Was ist der wichtigste Skill für einen Barmann in Berlin?”
“Mit seinen Freunden reden und so tun als ob man die Gäste nicht sieht.”
“Sehr gut, du bist eingestellt.” - “What’s the most important skill for a bartender in Berlin?”
“Talking with your friends and pretending not to see the customers.”
“Very well, you’re hired!” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Thomas, warum hast du gestern im Restaurant so getan, als ob wir uns nicht kennen?
- Thomas, why did you pretend like/act as if we don’t know each other in the restaurant yesterday?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Lernst du?”
“Nein, ich tu nur so.” - “Are you studying?”
“No, I’m just pretending.”
(we can skip the als ob, if it’s clear what we’re pretending) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And what about the other translations, vorgeben and vortäuschen?
Well, we could swap in vorgeben in the examples above but it would sound quite stilted and no one really talks that way, unless it’s some official or formal context.
Vortäuschen on the other hand is a little different in that it’s actually mainly connected with nouns. So it’s actually more like to feign or to fake. And that can be practical sometimes, simply because it’s shorter.
- Hast du schon mal einen Orgasmus vorgetäuscht?
- Have you ever feigned /faked an orgasm?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
If you want to express this with so tun als ob, you’d need to completely rephrase it into an action.
- Hast du schon mal so getan als ob du einen Orgasmus hattest?
- Have you ever acted as if you had an orgasm?
I mean… not really that much longer but the version with vortäuschen is more lean for sure.
Now, there is one common use of to pretend where so tun als ob doesn’t fit – pretending in the sense of imagining. Here’s something you could hear at a team meeting for instance:
- Let’s pretend for a minute that we only have one week to complete the project…
This is a fairly common phrasing in English and the core idea is that people “visualize” the situation. Using so tun als ob would sound like people are actually ACTING as if the situation was real… like, leaving the meeting to go to their desk and acting like they’re working.
The proper translations for this imaginary “to pretend” are sich vorstellen (to imagine) or annehmen, which is kind of to assume.
- Lasst uns mal annehmen, dass wir nur eine Woche für das Projekt haben…
But other than that, I think so tun als ob really is the best translation for to pretend and you should absolutely add it to your active vocabulary.
And that’s it for today :).
If you have any questions about the usage or you want to try out some examples, just leave me a comment.
Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow.
Bis dann!
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Hi Emanuel.
Tu einfach so, als bist du sehr begeistert von meiner Antwort und dann täusche ich als Reaktion eine Überraschung vor:))
Wow, also deine Antwort… einfach meeeegaaaaa!
Echhhhht!? Das kann ich nicht glauben, Emanuel!! Ich kann meinen Ohren einfach nicht trauen…Mein Lieblingslehrer hat meine Antwort megaaa gefunden ( mit Tränen in den Augen: einfach traumhaft ) …Lass uns das schöne Kompliment zum Anlass nehmen, die Sau richtig ordentlich rauszulassen, lieber Emanuel
Ich hoffe, es ergibt Sinn:)
Ja, perfekt so getan :)!
Ist “behaupten” in dieser “pretend” Situation ebenfalls nützlich oder klingt das steif?
“behaupten” is to claim, by using speech. It’s not about how you act. So I don’t think it matches up with “pretend” all that much, although they of course share the context of “make belief”
Danke dir ☺️
Hi! So there isn’t a comma between „getan“ and „als“? There is a comma in your example „Thomas, warum hast du gestern im Restaurant so getan, als ob wir uns nicht kennen?“…..typo?
Could you also point me to the example that doesn’t have a comma? The sentence you quoted is correct and needs the comma.
Hi Emanuel
Nice article. One thing I struggle with when using the “so tun, als ob” phrasing is I always feel like I should use conjunctive II in the side sentence, since it is describing a counterfactual scenario – i.e. “…Orgasmus hättest” instead of “…Orgasmus hattest”. Is it always wrong of me to do that?
Good to see you in the comments :). I thought you had stopped reading!
In this case it would be wrong to use plain conditional because you’d be switching tenses (from my past to present conditional)
– … als ob du einen Orgamus gehabt hättest.
This would be roughly the same, but the conditional adds nothing to the message, so people usually don’t bother. Overusing conditional is a typical English speaker mistake :)
Oh, I was meaning to ask. In the context of talking about “if everything was normal,” do you think one version sounds better or is more common?
– Ich habe so getan, als wäre alles normal.
– Ich habe so getan, als ob alles normal war/ist.
The first one sounds better in this case.
I think you can apply roughly the same “system” as for how you chose which past to use or which conditional (real form or helper based).
“sein” is generally used as real forms, so that also holds true here.
Ich tu so, als ob ich diesen Artikel eigentlich am 5. Dezember lese.
Sehr gut, ich hätte es nicht gemerkt, wenn du es nicht gesagt hättest. Sehr realistisch :D
After an unplanned long break I’m finally back again! Yahoo!
I’m not sure, but I think the English translation may be incorrect here:
“Sehr gut, du bist eingestellt.”
“Very well, you’re hired!”
In this situation, “very good” might be a better fit, but I’m not certain because I’m not 100% sure of the connotation of the original German.
“Very good” here would mean something like, “Great! I like your answer!” whereas “very well” means more like “ok, i had my doubts but you’ve convinced me”.
Tough one. I think “great” is closer, but I wanted to have some level of “being reserved” in it, that’s why I chose “very well”. Like… some sort of subtle “evil” undertone, rather than genuine excitement. But that’s really more the mental image I had when I wrote this example. It depends on how you say it and I think overall “very good” is the better match based on what you said.
Willkommen zurück :)!!
Hab sogar schon was neues gelernt… Freue mich schon wieder da zu sein!
Looking for examples, I came across the use of “pretend” as an adjective.
Die Kinder gießen den Puppen imaginären Tee ein.
Die Kinder gießen den Puppen einen vorgetäuschten Tee ein.
“imaginär” ist gut hier.
“vorgetäuscht” passt eher für Emotionen oder Mitleid oder sowas… also ein Verhalten, nicht einen vorgestellten Gegenstand.
Endlich habe ich verstanden was bedeutet ” annehmen” ! Früher habe ich so tun , als ob es wie ein synonym von ” einnehmen” wäre . Welcher fatalen Fehler !
Danke
Bis Morgen
Ja, die zwei haben nicht viel gemeinsam :).
Ist es auf französisch das gleiche? “faire comment” vielleicht? (ich rate nur)
Hallo lieber Emmanuel,
Auf französich benutz man ” faire semblable” im allgemein, oder ” simuler ” also simulieren ” in psychologischer Branche analysierend menschliche Verhalten .
Und für einnehmen benutz man ganz einfach ” accepter “, also acceptieren auf deutsch.
Ich wünsche dir ein angehnemen Tag in Berlin .
Bis Morgen
Yes! Was thinking about this recently.
Schläfst du so tust als ob?
But it seems that there is an additional self reference behind the phrase:
Hast du schon mal so getan als ob du einen Orgasmus hattest.
That second du … In the bartender example, the use of ‘man’ is understandable since there was no real subject to that point.
Ich glaube daß der Mann so tun als ob (er) nicht zu schläft.
Can you explain that repeated er/du? Thanks
You miss one important puzzle piece and that’s the fact that “als ob” starts a normal side sentence.
– Ich tue so, als ob ich gerne mit deinem Hund spiele.
There’s no “so tun als ob nicht zu schlafen” or anything lean like that. Just two boring sentences strung together :)
Yes that is an important piece. Because there is not a comma in all of the sentences that never even crossed my mind. Thank you for pointing that out.
As a native English speaker, i would use, “Let us consider for a moment that we only have one week to complete the project. ” Would that still translate as, “tun, als ob ..?
To me, your sentence means “let’s make ourselves aware of the fact that we only have one week”.
Can it also mean “let’s take a fictional reality for real for a second”?
A more formal sounding version here in German would be “Lass uns mal annehmen, wir hätten….”
That’s roughly like “Let’s assume…”
I’m not sure as to where “let’s consider” falls in terms of the exact meaning.
As far as I know, “consider that…” always refers to a true fact. You might say “let’s consider ourselves to have only one week” – although that wouldn’t be so much about pretending as a thought exercise; it would be more like setting a different deadline for ourselves than the official one. But “consider that…” is a lot more like beachten or bedenken, dass…
Hallo,
Ich werde so tun als ob, es keine Typos in diesem Artikel gäbe und werde deshalb…
Oh, wait a minute, there actually aren’t any :)
Thank you for this piece of info, I didn’t know how to actually say pretend in an idiomatic way :)
Bis Morgen!
Super verwendet :)!!
Aber kein Komma nach “ob”. Das kommt nach “tun”.
Ich kann nicht so tun, denn es gibt einen Tippfehler (“Or vortäuschen, *of* you happen to know täuschen”).
Danke für die Lektion!
Ich habe ein gefunden…
“Or vortäuschen, of you happen to know täuschen” -> “Or vortäuschen, if you happen to know täuschen
Cool article. Some questions that popped into my head… : )
1)If a kid was playing and pretending to be a monster or a pirate you would also use tun so or are there other ways you’d express this?
2) I’m also wondering to what extent would you be able to swap “handeln” with tun in the first three examples (bar, resturaunt, studying).
I’m guessing handeln might be a bit more suitable for longer term situations rather than specific instances – but does it work in any of those?? guessing it would be most out of place in the learning one.
3) I suppose another thought that comes to mind is that I’d have constructed these sentences with Konjuntiv 2. e.g.
“Mit seinen Freunden reden und so tun als ob man die Gäste nicht sähe.”
Its the old discussion of when k2 is appropriatate – I guess these are instances where either would be ok?
4) I was actually thinking kennen would be a canidate for using k2 in its real form in the spoken language given its präteritum form is used in the spoken language.. . But i checked your articleon this theme and it doesn’t appear there… and i also don’t recall seeing its k2 form before i looked it up so it would be “kennen würde” rather than “kennten” right?
1)
I think the more fitting phrasing for a child playing is “spielen”…
– Das Kind spielt Pirat.
2)
“so handeln als ob” – this is an interesting question… the phrasing with “handeln” means that you act as if a situation is true. You take it “seriously”. For instance, at an emergency drill, you want people to act as if it was real. But they shouldn’t just “act” like it, they should ACT like it…. if that makes sense. So it’s not about “make belief” but about real action.
“so tun als ob” is about make belief. There is an overlap and for some small mundane things “so tun als ob” can also be about genuine role play rather than deception.
“Lass uns mal kurz so tun, als ob du nicht arbeiten musst morgen, und noch ein Bier bestellen.”
“Deal!”
3)
Yeah, no… the “als ob” is enough to mark the parallel reality, using conditional here is overblown in German. Sounds super duper high brow in a context like this.
4) I don’t even know what the real K2 of “kennen” is. Either “kannte” or “kännte”. I think “kännte”. But it sounds sooooooo shit, you have no idea. “kennen würde” all the way.
Thanks for the answers!
Sounds super duper high brow in a context like this.
I think this is a little bit of an issue with how its taught. We always practice this in my course with k2. I guess the idea is to get people using it, and great if you want to write a essay, but there isn’t really much emphais on what register this has and when this would sound mega-highbrow in everyday life.
I don’t even know what the real K2 of “kennen” is.
According to Duden its kennten. I guess if you heard /saw a learner using that it that i geuss you’d think they were incorrectly going for kannten.
Honestly, if I saw that anywhere I would assume it’s a typo and from a learner I would assume it’s a mistake.
I now searched for some real world examples and I did find a few but it looks and sounds soooooo strange.