Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of
reichen
And by meaning I mean meanings. Two to be precise. Observe:
- Reicht ihr das Salz?
- Is the salt enough for her?
Yes, it is. But we could add some more pronoun. Maybe a little er.
- Reicht er ihr das Salz?
I mean… how much damage could such a small little word possibl… OH MY GOD!
- Does he hand her the salt?
Come on, German… really?
To be enough and to hand is the same word? How could I possible explain that?! You’ve really reached a new level of crazy.
“When all logic seems lost, mind the color of a rose.”
What? Who said that? Is that you, German?
“Yes,it is I. The color of a rose. Mind it!”
Uhm… right, right, uhm.. the color of a rose, that would be… uhm….
“Gee…. Red. Roses are red.”
Ok, so red, still… I don’t get it.
“Jesus Christ, this is getting absurd. Just wake up okay? ”
And so I woke up. I had passed out while reading up on the history of reichen. I continued to read. Turns out, reichen is the brother of …. to reach. And with a little mind yoga, that explains everything. Imagine you’re a caveman and you pass by a tree with a nice, juicy looking apple hanging from a branch about 4 feet above your head. What do you do? Exactly. You grunt. And then you try make your arm and your whole body reeeeaaallly long to get it. That is the very core of these verbs… extending/reaching out (one’s arm). Now, this root is very old and of course it broadened and was used for all kinds of reaching.
- My hair reaches below my shoulder.
- Mein Haar reicht bis über die Schulter.
- Herr Connors Erfahrungen reichen vom tadellosen Kopieren von Skripten bis hin zur Zubereitung eines bemerkenswerten Flat White aus Instantkaffee.
- Mr. Connors experience reaches from flawlessly making copies f scripts to making a remarkable flat white from instant coffee.
I think the original idea still shines through a bit.
Anyway… over time, more changes happened. In English, to reach shifted toward actually getting the thing. I reach for the apple and I reach it.
German played around a little more and ended up with the two meanings we saw in the beginning. To be enough and to pass or to hand over.The handing over is not that weird. It totally stays true to the “extending the arm”-core and we just need to add the whole giving thing. And the other meaning? Well… if something being enough is pretty much the same as meeting a certain requirement. And that is not that far from …. reaching a target.
- Reicht das Bier für heute Abend?
- Do we have enough beer for tonight?
Is the beer going to “reach” (far enough) for tonight. (lit.)
In a way, this reichen is like the English to reach. It implies success…. just that the target isn’t always specified.
- 6 Stunden Schlaf pro Nacht reichen mir nicht.
- 6 hours of sleep per night are not enough for me.
6 hours of sleep per night are not reaching (my need of sleep) for me.(lit.)
I hope you can see the connection to the reaching :)
Now, reichen in sense of handing over often sounds a bit solemn. It’s not like it isn’t used at all.
- Die Politiker reichen sich die Hand.
- The politicians shake hands.
The politicians reach out their hands to each other. (lit.)
- Thomas kann Marias neuem Freund rummachtechnisch nicht das Wasser reichen.
- When it comes to making out, Thomas is unable to hold a candle to Maria’s new boyfriend.
… , Thomas can’t give the water to Maria’s new boyfriend.(lit.)
But in daily life for normal stuff like a pen or the salt I’d suggest to just use geben.
The other reichen is super common, so let’s look at some more examples for that.
- “Reicht das, wenn das Projekt Montag erst fertig wird?”
“Ja, Dienstag reicht auch noch.” - “Will it reach (the “due by latest” requirement), if the project…. (lit)
“Yeah, Tuesday reaches (it) too” - “Will it be enough if you let me know by tomorrow.”
- Mein Geld reicht grad’ noch so für ein Bier.
My money juuuuust reaches for one more beer.(lit.) - I have just enough money for one more beer.
- “Wir sollten bald mal tanken.”
“Ach quatsch. Das reicht mindestens noch 100 km.” - “We should get gas soon.”
“Bah nonsense. That‘ll last for at least another 100 km.”
And of course we all want to be able to properly complain in our target language so here’s the fed-up use :).
- So. Mir reicht‘s. Ich gehe.
- All right. I’ve had enough/I’m fed up. I’m leaving.
- Jetzt reicht‘s. Auf dein Zimmer.
- That’s enough. Go to your room.
All right. So… reichen has 3 meanings, to reach (in sense of to extend as far as), to hand (as in give) and to be enough, which is the most common one. And at the very core is a caveman reaching for an apple. Cool.
Now let’s get to the related words and there we come across all 3 meanings.
words with the reach-meaning
The most important one is certainly the verb erreichen, which means to reach. In sense of to get it.
- Ich erreiche mein Fitness-Ziel.
- I reach my fitness-goals.
- Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, in wenigen Minuten erreichen wir Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
- Dear ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes we’ll be reaching Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin central station).
Why does it mean that? Well… the er- just adds the idea of completion … you reach for it and then you “er-reach” it, if that makes sense.
Next, there’s the word die Reichweiche. Literally, it means reach-width, but English who needs width if there is context ;).
- Die geringe Reichweite ist bisher das größte Problem von E-Mobilen.
- The low reach is the biggest problem of electric vehicles to date.
And finally, the weirdest one in this group is der Bereich.
- Weil es im VIP-Bereich stinkt, hat Lily Allen das Konzert abgesagt.
- Because it smells in the VIP area, Lily Allen has cancelled the concert.
- Der Fachbereich Physik an der Uni Münster ist einer der größten in Deutschland.
- The department (lit: subject-area) of physics of the Uni Münster is one of the biggest in Germany.
This is the good old be-prefix at work. In our show on the be-prefix we’ve found out that it changes the meaning to “to inflict verbing on something”. Sure, der Bereich is not a verb, but a verb bereichen actually existed a few centuries ago. Originally it was just a variation of reaching, pretty similar to erreichen, but then it was narrowed down to local reaching. And the noun der Bereich is what is left of that. The couch, the lobster-buffet, the lounge, the minibar… all within the reach of the VIPs. Cigarette smoke reaches every corners of the Raucherbereich and making coffee is totally within the Aufgabenbereich (“reach of tasks”) of the interns.
So …one double espresso, please.
Hey… hey guys, this is no joke. I really want an espresso. Marc, Alicia, Meagan, Cory… someone please go to the break room and get me one.
Oh and could you bring me a a slice of lemon also.
I have a bit of a headache.
words with the handing meaning
While I’m waiting for my coffee let’s talk about the handing-reichen. We’ve already learned that the bare reichen sounds a bit formal when used as to hand. Still, there are a bunch of prefix-versions though that are good to know. Einreichen and nachreichen for example are very useful for all kinds of “paper-work, be it a bachelor thesis or an application or something… stuff that you hand in.
- Ich musste 3 Ausdrucke meiner Masterarbeit sowie alle Quellen, die ich verwendet hab’, einreichen.
- I had to hand in 3 printouts of my master’s thesis as well as all the source material that I used. ( no joke… they wanted me to scan every single reference)
And if whatever you have handed in is incomplete… which is usually the case for bureaucrazy-things … then you’ll get a letter telling you what you need to nachreichen.
- Bitte reichen Sie die fehlenden Unterlagen bis zum 18. 7. nach.
- Please hand in the missing documents by July 18th.
So nachreichen is the same as einreichen, only that it has the additional idea that you already handed in something.
Then, there is überreichen which is kind of to hand over but it sounds more ceremonial, so the better translation is probably this
- Der Politiker überreicht dem Wissenschaftler den Preis.
- The politician presents the scientist with the award.
When we add an r and make it rüberreichen, then all the ceremony is gone and we’re back at the dinner table.
- Reich mir mal den Rettich rüber. (Iconic line of a German cabaret-song about yuppies… find it here)
- Could you pass me the raddish.
Rüberreichen is just a colloquial to hand over … maybe it implies a little more distance than geben but whatever. Now, the dinner table is not always in the kitchen. Often it is between the couch and the plasma. And the way into the kitchen can be pretty far.Good thing then to have eine Durchreiche – a window in the kitchen wall. Maybe if we had one in the studio I’d have my freaking espresso by now. Gosh, these interns.
Anyway,a couple of less important ones are (Essen) anreichen, which is the politically correct term for spoon feeding adults who can’t eat by themselves, and verabreichen which is often used in context of medication and it means basically means to give. Because ver + ab + reichen = to give. Duh!
Okay seriously… I have no idea why this word even exists. But anyway… it’s enough to know that it is something about giving.
And speaking of being enough… let’s move on to our last segment.
words with the enough-meaning
We already mentioned that to be enough or to suffice is the most common use of reichen alone. But there are again a few prefix-versions. The first one is ausreichen and that is really pretty damn similar to reichen.
- Es reicht (aus), wenn du mir morgen Bescheid sagst.
- I’ll be enough, if you let me know by tomorrow.
In this example, they are really interchangeable. But I think ausreichen is a little more about really being enough in sense of having enough material or meeting some requirement. Or the other way around: it is not so much about feeling. So for all the stuff that’s like “I’m fed up”, ausreichen won’t work.
- Jetzt reicht’s!
- That‘s enough./That tears it!
- Jetzt reicht’s aus!
- Now it is sufficient!
I don’t use ausreichen as a verb very much but I do use it as an adjective or adverb… ausreichend is pretty literally and even grammatically…. sufficient.
- Wir haben ausreichend Bier.
- We have enough beer.
- Ich fand das Theaterstück zum Kotzen, aber es bietet zumindest ausreichend Gesprächsstoff für einen lustigen Abend in der Bar.
- I found the play awful but at least it offers enough/plenty of conversation fodder for a fun night at the bar.
It is even a school grade.
- Ich habe im Geographietest nur ein “ausreichend” (short: 4) bekommen.
- I got only a D in the geographies quiz.
Reichend alone… well, based on logic it should mean the same, but it just sounds odd. I’m not even sure I’d immediately understand. Anyways, very similar to ausreichend is hinreichend but where ausreichend just meets the requirement, hinreichend has a little bit of a buffer. Not really more than enough maybe a little more than enough…. I don’t know… just a feeling that I have.
- Dr. Müller ist ein symphatischer Arzt, der sich hinreichend Zeit für seine Patienten nimmt.
- Dr. Muller is a likable physician who makes enough time for his patients.
Now, there is also a reichen-word for not enough or insufficient.
- Der Gewerkschaftsvorsitzende bezeichnete die Lohnerhöhung als unzureichend.
- The labor leader described the wage increase as insufficient.
Maan, these examples… I really need that espresso ASAP. So… unzureichend, huh? Wouldn’t unausreichend make more sense? Yes. Is there even zureichen or zureichend? No. But that’s just how it is. German is rich in weird words.
“Yes, I am.”
What? Who said that? Is that you again German?
“Yes. And I have a surprising reveal for you.”
Ohhh … a surprising reveal. That sounds cool.
“Mind the color of a clear summer sk… wait, never mind. The word rich… think about that.”
Uhm… rich is what I’m not. Looks a little like reach. And in German it is… uhm… oh gee… it’s reich, like reichen. Wait, so what’s the connection?
“Well… if what you have is enough then you’re rich.”
Yeah, true. That makes a lot of sense.
“Do you get the fine irony in it?”
Uhm… no…
“Well, rich is seldom rich enough.”
Uh… I don’t get it.
“Rich people often think they need more. What they have doesn’t reichen“
Still.. no idea what you’re hinting at.
“Jesus Christ, never freaking mind! Just wake up and check your books.”
And so I woke up. I had fallen asleep again in the library. I continued to read. Turns out that reichen and reich are indeed related at a very basic level. The common root is the super ancient root *reg which meant to be/make straight, to lead. From this comes the branch of reichen with the whole extending idea but also other branches like the whole right- branch (right as in correct) or the rex and royal branch. And that’s where rich belongs to.
A king is wealthy and mighty… he is rich. And he has a realm. A “royalm”. Or Königreich in German. If you know the word bishopric, then now you know the connection. And in Game of Thrones, there is a kingdom called The Reach. Queen Margery comes from there. Oh Margery.
And then I woke up. I had passed out in front of my microphone.”I’m awake Steve, don’t panic.”, I said, as my producer ran into the studio.
“That’s enough!!!”
Oh gee… he is pissed. I can tell. But no problem. We’re done here anyway. That was our German Word of the Day reichen. At the core is the idea of extending a hand and it has taken on the three meanings to reach, to hand over and to be enough, the last one being the most common one.
As always if you have any questions about reichen or one of the related words, or if you want to try out some examples just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Gotta go talk to Steve now and apologize. It wasn’t my fault though. I didn’t get an espresso when I needed it…
Hallo Emanuel –
Dieser Satz tauchte in einem Artikel auf, den ich las:
Ich bin zur Apotheke gegangen und die Apothekerin hat mein Rezept eingereicht.
Nach Ihrer Lektion und dem Nachschlagen in mehreren Wörterbüchern bin ich verwirrt, wie ich ihn übersetzen soll….es scheint, dass er, um in den Kontext zu passen, implizieren sollte, dass das Rezept ausgefüllt wurde, aber ich kann nichts finden, was diese Übersetzung unterstützt.
Könnten Sie mir dazu etwas sagen?
Danke
Hmmm, ich finde diese Verwendung auch merkwürdig. Für mich klingt es, als ob sie es bei der Kostenstelle der Krankenkasse “hands in”, aber für “ausfüllen”… finde ich unidiomatisch.
Wo hast du das denn gelesen? Und hast du ein bisschen mehr von dem Artikel?
Excellent post, as always!
Small correction: “Wir haben ausreichend Bier.” translates to “We have enough beer” in English (not “We have enough Bier”).
Ups, clearly I had a bit too much beer ;).
Sind “reichen” und “langen” meistens austauschbar?
Das reicht mir! Das langt mir!
“Erreichen” und “erlangen” sind ein bisschen unterschiedlich, oder?
Ich habe mein Ziel erreicht. Ich habe mein Ziel erlangt (?).
Ich denke schon, aber ich benutze “langen” fast nie. Das ist eher in Süddeutschland verbreitet, glaube ich.
Reichlich Stoff, den Du uns da angereichert verabreicht hast. Thanks.
One prefix that you did not mention, it is not an important one but if somebody reads it and does not know it it might be confusing.
“gereichen”:
“reichen” is one of these few words that still have this old prefix “ge-“. Although “gereichen” is also really old. Nowadays you mostly only use it idiomatic. The most common one I can think of is: “Es gereicht dir zur Ehre, dass …” = “It is a credit to you that …” (literal maybe: “It reaches you to honour that …”)
As this is idiomatic it is difficult to explain. “gereichen” is a more giving “reichen”, but the focus is on the receiving part. You normally don’t use it with an actual subject, just standins like “es” or “das”. And there is nothing that is given (I know that sounds strange but, hey, it is language). The preposition “zu” is here important. It shows the target that you reach by getting from the thing you have done. So in the example above: “it” (what you have done) gets “you” to your target “the honor”. And all the other meanings of “reichen” are intertwined here. To reach something, to stretch yourself (by doing “it”) and handing something out.
Also “Es gereicht” looks like the past participle of “reichen” so don’t let yourself be confused.
This is probably a silly question, so apologies beforehand, but why is it “Wir haben ausreichend Bier”´and not “Wir haben ausreichendes Bier”?
Not a silly question at all. The reason why there’s no ending is that “ausreichend”, while talking about beer, is not directly connected to it the way “cold” would be. It is more of an adverb that describes the having. It is in the same category as words like “viel” and “wenig ” which don’t get any endings neither. You can see that beer and “ausreichend” are not connected because you can separate them
– Bier haben wir ausreichend.
Hope that helps.
American Southerners, especially older ones, frequently say, “Can you reach me that?” or even “Can you reach me that down?” especially for objects that are up high or out of reach. They’ll also use it though just as a synonym for “hand” or “pass” as in “Can you hand (reach) me that?” It’s not really considered proper usage but I’ve heard it all my life. I don’t believe it’s used that way in other parts of the US or at least I’ve never heard it. Of course, I could be mistaken about that, as the country is a big place. This seems somewhat similar to reichen.
Love your blog. You are one terrific “professor”.
Seems like the English from the South of the states has lots of these small similarities to German because this is not the first time someone pointed something like this out in the comments :). Don’t know if it’s because a lot of Germans settled there or if it’s just remnants of older English that were preserved.
Das interessiert mich sehr… Fremdsprachen sind echt geil, wahr? ;) Sowieso, aber ist ‘making out’ in Deutsch ‘rummachen’ oder ‘knutscheln’ ?
Warum nicht :)?
I don’t speak either, but I did find this: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/sentsearch.php?word=%E5%A4%9F. It seems the same overlap exists in Chinese.
Wow, the very same … thanks for the great find!!
As IF I only just discovered this website today! It’s amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and insight. It’s fascinating and incredibly helpful. It has never made sense to me to memorize vocabulary from lists arranged by topic area, which was the way I was always taught. Learning the language by learning ABOUT the language is much more interesting and makes the vocabulary easier to remember and make sense of.
Anyway, I don’t know if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but according to Etymonline, the “nough” in “enough” (and therefore the “nug” in “genug”) stems from PIE *nek, meaning… can you guess? … “to reach, to attain”. So yes – “definitely something about the whole concept of reaching” :)
Thanks again for this excellent website. Such a wealth of information for me to catch up on. I’m looking forward to it.
Damn…. So many paralells. That’s crazy :) I’d really love to know how it is in Chinese or Japanese.
Interesting – this is parallel to the verb “ajunge” in Romanian. That one can be used to mean both “enough” e.g. (“Ei ii ajunge sarea.” or “The salt is sufficient for her.”) but also “to reach” (“El nu poate ajunge la mar.” or “He cannot reach the apple.”; “El ajunge la destinatie.” or “He reaches the destination”.)
It’s kind of interesting that those two meanings use the same word in both languages even though the words themselves look / sound nothing like each other…
Also read above about Spanish and Russian.
Hah… there definitely seems to be something about the whole concept of “reaching”. Don’t know if you’ve read the above comments but as Grateful Reader pointed out the same double meanings exist in Russian and in Spanish… and the verbs or stems look completely different (alcanzar, dostat) , so I can’t imagine they are related. That is fascinating. Would be great to know how it is in Chinese or Japanese… maybe it’s the same verb there as well.
Ein tolle Erklärung! Dieses Wort hat mich verwirrt, doch es vielleicht nicht so kompliziert ist! (Ist das ein korrektes “doch”? “Doch” ist der König der verwirrenden Worte.)
“Ein tolle Erklärung! Dieses Wort hat mich verwirrt, doch es vielleicht nicht so kompliziert ist!
(Ist das ein korrektes “doch”?)”
Nein. Doch ist keine Konjunktion, weswegen du hier keine Nebensatzstruktur verwenden darfst.
“Doch es ist …” wäre korrekt.
Das ist doch eine Konjunktion…. “doch” ist keine SUBJunktion (oder unterordnende Konj.)
Doch!
Entschuldigung, ich hätte “keine einleitende Konjunktion” schreiben sollen.
Ah… ich lese die Kommentare immer in der falschen Reihenfolge :)
Du kannst sogar zweimal “doch” verwenden.
– Das Wort hat mich verwirrt, doch (aber) es ist doch (reverting a statement) nicht so kompliziert.
I love how you disect the language and explain the abstract relationships within it. I find your blog invaluable in helping me understand the mechanics of German. Thank you
Glad to hear that. Danke :)
•Jetzt reicht‘s. Auf dein Zimmer.
Wieso ‘auf’? Ich habe immer gedacht, dass man ins Zimmer geht.
Ja, prinzipiell schon… aber es gibt ab und zu Verwendungen mit “auf”
– Ich bin auf dem Zimmer.
Mit “in” klingt das ganze etwas “lokaler”… “auf” klingt mehr so nach “Privatsphäre” oder “zurückgezogen sein”… kann ich schwer erklären :)
This (especially erreichen) is a word I’ve always wanted to know better so thanks for yet another nice lesson! One query: the dictionary I use recognises “zureichend”:
http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/?query=zureichend
I take it from your post this must be extremely rarely used?
Yeah definitely… I really don’t feel like I’ve read in in the last years.
Here’s the Google n-gram
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=zureichend%2Causreichend%2Chinreichend%2Cgenug%2Cgen%C3%BCgend&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=20&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Czureichend%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Causreichend%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Chinreichend%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgenug%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgen%C3%BCgend%3B%2Cc0
“Herr Connors Erfahrungen reichen vom tadellosen Kopieren von Skripten bis hin zur Zubereitung eines bemerkenswerten Flat White aus Instantkaffee.”
Um Gottes Willen what is that “hin” doing there!? Is there grammar behind that?
von … über … bis hin zu … – from … via … through to …
It is definitely optional and the “hin” has the same function like the “zur Zubereitung…” … an abtsract “where-to”-box. It makes the whole thing sound a little bit further away.
It underlined that we’re really reaching out here. It doesn’t really translate but I guess it would be something like this
– From somewhere to over there (hin), to the golden tree (zu…).
Nice, in Spanish, “le alcanza la sal” means both “he hands her the salt” and “she has enough salt” because we’re a prodrop language. I’ll make sure to mentally map reichen to “to reach” and to “alcanzar” (alcanzar also means to reach,hmm…) the benefits of being bilingual.
Now that I think of it… the same situation obtains in Russian:
enough = dostatochno
sufficient = dostatochnyj
reach, obtain = dostat’ (it’s more complicated, but “to reach”, as in “with the hand”, is one of the meanings)
prosperity = dostatok (that state of being “enough”)
Any chance the name Dostojewski is remotely related :)?
Nope. It’s from a Belarusian placename “Dostoeyevo”.
Mal ‘ne Frage…. weißt du zufällig was über die Etymologie der “dostat”-Familie? Ich finde diese ganzen Paralellen echt ziemlich erstaunlich (falls du’s nicht gelesen hast oder nicht wusstest… “enough” und “genug” gehen auf eine IE Wurzel (Internet Explorer) zurück, die auch “reichen” hieß… verrückt
Wow… I just checked a dictionary and “alcanzar” seems to match “reichen” pretty much 1 to 1. So I checked the etymology, but it looks like it comes from “calcio”… so I guess “alcanzar” is based on the idea of “reaching by walking there”, which would also explain that it is used with a direct object. Just speculation though. Anyway, it’s really fascinating that it has grown almost identical abstract meanings :)
“Mein Haar reicht bis über die Schulter”
obwohl es mit reichen nichts zu tun hat, wieso hast du hier singular statt plural verwendet? Ich habe gedacht, dass in diesem Zusammenhang man immer plural verwenden soll. Woran liegt es der Unterschied wenn ich “mein Haar” mit “meine Haare” ersetze?
Ich habe gerade mal meine Freundin gefragt und sie sagt, dass es nicht wirklich einen Unetrschied für sie macht. “Mein Haar” klingt ein bisschen nobler, edler. Im Kontext mit Prinzessinnen wohl eher “Haar”. Wenn die Haare voll fettig sind, dann definitiv “Haare” :)
> Woran liegt es der Unterschied
Woran liegt es, dass…
oder
Worin liegt der Unterschied…
Ops, das hab’ ich garnicht gesehen :).
Endlich finde ich mein WoD ! Immer toll und reich informierend .
Jetz meine versuche :
1) Im Sinne von “genüg sein: ein untransitives verb ” ;;;;;; Mein Rentegehalt reicht kaum zu leben .
2) Im Sinne von ” geben: ein transitives verb ” ….;; Bitte reichst du mir das Salz .
3) Im Sinne von ” an ziel kommen : ein transitives verb ” : Meine hande reicht nicht an der Decke dieses Zimmer .
Vielen Dank , bis nächtes mal
Ahmad
Ja sehr gut!
Ein paar kleine Korrekturen:
1) Meine Rente … Gehalt gibt es nur für Arbeit
3) Meine Hände reichen nicht (bis) an die Decke dieses Zimmers.
“Hände” ist Plural, deshalb “reichen”. “An die Decke” mit Akkusativm, da es sich um eine Bewegung auf die Decke zu handelt
Für genau dieses Beispiel ist folgendes idiomatischer:
– Ich komme mit den Händen nicht an die Zimmerdecke.
Aber deins ist auch gut :)
Thank you for this lession, Emanuel. Could you please explain how one can recall doing an action in German, for example “I saw her dance” or “I saw him put it in his pocket.” Thanks a lot.
For short things it is like in English
– Ich habe sie tanzen (ge)sehen.
For longer things and epecially for punctual actions the most common version is with “wie”
– Ich habe gesehen, wie er es in seine Tasche gepackt hat.
You could also say
– Ich habe ihn es in seine Tasche packen (ge)sehen.
but this takes some processing to get the order of things correct :)
Ich bin neulich auf das Wort ‘Durchreiche’ gestoßen, was eine Art Lücke in der Wand zwischen Küche und Essbereich bezeichnet, durch die man Gästen das Essen serviert. Tut hier zwar nichts zur Sache, aber es hat mich daran erinnert, wie mein Großvater früher eine bei ihm hatte, obwohl er allein lebte, also niemanden hatte, dem er das Essen sozusagen ‘durchreichen’ konnte ;)
Ich finde Durchreichen cool. Nicht so sehr des Durchreichens wegen (haha fancy Deutsch), sondern weil man dann so gut kommunizieren kann. Die Leute, die kochen, mit denen, die was trinken. Man ist zusammen, aber es stehen nicht alle in der Küche im Weg rum. Oder man steht an der Durchreiche rum und macht schlaue Kommentare um den Koch zu nerven.
– Waaaas, so wenig Öl? Meinste wirklich das reicht? Ihhh… das willst du so da ran machen?! Sicher?
Eine kleine Korrektur:
– Mein Großvater hatte eine Durchreiche bei sich.
Nicht “ihm”. Es ist ja selbstreferenziell.
Aber der Rest ist perfekt. Fast zu perfekt. Bist du Muttersprachler?
im Weg rumstehen… is that like “to stand around being in the way of other people” ?
Genau :)