Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of
der Lohn
A great word to know, though we’ll also talk about something really incredibly boring. But we’ll also look at the meaning of the verb lohnen, and that’s totally worth it. Like… for real. Like… literally.
Lohn sounds a lot like the English word loan and the main use of both of them is money that you get. But that’s just a coincidence because the two are not related. And Lohn is muuuuuuch cooler because… you don’t have to pay it back.
The origin of Lohn is the super ancient Indo-European root *lau. Lau was about the idea of winning or gaining something and naturally, first this was focused on raiding and hunting, a meaning that has largely been preserved in the Slavic branch where the descendants of *lau mean prey, loot. In Latin on the other hand, the root shifted to a more general sense of gain, benefit, profit. That’s where lucrative comes from, by the way.
The German Lohn evolved in a similar way but already 1000 years ago it had shifted its focus toward the idea of reward, gratification for some work or effort. And with the rise of regular paid labor came the main meaning Lohn has today: wage.
- Ich hab’ gestern Cross Fit gemacht und was ist der Lohn.… fetter Muskelkater.
- I did Cross Fit yesterday and what do I get… super achy muscles.
- Gekündigt – ist das der Lohn für meine harte Arbeit?
- Fired – is that the gratification/compensation for my hard work?
- Der Stundenlohn bei Marias neuem Job ist niedriger als vorher, aber es gibt viele Boni.
- The hourly wage in Maria’s new job is lower than before but there are many bonuses.
Now, those of you who have worked in Germany most certainly know the other common word for wage, salary: das Gehalt. On official documents like the tax return blue print or an application for a Wohnberechtigungsschein (yeah… I know it’s looong), the two are treated as two distinct things – a fact that causes a lot of confusion because very few people actually know the difference. Neither did I, so I had Daniel, my intern, prepare a little write up… I’ll read it to you now.
Das Gehalt is a monthly fixed total that does not really depend on the
amount of hours you’re working. Like… if your contract says “1800 brutto”
(1800 before tax) , then that’s a Gehalt. Lohn on the other hand is paid
based on hours and even when you’re working as a regular employee you
can get a different payout every month. That’s why it’s Stundenlohn
(hourly wage) and Mindestlohn (minimum wage) and
NOT Stundengehalt or Mindestgehalt. The general term for both
Lohn and Gehalt is das Entgelt and the proper term for sick pay, which
people usually call Lohnfortzahlung im Krankheitsfall (“lit.: forth-
payment of wage in case of illness“), is actually Entgeldfortzahlu…
yaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwnnnnnn… my god, this is soooo boring. And there are still 10 pages. Daniel, dude, why did you make that so boring….. what?…… boring topic? No man, there’s no such thing as a boring topic. There’s just boring presentation… yeah… look, we’re live so I can’t explain that now but we’ll talk later, okay… … … cool… oh, can you fetch me a coffee?Thanks.
All right.
So der Lohn is about the idea of compensation, gratification for some sort of work you did and the most common meaning is wage. Definitely a good word to know but what makes it REALLY useful are the related verbs
Lohn-verbs
There are two prefix verbs based on Lohn: entlohnen and belohnen. Entlohnen is some fancy version for to (financially) compensate but it’s pretty rare and I don’t think it’s worth learning.
- Er wird für seine Arbeit entlohnt.
- He gets compensated for his work.
Belohnen on the other hand is super useful. Taken our standard be-idea we get “to inflict compensation” or “to put compensation upon someone” and it doesn’t take too much mind bending to get from that to the real meaning: to reward.
- Maria belohnt sich für ihren harten Arbeitstag mit Shopping.
- Maria rewards herself for her hard working day with shopping.
- Gute Arbeit wird belohnt.
- Good work is being rewarded.
- Der Hund kriegt zur Belohnung einen Knochen.
- The dog gets a bone as a reward.
- Junge Familie sucht 3 Zimmer-Wohnung hier in der Gegend. Maximal 900 Euro warm. Bieten 500 Euro Belohnung.
- Young family looking for a 3 room apartment in this area. No more than 900 Euro all included. We offer 500 Euro reward.
Now you might be wondering if there’s also a stand-alone verb lohnen. Well, a few hundred years back, it did exist and it simply meant “to compensate someone”. Today, only one version is still in use… sich lohnen.
Yeah… German really does love itself some self reference.
Literally, sich lohnen means something like “to pay, compensate for itself” and that’s really not too far from the actual meaning… to be worth it.
- Das Wort “Lohn” zu lernen lohnt sich.
- Lit.: Learning the word Lohn pays, compensates for itself.
- Learning the word “Lohn” is worth it.
German also has es wert sein, which is the more literal equivalent to to be worth it.
- Das ist es wert.
- That is worth it.
but es wert sein sounds a bit grander, more epic. Sich lohnen is for every day stuff and it has some vibe of “great deal” in it, though you wouldn’t use it in context of actual shopping.
Examples:
- Schon halb 12?! Da lohnt es sich fast nicht mehr, loszugehen, oder?
- Already half past 11?! Hmm… it almost isn’t worth the effort to leave now, is it?
- Das Restaurant ist echt der Hammer. Ja, man muss ein bisschen fahren, aber es lohnt sich wirklich.
- The restuarant is the bomb. You have to drive for a bit, yes, but it’s really worth it.
- Wie war die Show? Hat es sich gelohnt so lange anzustehen?
- How was the show? Was it worth it to wait in line for so long?
I know it might be a little bit tricky to use this, with the weird sich but it’s worth trying… es lohnt sich, es zu versuchen.
And I think that’s it for today. This was our look at the meaning of der Lohn. As always, if you have any question or suggestions or if you want to try out some examples with lohnen and get them corrected, just leave me a comment.
I hope you enjoyed it and see you next time.
Oh and to really hammer the structure of sich lohnen into your head, here’s a link to a famous old Schlager called “Liebeskummer lohnt sich nicht”… viel Spaß :)
(dear copyright lawyers, I posted a link here. In case it gets transformed into a video window let me know)
** vocab **
der Lohn – the gratification, wage, reward (for work done)
der Mindestlohn – the minimum wage
der Stundenlohn – hourly wage
die Lohnerhöhung – wage increase
das Gehalt – the salary
die Gehaltserhöhung – the pay raise
das Einstiegsgehalt – the entry wage/starting salary
die Gehaltsvorstellungen – the salary expectation (often asked in job offers)
sich lohnen – to be worth it, to be a good deal
lohnend – lucrative
belohnen – reward
die Belohnung – the reward (a bit like a price)
entlohnen – compensate (financially, rare and formal)
** click here to download all the audio files as a zip-archive ***
Es lohnt sich wirklich diese Post zu lesen. Geil als immer, danke!
Kleine Korrektur: “geil wie immer” … nicht “als” :)
Ich wusste etwas falsch ist. What is the German equivalent of ‘I couldn’t put my finger on it’?
There’s no real counterpart. I think the most common way to express the idea is simply “Ich komm nicht drauf” or in past “Ich bin nicht drauf gekommen.”
Does “Maximal 1000 Euro warm” really translate to “No more than 900 Euro all included”?
Haha…no idea how that happened :)
Thank you for the post!!! Keep the good work :)
Wow! I had no idea there was so much more to Your Daily German! And I was already impressed! I immediately subscribed, once I realized there was more. Thank you for this incredibly useful – and fun! – resource. Es lohnt sich! (Where would you put an adverb?)
Oh, and in the sentence “The hourly wage in Maria’s new job..”, I would use FOR, or even AT, rather than IN. Pesky prepositions.
Yup, learning which is the right preposition never ends. And I mean never.
What do you mean by much more, by the way :)?
Oh and the adverb would go after the “sich”.
– Es lohnt sich nicht/sehr/ein bisschen/auf jeden Fall.
Over the last year or so, I was able to read many of your older entries. They were linked in the comments sections in Duolingo. With subscription it seems that I can find answers more easily, the audio bits have appeared, I can read the most recent post entirely, and I can ask questions here. I haven’t explored further, yet. Your archives alone are so extensive! :-) Es lohnt sich sehr!
:-D :-D – I’m coming to the conclusion that the prepositions are the keys to all the languages, at least in IE. That’s where most of the idiosyncrasies hide, and stage regular ambushes, even when you think you’re safe.
Danke sehr!!
Not really the key, because that sounds like they’re opening up everything. The key to German is knowing how to handle verbs, I’d say.
But you’re definitely right about the idiosyncrasies.Maybe we could call them key to language learner frustration :D
I want to thank everyone who donates to Emanuel and to this website, it has given me the opportunity to study on my own.
Thank you so much for your kindness!
Keep up the good work Emanuel, you really put a lot of effort on this site and responding to every single email and message. Amazing work, thanks for actually caring.
And thanks back for reading and learning :)
Ich finde, dass es sich wirklich lohnt, alle Bemerkungen der Leute immer zu lesen, nicht nur Emanuels Blog!
Habe ich das richtig gesagt? Vielen Dank!
Ja, super. “Kommentare” ist besser als “Bemerkungen” und wenn man ganz kleinlich sein will, dann sollte das “immer” früher kommen, aber das sind echt Kleinigkeiten.
Toller Blog-Post, wie immer :) Früher hast du eine Datei mit all den Audioclips vom Blog-Post beigefügt, aber findest du jetzt, dass es sich vielleicht nicht mehr lohnt? (Wenn es braucht mehr als zwei Klicken zu tun, dann bitte mach dir keine Sorgen darüber)
Ops, nein… ich habe es vergessen. Ich mache es später, wenn ich zuhause bin.
So, hier ist der Link:)
https://yourdailygerman.com/wp-content/uploads/audios/lohn-audio/lohn-audio.zip
Danke!
I tried to open this on my iPad, but couldn’t. Is there some compatibility problem. When I try to download it, it saves to my google drive.
Maybe Mac can’t handle .zip-archives?
Ich habe diesen Blogeintrag zu Ende gelesen, und was war die Belohnung? Ich habe gelernt, wie das Verb ‘sich lohnen’ funktioniert. Es war es auf jeden Fall wert. Es lohnt sich immer sehr, hier zu kommen.
Wow, super! Das war fast perfektes DEutsch. Es gibt nur einen Fehler:
– Es lohnt sich, hier zu kommen.
Beim Ort ist Deutsch ein bisschen pingelig. Wenn es sich um eine gerichtete Bewegung (movement with a direction) handelt, dann muss das “markiert” werden. Dafür gibt es verschiedene Möglichkeiten aber die gewöhnlichste ist “hin/her”. Also
– … hier herzukommen.
ich mach irgendwann eine Serie über Ort. Da dann mehr dazu.
Hi, cool article as always. And I did not think that the rundown on the difference between “Gehalt” and “Lohn” was boring. You should cut your intern some slack. They appear to be changing names quite quickly.
As you write about the phrase “es wert sein” in the context of “lohnen”, that reminded me of the beautiful adjective: “lohnenswert”, which somehow combines these two so similar words. It does not mean anything else than “lohnend”, it mght be a touch stronger, but I think the reason why it is ‘worthwhile’ to use is the sound.
Anyway, thanks for the enjoyment of the week in language related topics.
Yeah, “lohnenswert” is actually even more common than “lohnend” I’d say. And I totally agree… it has a much better sound and flow. I think it’s the finish on a stressed syllable combined with the transition from “dark” to “light” on the vowels
Haha agree..i thought u had still the intern from the biergartens..also sind die sommer urlabe nein??
Nein, die gibt’s auch noch. Es ist eine große Firma mit vieeeelen Praktikanten :)
ZB: Der Lohn ist schlecht. Es ist nicht wert.
Der erste Teil ist ok, aber der zweite Teil funktioniert nicht. Wenn du sagen willst “It (the Lohn) is not worth it” then you need two instances for “it” in German (you only have one)
– Er (der Lohn) ist es nicht wert.
But this sentence is still a little weird because we have no clue as to what “es” is. What is the Lohn not worth? German is a bit more precise or explicit in that case. The stuff needs to be estabished in some way.
Mein Job gebe mir einen guten Lohn.
It would be “Mein Job gibt” not “gebe”. But great job on the adjective ending :)
Oops sorry. I was paying so close attention to the adjective ending that I botched the most important word.
Echt toll as immer..aber ich habe eine frage…wenn du sagst “900 euro warm”. Do germans use “warm” as to say ” all included”,, and in which contexts
…auch, ich habe nicht gefunde dein artikel…where u explain the use of the phrase “kein bar” as to say “no motivation to do etwas”” thanks my man..
Dude.
Never mind i saw you responded to the dame question..think u slipped with the warm..aber wie Man sagt ” all included”…man sagt in franzosich “tout compris”
It depends on the context. “Alles inklusive” is the most general version, I think
Auch…sagts du “fettig” immer fur “swollen” als in “fett muskul” oder was bedeutet ??
Nee, das wäre “geschwollen”. “fettig” ist eigentlich immer “greasy”.
For hotels or other similar establishment for sleeping and eating, Germans like to use the English words “all inclusive” to say: “you don’t have to pay extra for sleeping, eating, drinking or in-hotel activities”. The phrase is sometimes said German: “alles inklusive” but I think the English phrase is more popular. Also for words like: “der All-inclusive-Urlaub”.
For other situations, there is also the German word: “preisinbegriffen” which means sth. is included into the given price tab, it sounds kind of fancy. So you would use it like: “Nutzung des Pools und des Tenniscourts sind preisinbegriffen.” = “Usage of the pool and the tennis court is included into the price.”
Then there is the word “pauschal” used almost exclusively for travel tours as “Paschalreise” meaning traveling, residence and programm is all included into one price. But well, I think you can also use it in other situations, although I wouldn’t: “Was kostet das pauschal?” = “What is the overall price?”
And you can also use other words to describe the meaning of “all included”: “alles mit eingerechnet” = “all accounted for”, “insgesamt umfassen” = “to comprise as a whole”.
“fettig” is greasy or oily. You know if you don’t wash your hair for some days it gets “fettig”. Literally it means: “wet of fat”.
Haha… yeah “fettige Haare” was my first thought, too, when I read “fettig”. But it also works for meat products or other foods.
Thanks for rounding up the option for “all inclusive”!!!
“warm” is only used in context with flats and it’s usually used in sense of “including utilities and heating”.
There’s the base rent (nettokalt), base rent plus utilities (trash, cleaning of the building etc) (bruttokalt) and the same for heating (nettowarm, bruttowarm). On a flyer like this “warm” means “including everything except internet”.
As for “kein Bar”… do you mean “kein Bock”? Because that would fit with the no motivation thing.
So, you already know the link transformed into a video window… right?
Ja..kein bock (do u use it a lot un daily gesprach, cuz it seems pretty useful,..danke viel …you dudes are very gracious for taking the time to answer..jetz alles ist klar..
“Kein bock” und “bar geld” For some reason these stayed on my mind..as a freudian slip…you should do a post on “geil werbung”,cool publicity ads.. Like super geil” super leute
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jxVcgDMBU94
Sehr geil auch.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Vq_DGFsLE
Oh Gott :)
Oh yeah, at least people under 30 do use it super often. I actually added audio examples to that one recently :)
I did not want it to do that. Oh well :)
Doesn’t matter..the song is cool..i don’t thinks they’d sue you…eine sehr sehr alt lied ..string accent though..is she German or nordic…i had a swedish girlfriend that spoke like that..
Nicht alt genug (artist needs to be dead for 70 years before it becomes common domain). German copyright law enforcement is really really strict, that’s why I’m a bit paranoid :).
She definitely has an accent. Someone else commented that she is Swedish so you’re spot on.
Und noch wie immer, lohnt es sich deine Blogpost zu lesen :)
Ne, echt; du hast keine Ahnung wie hilfreich du für mich bist; wegen dir habe ich ungefähr 70% meines Deutsches gelernt (wahrscheinlich soll ich auch meine ABF dafür Kredit geben ^^) Danke für alles & vor allem die Geschichte die du uns vorliest… ich muss sagen, du hast eine beruhigende Stimme
Das ist wohl nicht… erlaubt, aber… wie beeindruckt man einen deutschen Mann? Ich möchte es für die Zukunft gern wissen =••=
Ich glaube einen deutschen Mann kannst du mit Spontanität und mentaler Stärke beeindrucken :). Also zumindest die Männer, die ich kenne. Und natürlich mit gutem Deutsch, und das hast du schon.
Im Ernst… du bist wirklich viel besser geworden, oder? Der Kommentar war super gut geschrieben und es sind fast keine Fehler drin (nur ein paar ganz kleine). Danke für das Kompliment für meine Stimme. Das freut mich :)
Wer oder was ist denn eigentlich ABF?
Es bedeutet ‘absolut Beste Freund/in’ wie man im Englisch ‘bff’ sagt. Ist ganz populär mit Mädchen:)
Aha, das wusste ich noch nicht. Was gelernt :)
Es lohnt sich auf die Hochschule zu gehen.
Wir haben in Norwegen ungefähr eine gleich worte; lønn.
I’m very courious, does the singer in the video sound German in her accent? I googled her and found out she is swedsh. To my ears she might had a bit of a nordic tone to her language.
She definitely has an accent and I think any native speaker would immediately hear it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she spoke no German at all. There was a period when even someone famous US stars would rerecord their stuff in German, just because Germany is a somewhat big market.
Hello!
Do you have anything on Nominalisierung/ Verbalisierung?
Thanks!
No, not yet. What exactly do you mean by it anyway (I’m a bit shaky with jargon :)
Well I don’t understand it and therefore don’t know what i meanby it… i thought you were the expert and might be able to explain it
I am currently doing a B2.2 course in Germany (in german) and we received our next topic “nominaliesierung -verbaliesierung” which we will be tested on next week (and i hope/muss pass). I looked it up on the internet and can’t find anything about it. All i have is the examples the teacher gave us last week.
Here are a few of them:
Example 1 : Nach Beendigung der Schule begann er seine Ausbildung zum Koch.
Answer: Nachdem er die Schule beendet hatte, begann er seine Ausbildung zum Koch.
Example 2: Noch vor dem Ende des Studiums bewarb sie sich bei verschiedenen Firmen um einen Stelle.
Answer: Noch bevor sie das Studium abgeschlossen hatte bewarb sie sich bei verschiedenen Firmen um eine Stelle.
Example 3 : Zur Erweiterung seines Wortschatzes liest er viele deutsche Bücher.
Answer : Damit er seinen Wortschatz erweitert, liest er viele deutscher Bücher.
That’s all i have on it. I told the teacher i did not understand understand how this work at all. So to solve thag problem she gave me more of these exercises for homework. Problem is how do i practice answering them when i don’t understand it and don’t know exactly what i am meant to do. So i gave up on the exercises and went for the glass of wine instead
Thanka again,
Jessica
Ahhh… now I see. It’s really weird to give this kind of stuff a name that makes it sound like it’s some kind of grammar rule or something.
What it essentially is, is saying the same stuff in different ways, once using a noun and once using a verb.
In examples 3 for instance… one version uses “zur Erweiterung” and the other “Damit er …. erweitert,…”
I actually don’t find the damit-version very idiomatic but be that as it may, I could also say “Um seinen Wortschatz zu erweitern,…”
The thing is… there’s not THE ONE right answer. Example 2 is a good example because there the noun “Ende” and the verb “abschließen” don’t even have anything to do with each other. I could also say “Noch vor Abschluss ihres Studiums” or “Noch bevor sie ihr Studium beendet hatte,…” and they should be right as well.
The whole thing boils down to this:
You will be given an example sentence and you’ll have to rephrase it.
– Zur Lösung dieser Aufgabe braucht man einen guten Wortschatz.
Here, you’d need to rephrase “zur Lösung” into a verb. “Zur Lösung” expresses reason/motivation so you have to find a phrasing that does the same.
– Um die Aufgabe zu lösen, braucht man…
– Wenn man die Aufgabe lösen will, braucht man…
There are a bunch of patterns that I guess you’ll go over in class.
Does that help? Let me know if you have doubts about this!
Oh, that’s too bad :(
Problem is I do not know what exactly i mean either- that’s the problem.
I am currently doing a German class in Germany and lucky me we have reached the following topic : Nominalisierung/Verbalisierung … that i just don’t get! Google must no longer be my friend because Google wouldn’t give me anything about it either.
So, because of this (and the fact that i have a test on it next week), I went back to school and asked the teacher if she could go over it again. She smiled and told me that she would photocopy a few things for me about it that might help. It didn’t. It wasn’t an explanation -> she gave me extra homework/exercises on it. What was the point? I don’t know what I am meant to do…so after a few hours I gave up and started looking for the answers at the bottom of the bottle of wine I had started. Again, no answers.
So at this stage all i can do is give you a few of the examples she gave me and maybe you send me in the right direction (maybe google isn’t the place to go to for this):
Example 1: Noch vor dem Ende des Studiums bewarb sie sich bei verschiedenen Firmen um eine Stelle.
Answer : Noch bevor sie das Studium abgeschlossen hatte bewarb sie sich bei verschiedenen Firmen um eine Stelle.
Example 2: Nach Beendigung der Schule begann er seine Ausbildung zum Koch.
Answer: Nachdem er die Schule beendet hatte begann er seine Ausbildung zum Koch.
Example 3 ; Das Publikum klatschte aus Freute über den geglückten Sprung der Eiskunstläuferin.
Answer: Das Publikum klatschte, weil es sich über den geglückten Sprung der Eiskunstlärin freute.
Example 4 : Mn kann die Tür nur mit einem Sicherheitsschlüssel öffnen.
Answer : Mn kann die Tür nur öffnen, indem man einen Sicherheitsschlüssel benutzt. (where did indemn and benutzt come from?)
Example 5 : Zur Erweiterung seines Wortschatzes liest er viele deutsche Bücher.
Answer : Damit er seinen Wortschatz erweitert, liest er viele deutcher Bücher.
That’s all I have on it.
Thanks for your help.
Jessica
(sometimes I need to approve comments by hand so that’s why the first version didn’t show up immediately)
I put the answer under the other comment but since there are different examples here, I’ll comment on those real quick
Where do “indem” and “benutzt” come from? From your inner dictionary. That’s really it. There’s no grammar reason for it. I could also use “wenn” instead of “indem” and it would be the same. This would be one of those patterns that you’ll go over. “do something with (the help of) something” = “do something using something” … that would be an example in English.
The whole topic is really stupid because it’s made to appear as more than it is. All it comes down to, is that you’re able to express one thing (usually some sort of reasoning) in more than one way but they make it sound like it’s complex grammar. I guess the have to put a name tag on it though. And it’s B2 so it needs to sound pompous ;). Let me know if it’s still unclear and I’ll try to help
Thank you, that helps a lot! I guess the reason i find it difficult is because my inner dictionary is still very limited. I’ll have to work on it. :)
Maybe this exercise helps a little to get a feel for it
http://www.wirtschaftsdeutsch.de/lehrmaterialien/grammatik-nominalisierung-1.pdf