Hello everyone,
and welcome to your German Day of the Word.
And this time, we’ll take a look at the meaning of
tauschen
Which means we’ll also take a look at all the fun little differences between umtauschen and vertauschen and eintauschen and austauschen. Oh and wechseln of course, we’ll touch on that one, too.
And we’ll ALSO see the surprising connection to deception and disappointment.
So are you ready to jump in?
Then let’s go!
***
The core theme of tauschen is pretty much exchanging one item for another with someone.
- Ich tausche eine Kuh gegen drei Ziegen.
- I exchange/trade one cow for three goats.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
If you’re now like “Hey, so that’s like barter, right.” then you’re right on the money… or seashells. Indeed, tauschen and a few nouns like der Tauschhandel or das Tauschgeschäft are the German words for bartering.
- Niemand:
Youtubers: Tauschgeschäfte richtig versteuern – ihr Kind hat eine wertvolle Pokemon-Sammelkarte ertauscht? In diesem Video erklären wir Ihnen, wie sie das als Haushaltseinkommen korrekt in Ihrer Steuererklärung angeben. - Noone:
Youtubers: Declaring barter deals for taxes – your child got a valuable pokemon trading card from trading? In this video, we’ll explain to you how to properly declare that as household income in your tax return. - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But tauschen is not limited to barter.
Like, the notion of “business” or “trade” is not always there, so translations can also be to swap or to exchange.
- Wir tauschen eine 2-Zimmer-Wohnung gegen eine 3-Zimmer-Wohung.
- We’re looking to swap a 2 room apartment for a 3 room apartment.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Nach dem Spiel tauschen die Fußballer die Trikots.
- After the match, the boring ball players are exchanging jerseys.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Die Serie Frauentausch ist für den Pulitzer-Preis nominiert.
- The series Wife Swap is nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Ich habe vorhin endlich meinen Gym-Crush angesprochen.”
“Oh, super! Und???”
“Wir haben Telefonnummern getauscht, und jetzt warte ich, dass er schreibt.” - “I finally approached my gym crush earlier today.”
“Oh great! And???”
“We exchanged numbers and now I’m waiting for him to text me.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And just in case you’re kind of side-eyeing the word gym crush… yes, it’s English, and yes, I think it’s the much better option. Why? Because the German word would be this:
Fitnessstudioschwarm.
This word is longer than many relationships nowadays, so yeah, gym crush is what most people (who go to the gym and have a crush there) would say.
Anyway, so the core of… oh, wait… I see we have a call here. Flavia from Brazil, welcome to the show.
– “Hey Emanuel, thanks for taking my call.”
No problem, how can I help?
– “So I’m wondering about the preposition with tauschen. I feel like I have read gegen and für but that’s kind of a contradiction, no?”
Oh, great question! And you’re right, tauschen gegen and tauschen für both exist. I feel like, the focus with gegen is on what the other party has to “put up” to match or “counter” whatever you’re offering. And tauschen für is a bit more focused on what you receive.
– “Uh… I… I don’t think I get it. Isn’t that the same?”
Haha, yeah, it’s not really all that different. Maybe it’s more just a difference in “vibe”, with “gegen” having more of this “countering” notion. But hey, you know what… don’t worry about it!
I’d say that tauschen gegen is more common and kind of the default, so just go with that.
– “Okay, cool…”
No problem, thanks for bringing that up. Do you have any other questions I could help with?
– “Well yeah, I am wondering what the difference is between tauschen and wechseln and when I should use which.”
Oh, that’s actually the next segment anyways, so I got you covered.
– “Oh, great, I’ll stay tuned then. Thanks a lot.”
My pleasure and greetings to Brazil.
All right. So we learned that the core of tauschen is the notion swapping, exchanging, which of course raises the question about the difference to wechseln. Which is also about swapping and exchanging.
tauschen vs wechseln – What’s the difference
I think the key thing about tauschen is this notion of two parties “exchanging” with each other. Like, this undertone of “trade”. Wechseln does NOT have that and instead leans more toward replacing.
- Thomas und Maria haben T-Shirts getauscht.
- Thomas und Maria haben T-Shirts gewechselt.
Without any context, the first one would be understood as them “trading” shirts with each other, while the second one sounds like they each put on a new shirt.
Sometimes, tauschen can be found in a context where wechseln would be the more fitting choice, but generally, this distinction is a good guideline. So tauschen for “two people exchanging something”, in a broad sense, and wechseln for you swapping one “item” for another – be it a job or just the lane on the highway.
Now, if it were just those two words then things would be fairly simple. But of course it’s not just those two words. No. German always has to have an entire word aisle for a meaning. Like the jam aisle, where you have strawberry and cherry, but also more exoctic flavors like blueberry pumpkin rosehip jam or elderflower peach horse manure jam.
Tough choices.
And there’s a whole bunch of prefix versions of tauschen to choose from, which are all also kind of about swapping.
So let’s go over those now and see if we can find some sort of system or logic (spoiler: not really).
The prefix versions of “tauschen”
And a quick comment right away… I’ll probably do a post on wechseln too, at some point, so I’ll focus completely on tauschen and its versions here.
But yeah, let’s maybe start with the easiest one and that is vertauschen.
vertauschen
If you’ve read my article on ver- (link below), you’ll remember that ver- has 4 core ideas that it can add to a verb – change, away, mistake and for.
And in the case of vertauschen we have a clear case of the wrong-ver, because vertauschen is about a swap that includes a notion of error or at least “outside the norm”.
- Auf einer deutschen Tastatur sind z und y vertauscht.
- On a German keyboard, z and y are mixed up/swapped.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Bei der Paartherapie mussten Thomas und Maria die Abwasch-Diskussion noch einmal führen, aber mit vertauschten Rollen.
- At couple’s therapy, Thomas and Maria had to redo the “dishcussion”, but with the roles reversed.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Die Schulklasse hat als Streich im Supermarkt alle Preisschilder vertauscht.
- The school class has swapped out/mixed up all the price signs in the supermarket as a prank.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
What’s really important here is that vertauschen implies actually swapping (at least) TWO items, so it’s not really about accidentally taking the salt instead of the sugar… because you didn’t even touch the sugar in this case.
vertauschen would be putting sugar into the place of salt AND vice versa.
And also, at least to me, it seems like vertauschen is more common in contexts where it’s done intentionally.
If your focus is on an accidental mix-up, verwechseln is almost always the better word.
All right. Next.
austauschen
The core idea and focus of austauschen is a sense of “replacing”. So you swap out one part and “put in” a new one.
- Hallo Apple Team, warum kann man den kaputten Akku nicht einfach austauschen?
- Hi Apple Team, why can’t I just replace the broken battery?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria hat das Gefühl, dass Thomas sie einfach gegen eine jüngere ausgetauscht hat.
- Maria has the feeling that Thomas just replaced her with someone younger.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
There is a fairly big overlap with tauschen and wechseln though. For instance an oil change of a car, which is clearly about taking out the old and putting in the new, is still called Ölwechsel.
So again, it’s good to know austauschen and its core focus for when you read or hear it, but it’s not really a word you need to use actively.
And that also goes for the next one – eintauschen.
eintauschen
And here, I’d say the best translation is actually trading in. You put something “in” and you get something out for it.
- Die Bonuspunkte können Sie für tolle Prämien eintauschen.
- You can swap in/trade in the bonus points for great prizes.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria hat ihr Auto gegen ein Fahrrad eingetauscht.
- Maria swapped (in) her car for a bike.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The second example is actually more figurative. So she didn’t “literally” hand in her car somewhere and get a bike for it. It’s about her “handing in” the car at “life options warehouse” and instead choosing a bike. Not sure if that makes sense.
Anyway, let’s move on to the version of tauschen that you’re most likely to be needing in daily life – umtauschen.
umtauschen
And this is the verb you need if you buy something but then you go back to the store to swap it with something else, either because it was broken or because it wasn’t the right color or size.
- Ich möchte diese weißen Schuhe gerne gegen grüne umtauschen.
- I would like to exchange/swap these white shoes for green ones.
(what’s the proper verb in English actually? I’m not sure!)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Reduzierte Ware ist vom Umtausch ausgeschlossen.
- Reduced goods /Goods on sale are excluded from exchange.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
What’s important here is that umtauschen is NOT the right word if you order a bunch of clothes online just to try and then send 80% of them back. That’s zurückschicken. Or if done in store, zurückgeben.
Oh and it needs to be a physical item. So don’t think you can umtauschen a movie you bought as a digital download and then you watch it and you’re like “Ugh, it’s that so bad.”.
Like most big modern movies these days. The trailers always look great and exciting but that’s usually not what you get.
Which brings us right to our last segment for the day – the word täuschen.
Are you still with me?
ARE YOU HYPED UP FOR A FEW MORE WORDS?
Then let’s freaking send it!!!
The Meaning of “täuschen”
Just based on looks, the only difference between tauschen and täuschen is the vowel make up.
But just like a small bit of make-up well applied can change a face completely, a bit of vowel make-up can completely change a word.
Because while tauschen is about exchanging, täuschen means… to deceive.
Which might seem very random if you just see it in a dictionary, but when you think about it, they’re actually kind of close. Just think of an old medieval market – the was a lot of haggling, bartering, trading and also scamming going on.
And in fact, cheating and gambling were the original meaning of täuschen and tauschen was but a variant with a focus on cheating during trade. Only later did it become “honest”, so to speak.
Unfortunately, the origin of the words is unknown and there are also no known relatives in English that we could use as a mnemonic.
But anyway, let’s look at some examples for täuschen.
- Die Berge sehen sehr nah aus, aber das täuscht.
- The mountains look close, but that’s deceiving.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Die Öffentlichkeit wurde von dem Konzern bezüglich Datenschutz getäuscht.
- The public was deceived by the corporation with regards to privacy protection.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Das niedliche Aussehen der Einhörner täuscht.
- The cute look of unicorns is deceiving/deceptive/gives a wrong impression.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Wie war dein Date?”
“Sozusagen eine optische Täuschung.”
“Oh… verstehe.” - “How was your date?”
“An optical illusion so to speak.”
“Oh, got it.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The more common phrasing in daily life is probably sich täuschen though, with sich as a direct object, in Accusative.
Translated literally, it means deceiving oneself, but in practice it’s not as serious and is often used in the context of having a wrong assumption or impression. And that can go in both directions, so you could also use the phrasing if someone positively surprises you
- Wenn du denkst, Thomas macht den Abwasch von allein, dann täuschst du dich.
- If you think Thomas is going to do the dishes of his own volition, then you’re mistaken.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich habe mich in Maria getäuscht.
- I was wrong about Maria.
(I “gave myself a wrong impression” about Maria…. can be positive or negative.)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And now, this whole notion of realizing that our assumptions or expectations were wrong brings us right over to maybe the most important words of the entire article … enttäuschen. Because that’s the German word for to disappoint.
So in German, we basically “un-deceive”; a deception is removed. Which is such a great description, actually.
And fun fact… I feel like many Germans are not even aware of this connection. Like, there’s a good chance they think of täuschen and enttäuschen as completely different things and never really noticed the connection.
Definitely worth telling your German friend about and see how they react.
Anyway, let’s do some examples.
- Du hast mich sehr enttäuscht.
- You disappointed me.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich wurde einfach zu oft enttäuscht, deshalb date ich nicht mehr.
- I simply was/got disappointed too many times, that’s why I don’t date any more.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
As for the preposition we need to connect the “source” of the disappointment – I think in English, there are multiple options like disappointed in and disappointed by and disappointed with. And I don’t really know what the difference is. Because in German, it’s always done with von.
- Maria ist von Thomas enttäuscht.
- Maria is disappointed by Thomas.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And let’s also do a couple examples for the related words.
- “Wie war die Show?”
“Enttäuschend.“ - “How was the show?”
“Disappointing.“ - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Die Suppe war flüssige, salzarme Enttäuschung – 1 von 5 Sterne.
- The soup was liquid, salt starved disappointment – 1 out of 5 stars.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
All right.
Now, are there other prefix versions of täuschen besides enttäuschen?
Yes, but they’re not all that useful. One of them is antäuschen, which is about feinting a movement. But I think I only ever hear that in the context of sports or fighting.
And then there’s vortäuschen which has a focus on “presenting” a wrong impression.
- Immer wenn Maria wegen dem Abwasch fragt, täuscht Thomas einen Schlaganfall vor.
- Whenever Maria asks about the dishes, Thomas feigns a stroke.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And there’s one more floating around out there in written texts, but I’ll not spoil that right here. You’ll see it sooner or later and you’ll be like “Woooow, this is the best word ever.”
And yes… I’m totally trying to hype you up, so you’re majorly disappointed when you do see it :).
Anyway, let’s wrap this up here.
This was our look at tauschen and täuschen and the surprising connections between exchanging and disappointing.
As always, if you want to check how much you remember, you can take the little quiz I have prepared for you.
And of course if you have any questions or suggestions about any of this, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time :)
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IDK if my last comment went through so here it is again
“Die Suppe war flüssige, salzarme Enttäuschung – 1 von 5 Sterne.”
Shouldn’t “Sterne” have an n? Because of the dative preposition “von” and being a plural?
Great question!!
On a logical level, you’re right. However, “Sternen” sounds really strange for me because then I’d also have to think “eins”. It’s a bit like “1 von 5” is the quantity. The answer to “Wie viele Sterne?”.
Any normal number would go with just Sterne (zwei Sterne, drei Sterne,…) and 1 von 5 kind of just feels like a number.
Does that help?
I’m doing a collection of those “Great questions!!”
I guess it does explain, and i imagine stuff like this would only really happen with the Prep. Von, so ima just watch out for that
Obrigado!
Masterpiece!!!!!!!!
Danke :D
Hello, I have just received a sponsorship by Emanuel, so thanks for everyone sponsoring this website.
My two cents on the nuances of “disappointed with” vs. “disappointed by” and so on:
disappointed in – Typically used for a person, not a thing or an event, and often hints at something like a character flaw or a betrayal. Compare to the use of “in” in “believe in”, “have faith in”, or “confide in”: if I confide in someone (I trust them not to share my secrets), or I believe in someone (I trust them to do a good job), and then they let me down, I may be disappointed in them (I sadly realize my trust was misplaced).
disappointed by – This is literally the verb “disappoint” used in the passive voice, so it implies an event or action has taken place that disappointed you; that action is in the past and it’s final. When I hear bad news, I’m disappointed by it, and I have no choice but to accept it. Note that the thing you’re disappointed by may not be the true source of the disappointment, but rather the messenger:
disappointed with – This basically works everywhere, and implies disapproval but not necessarily final judgment. If you’re disappointed with a court’s ruling, you might still appeal and try to change it; if you’re disappointed by the ruling, you may be more likely to accept it and admit defeat.
… but wait, there’s more!
disappointed that – Essentially means “disappointed by the fact that something happened”. I’m disappointed that I didn’t get the promotion. This avoids the question of who’s responsible for the unwanted outcome. I’m disappointed that we lost the game; I’m disappointed in myself for missing the shot that could’ve saved us.
disappointed to (see/hear/learn/etc.) – Essentially means “disappointed by something I saw/heard/learned/etc.” I was disappointed to hear the next season of my favorite show was delayed, but it’s the delay that’s disappointing, not the fact that I heard about it.
Hi Emanuel! I was intrigued when I read in the Email “Mein Kopf ist Matsch” and I google it but any result poped up. Is that a common expresion? I found only something like “Brain fog” and it was “ich habe Gehirnnebel” ist that also common?
Thank you!!
I was actually hopping for your answer :(
It’s been a day! I’m not a machine.
I know that people would like an answer when they ask something and I do answer pretty much all comments, but this kind of pressuring of makes me not want to.
Oh no, sorry! I see now that it looked like I was being impatient. Actually, I thought you had published it and hadn’t read it through, and that you assumed it was just a comment without a question—that’s where I was heading to with my answer. But yeah, I should have waited a little longer because I understand how it sounded. Please accept my apologies!!
Absolutely accepted and sorry for being snappy about it.
So I googled “Kopf ist Matsch” and I did find a few results (you have to search the full phrase with “”.
I don’t know how common it is or if it’s regional (I am from Berlin), but I am pretty sure, that every native speaker will intuitively understand it. It’s about how you feel after an 8 hour meeting for instance. Similar to brain fog, but maybe more focus on exhaustion than clouded senses.
I don’t think I have ever heard “Gehirnnebel” but it’s fairly intuitive as well.
How about der Brainfog :D
Yeah, that works :).
And actually, just yesterday I read “der Gehirnnebel” in some online mag article which was certainly written “with the help” of Ai, so I guess “Gehirnnebel” is kind of a thing now.
But I like “Kopf ist Matsch” better.
Back when Mimi had a tiny bit of a weight problem – not to us but courtesy of the “doctors” – I’ll never forget the vet feeling her midriff, and tum, and saying she was a bit “matschig”.
We all got thru it ok, but it took a while.
Wow, that is HARSH :D!! Good thing Mimi didn’t understand, otherwise it might have been claw o’clock.
Great article! Also, this is my first comment as a scholarship member and i wanted to thank all the community members who made it possible by donating. It means a lot!
Hello , I just received a sponsorship by Emanuel ,this website will help me a lot in my journey ,so thanks for everyone promoting sponsorships
How does „ Austauchstudent“ fit with the above definition of austauchen? You’re not really replacing a German student with a Brazilian student?
Just like “exchange student” in English :)
Good question, it doesn’t really fit with the notion of replacing.
The basis here is “exchanging cultural ideas”.
The definitions I give are rarely ever hard distinctions. They’re just a guideline or trend but there are almost always uses that don’t really match up.
You have to think of words as a cloud. I’m trying to pin down the center, but at the fringes, the clouds touch other areas.
That was value for money in the extreme. Not literally, but you know what I mean. The connection between tauschen & täuschen makes them both easier to remember. As for ver-,aus-,um- & ein- & yes an- & vor-, they are now hardwired in me.
Happy to hear that :)!
As for the preposition we need to connect the “source” of the disappointment – I think in English, there are multiple options like disappointed in and disappointed by and disappointed with. And I don’t really know what the difference is. Because in German, it’s always done with von.
I would say:
“I am disappointed in you”
“I am disappointed by your behaviour “
“I am disappointed with the way you behaved”
If I mix them up, would it sound wrong though?
Like
– I’m disappointed by you.
– …. in your behavior.
Harsher is when the prep is skipped altogether.. “You disappoint me; you have always disappointed me..”
My feel is “disappointed in” works best with living things.. mom says it to son, cat says it to me, usw.
Direct confrontation für the W.
huuum… then i think as always context is the key. I think I would assume you were dissapointed in me in gerneral (rather than for something in particular) if you said “…by you”, and I would assume you were dissapointed in my behaviour today or at another point in time (rather than in general), if you said “in your behaviour”. Also i think I would be more upset by “dissapointed in you”.
Hallo, Emanuel! I learned the expression ‘Der Schein trügt’ a while ago meaning ‘Appearances are (can be) deceiving.’ But I’m wondering if that’s a poor AI translation because it doesn’t look like ‘trügen’ is used very much- I’m mostly seeing ‘betrügen.’ Is ‘Der Schein kann täuschen’ a better translation for the saying ‘appearances can be deceiving?’ And… what’s the deal with täuschen vs ‘betäuschen?’ Vielen Dank!!
“der Schein trügt” is kind of a fixed phrase and you wouldn’t normally swap the verb for a different one, even if the meaning would stay the same.
“betrügen” wouldn’t work, because it implies “intention” which the “Schein” itself doesn’t have.
“der Schein kann täuschen” does work, but yeah, it’s just more common with “trügen”.
There’s no verb “betäuschen”.
Thank you for clarifying that! I figured it might be a fixed expression.
And so sorry, I mis-typed- I mean to ask if you could clarify the difference between ‘trügen’ vs ‘betrügen.’ :)
“trügen” is pretty much only used with a few nouns, like “der Schein trügt” or “Gefühl trügt”. I don’t think I have ever heard it as a verb for something a person does.
“betrügen” is to cheat, to defraud etc, so that’s one you need to know but “trügen” is for the passive vocab pile.
Vielen Dank, Emanuel- wie immer!!
I would like to exchange/swap these white shoes for green ones.
(what’s the proper verb in English actually? I’m not sure!).
I am from the north of England, I would definitely say exchange in this context.
Danke! Gauging by the comments “exchange” seems to be the number one pick in all varieties of English.
I hope you’re feeling better soon, Emanuel. This is a very useful article. Thank you. In the section on “austauschen” you have the sentence, “There is a fairly big overlap with tauschen and wechseln though.” I presume you meant to write “austauschen” rather than “tauschen.”
Nah, I actually meant that “austauschen” overlaps with both, “tauschen” and “wechseln” :).
Got it.
If you’re “am Austausch” you’re an exchange student or part of an exchange program. So (some of) us foreigners hear that a lot.
Are you sure it’s not “im Austausch” or “auf Austausch”. “am” sounds weird to me here.
Great article, really loved it and others I have read.
“antäuschen, which is about feinting a movement…”
^this is an intereting one. I was going to reply and say it’s feigning a movement, but when I checked in the dictionary you are correct! You perform a feint, which means a sham attach or blow. Interestingly the root is from the French feinte “feigned”. In English, feign means “simulate: pretent to be affected by”…. so both words are clearly related!
What confused me is that “feinting” seems a bit like an “egg-corn”*, in that it is in boxing where you would faint a movement (or feign one, as I originally thought), and the result of your opponent reading this would be that you would be feinting!!**
*damp-squid instead of damp-squib, etc
**as in to lose conciousness! (…after he thumps you)
I think you’re possibly mixing up “faint” and “feint” in the last section of the comment?
I also don’t know what you mean by “egg-corn” :)
Woops! Well, I am an idiot, you are right. D’oh!
“egg-corns” are phrased whose meaning has changed (due to being mis-heard), but whose new meaning still works, ususally in a funny way! So, for example:
egg-corn = what a small child might call an acorn (same shape)
damp squid = damp squib, something that didn’t go off (to do with shooting)… but squids are damp…
and I particulary like:
scandally clad for scantily clad, as both work :-)
There are a few more. Are there any German examples?
I don’t think so, actually. Or I can’t think of any right now. That’s more likely, actually, but yeah… ich steh auf dem Schlauch.
“I stand on the tube”?? Is it an idiom?
Also, “If you’ve read my article on ver- (link below) …” – where?
Ops, sorry, I keep forgetting that I put in these references. Here you go:
https://yourdailygerman.com/german-prefix-ver-meaning/
Yes :) “Ich steh auf dem Schlauch” is an expression meaning that you are kind of blocked mentally right that second and can’t think of something obvious.
In general, “trade” is fairly common as a verb, even on a casual register, for tauschen (at least in AE). I’d use it more often than “swap.” In my experience as a schoolchild, you’d “trade” snacks or bits out of your lunch at school, that sort of thing, even though “swap” would work fine.
It could be helpful for English speakers with enttäuschen to think of “being/becoming disillusioned.” Not quite exactly the same as being “disappointed,” but it’s close enough to help it make sense.
Oh, and where in German you’d say etwas täuscht, I’d say it’s a bit more common in English to use the adjective “deceptive”:
I’d probably use that for the mountain example too. However,
…actually sounds marginally more idiomatic to me than with “deceptive” (and gets significantly more Google hits as well).
Yeah, I based the examples on “Looks can be deceiving” which feels almost like a fixed phrase to me for some reason. I don’t think I have ever heard “deceptive” in this one.
I’ve never heard « deceiving » in this phrase. « Deceptive » sounds much more natural to me – perhaps it’s a difference between US & English English?
If you search for „looks can be deceiving „ there are loads of results
Same for “deceptive” though. I think it really might be BE vs AE.
Another super article, in which I learned a lot, even if the prefix versions are stubbornly refusing to adhere to my brain! More force-feeding required on that score. Now for the slightly painful part: long articles lead to long lists of typos/infelicities/etc. So, well… less talk, more action! Breathe deeply!
==================
properly declare that properly => (double-dipping with properly here: your choice which to ditch!)
Nach dem Spiel tauschen die Fussballer => (Yeah, yeah, it’s probably so boring that you haven’t even noticed how it’s spelt, but I have Fußballer/Fußball in my head. Any reason this one is “ss” rather than “ß”?)
tauschen gegen and tauschen für both exists => … both exist**
Brasil => Brazil (Yeah, yeah… this one occurs twice, for what it’s worth, which ain’t much)
a bit more focus => a bit more focused
word isle for a meaning => word *a*isle for a meaning
Like the jam isle => Like the jam *a*isle
bunch of prefix version => bunch of prefix version*s*
do a post in wechseln => do a post *o*n wechseln (or “about” or “regarding”, oder oder…)
((Top marks for “dishcussion”, by the way!!))
where it’s done intentional => where it’s done intentionally
For instance and oil change => For instance an** oil change
and got a bike for it => and g*e*t a bike for it
It’s about here “handing in” the car => It’s about her** “handing in” the car
to swap it against something else => to swap it with something else (“swap against” sounds a bit skew to me)
Reduces goods /Goods on sale => Reduce*d* goods /Goods on sale
((ps… “order(ing) a bunch of clothes online just to try and then send 80% of them back” is usually called *environmental vandalism*. Well, in my book at least.))
The mountains are looking cloes => The mountains ** look*** clo**s*e* (Weirdly enough, you can say “The mountains are looking wonderful today”, but not “…are looking close”)
wth regards to privacy protection => w*i*th regards to privacy protection.
and often used in contexts of => and *is* often used in *the* context** of (“..in the context of” is kind of a fixed phrase, in that it sounds much more natural than “in contexts…”)
out of his own volition => ** of his own volition (Again, “of his own volition” is pretty much an inviolable/fixed expression. As soon as you change it even a bit all the weirdness that’s locked away (re)presents itself!)
we need to connect “source” => we need to connect *the* “source”
disappointed of => (As others have mentioned below, this one doesn’t get off the ground, but almost anything else can be used instead!)
anttäuschen => an**täuschen (One too many “t”s, by my reckoning! Bonus points for finding a typo in German, methinks!)
Wow, what a mess this was. Proves to me that proofreading doesn’t work.
I normally do not proof read, but this one I kind of proof-skimmed as I was doing the quiz and booom… full of typos.
I bet that wouldn’t have happened, had I not skimmed it again.
(yes, using 2024 Youtube university logic here!)
Thanks a lot for helping me clean this up!!!
Also, two comments… the example about the mountain is really fascninating to me. Why does one work and the other doesn’t. I’m temped to throw that onto English Stackexchange.
And then this:
“So she didn’t “literally” hand in her car somewhere and got a bike for it.”
You suggested I change “got” to “gets” and I’m wondering why? The first part is in past, so why would the second be in present? Would past be really wrong?
It needs to be “get,” not “gets” (you may have misread pmccann).
Oh, now I get it. The “didn’t” carries over, right? To my German brain, “getting a bike” is not really negated. It’s just negated by the other condition not being met.
How would you have expressed that in German, though? (The sentence about Maria not literally handing in her car.)
At least in English, the problem is that a conjugated verb – one that’s clearly present or past – really sounds indicative, saying what actually happens/happened. That’s why “he didn’t got a bike” just sounds so wrong wrong wrong. So all the verbs have to “agree” with the negation or conditional or whatever if they’re part of the unreal situation being described.
Of course, it would be totally fine to say “It’s not as though Maria ‘literally’ handed in her car somewhere and got a bike for it.” English is weird.
– Sie hat also nicht wortwörtlich ihr Auto abgegeben und ein Fahrrad dafür gekriegt.
I think it’s a matter of how I preceive the scope of “nicht” to be and it does NOT feel like the first one applies to “kriegen”. If that were the case, I should be able to put it back in.
– Sie hat also nicht wortwörtlich ihr Auto abgegeben und kein Fahrrad dafür gekriegt.
This makes no sense to me and I would ask what the person means.
The “haben”-helper DOES carry over on the other hand.
– Sie hat nicht wirklich ihr Auto abgegeben und hat dafür ein Fahrrad gekriegt.
It’s not pretty, but it works.
That’s really interesting, because the last version definitely wouldn’t work in English. Like, setting aside the weirdness of using perfect, if you just did it word for word:
Sounds like she somehow got a bike because she didn’t literally (did only figuratively?) hand in her car. The conjugated verb starts a whole new thing – the only thing the two verbs in the sentence share is the subject.
But the first German sentence sounds fine to my Anglophone ear, since it’s all just participles after the negation.
This brings up the whole thing about the difference in meaning between the perfect tense and the preterite. The true perfect tense refers to an action in the past that has an effect on the present. (see Fowler’s Modern English). So if this has just happened, and she now has no car, use of the true perfect would be fine – especially as an exclamation. Two things jar for me though. Firstly the repetition of “has”, which sounds unnatural, and second, the use of the US past participle. “She hasn’t literally handed her bike in and got a bike for it?!” (In an incredulous tone!) sounds fine to me…
Yes, I was trying to show exactly that repeating “has” would make a mess of the sentence, which is apparently different from (at least Emanuel’s) German. For that matter, the fact that the English present perfect is really a description of the present is a major difference between the languages.
Your example would be fine in AE too, though we don’t tend to use the perfect as much in general, so I’d be more likely to say “She didn’t literally hand in her car and get a bike for it?!” But got would never work in that version, either in AE or BE (right?). At any rate, the original sentence was clearly meant as declarative, an explanation.
I make no apologies for the older participle gotten, which the British have so unjustly left auf der Strecke liegen.
“It’s not pretty, but it works.”
If I had a taler for every time someone said that about me..
LOL, that’s a winner in a comedy stand up special :)
The mountains are looking close, but that’s deceiving.
“Are looking” doesn’t work because the mountains are where they are. They’re either far or close, and that’s a fact. There’s nothing that’s changing, no action happening in this particular moment, and nothing that’s incomplete or for a limited duration.
There also aren’t any “side” reasons to use the present continuous, like toning down a statement or emphasizing something.
The mountains are looking wonderful today.
This works because the mountains temporarily look better than normal. Maybe it rained, so the air is clear and the mountains turned green. The implication is they don’t always look this good, and they will stop looking this good at some point (maybe tomorrow when it’s smoggy again).
You could also say, “The mountains look wonderful today.”
“Looking good!” is similar. Someone looks especially good right now, even if they’re good-looking in general. Or they’re doing something especially well right now.
“Stative verbs” is the term you want for a Google search. You might find 5 people with 6 different opinions, but there is some helpful stuff out there :)
“because the mountains are where they are”
Hmmm, but they can LOOK close one day just as they can look wonderful one day and on the next day, they look ugly and far away, even though they haven’t changed in any regard. Just the circumstances around them have, affecting appearance of distance and beauty.
I’m not convinded!
How about “are looking closer than usual”?
Verbs that have to do with senses or perception are tricky. You can use them in the continuous form, but it’s not that easy to get it right. Using examples is the easiest way to show what I mean, so here goes.
Looking
Seeing
Hearing
I feel like we’re getting into some serious black-belt-level English here :D
I could see saying something like “the mountains are looking closer” if we were in a car driving toward them. But yeah, it sounds weird when it’s not a qualitative description following “are looking.”
What about “The horse is looking fast.” then? Or “The mountains are looking hard to climb.”
I really have a hard time “accepting” that “close looking” is not a qualitative description.
I think “looking fast” could work while the horse is running. But I could never imagine saying that about a horse that’s just standing around.
“The mountains are looking hard to climb”… maaaybe, if it’s a changeable or changing condition, like if the weather is bad or the forecast looks bad for the day you’re planning to climb. But every scenario I can imagine where that would apply is one where you’re really just indirectly talking about circumstances, not the mountains themselves as such.
Okay, one last follow up.. what about “The moon is looking big today.”?
And, I assume this doesn’t work:
– The car is looking red.
While this does:
– The car is looking old.
And this does too:
– This is exactly how my car is looking – red with pink rims.
In either case… I don’t think I will EVER fully grasp these nuances of continuous.
I wouldn’t say any of those really work.
…sounds like you think the car is blushing or getting sunburnt or something.
…could actually maybe work – like if you’re just realizing that signs of age are visible? But you’re saying, fundamentally, that right now the car looks old to you, not that it is factually an old-looking car.
The last example just sounds wrong. You’re giving a description of the car, which is always going to be simple present (“how my car looks” or, better, “what my car looks like”).
I don’t know that there’s a lot of subtle nuance, really – present continuous just always emphasizes right now, in the moment, not always. To put it in Spanish terms, it’s always about estar, never about ser. So if you’re using it for something descriptive, it has to be a description that has changed or is changing or is sometimes otherwise.
Basically, you can always use present simple to describe something or someone with “to look.” That should be the default – even if it’s a situation where present continuous might work.
“Basically, you can always use present simple to describe something or someone with “to look.” That should be the default – even if it’s a situation where present continuous might work.”
Awesome. I’ll try to do that from now on :)
Of those sentences, the last one sounds the worst to me. I would say something like, “that looks exactly like my car” or “that’s just like my car.”
“The car is looking red” is probably the second worst. One possible option: “Is it just me, or does the car look kind of red in this light?”
The one with the moon….I tend to just use “is.” “Wow, the moon is really big tonight.”
There are a few Google results along the lines of “the moon is looking extra beautiful tonight.” With words like good, beautiful, or wonderful, you can get away with that. Simple present is still the most common option, and it just sounds good.
“The car is looking old” is something I would say if I walk outside, look at the car, and realize it looks a lot worse than I thought. If someone else said that and I responded to them, I would say, “yeah, it does look pretty old.”
It’s nice to get a bit of affirmation about my native Sprachgefühl. :)
Maybe it’s late in the game, but it’s also probably worth emphasizing the difference between “how someone/something looks” and “what someone/something looks like.” The first is evaluative – good? bad? ugly? – while the second is about distinguishing characteristics, how to identify the subject. My kids (even though we speak only English at home) consistently talk about “how someone/something looks like,” and it drives me nuts.
Anyway, present continuous really works much more often with “how sb./sth. looks” than “what sb./sth. looks like” – just because evaluations tend to be relative and changeable. If you use it with “what…looks like,” that temporary and immediate vibe of the continuous either makes it sound weird or makes the description more about your perception than about the subject.
Ja, genau!!! That’s EXACTLY it :)
Both are incorrect. « She did not hand… » The second verb should be « get », as it is dependent on the “did” construction previously set up, i.e. she (did) get.
This guy is such a hotshot. Emanuel said that he is sick. Some encouragements and get-well-soon wishes would have been more appropriate in the comments. Poking his eyes out for every irrelevant typo is completely uncalled for. Then 90% of the comments deal with the English language, like you guys forget Emanuel is here to teach us German and not for us to teach him English. Most other online German teachers are teaching in German, so that you have to struggle to understand what they´re saying, let alone correct them.
That said, I canˋt help pointig out my favourite mistake (please donˋt hate me): Welcome to your German Day of the Word! :)
Itˋs a funny Wortvertausch – I’m not sure if this exists, but in any case hast du die Wörter vertauscht – and I wouldnˋt have been abe to say this, had I not read te rest of the (very enlightening) post.
My favourite piece of information is that about the medieval markets and how tauschen and täuschen are related, or rather the same. The word enttäuscht is also very interesting. This one is the same in my language, although I had never thought about it, just as most Germans wouldnˋt. We say “dezamăgit“, where dez=ent and amăgit=täuscht. (Romanian)
On an unrelated note, I have recently discovered that the unicorn is the national animal of Scotland. :)
I imagine you know all about unicorns, but I thought I would tell you, on the off chance that you didnˋt know this.
I am also sick right now, so I empathize profoundly. I have the hardest time staying focused, because of the physical weakness. I must triple-check my spelling before I post this, because I know there are some proper Englishmen out there who are waiting to thump on me. :)
Gute Besserung!
Haha, I appreciated the defense but I’d say pmccan and I, we’re banter bros at this point.
Also, I really do like if people help with typos. I hate correcting them, but it’s a much more pleasant read for everyone if they’re not there and it’s also better for SEO.
And also, I chose to work when posting and I also choose to work when I corrected the typos. I wouldn’t do it if I was too sick :).
And I do appreciate the discussions of the English language. Other English speakers tend to find them interesting, and it’s a good look for search engines, so the more well informed comments the better.
So yeah, backup much appreciated, but no need in this case :).
And thanks for the great feedback, too!!
About the “Wortvertauschung”… I’m proud to say that that one was actually on purpose.
Sometimes (not often enough) I’m trying to place these semi conscious anchors in the readers’ brains.
It’s kind of crazy that you have the exact same word logic in Romanian. Makes me suspect that it’s all based on Latin in some way.
And no, I did not know that Unicorns are the national animal of Scotland.
Do they not know how vile these animals are?!?! They drank the unicorn cool aid there big time, it seems.
Dir auch gute Besserung und ich hoffe, du kannst entspannt zu Hause auskurieren!!
Ouch! Harsh audience today… First up, nobody here is waiting to jump all over your excellent English, or that of anyone else commenting here. Quite the contrary. So please don’t agonize over it before posting a comment.
The idea behind (any of us) picking up typos in the main text is not some weird kind of “native speaker flex”, but in order that the article can be more easily read by other English speakers, allowing them to focus on learning about German without having to second-guess some of the more nuanced/slightly_skewed aspects of the English.
Sometimes, such as with this article, that can end up in excursions into the denser thickets of English usage, which is also OK, and often leads back to questions about the framing of such fine-grained differences in German. (More generally: fear not, Emanuel’s well and truly served his time in the language-learning trenches, and can more than hold his own if and when required! Maybe the corrections appear to be slightly blunt, but it’s really just a shorthand, eliminating all the “you might like to” or “I think that maybe”, “is it possible that you?” sort of blah.)
pmccann is a cool cat.
Sometimes I do feel a little guilty for not saying that I really like an article, but it also feels a little awkward to say that too much. Plus it’s just fun to dig into whatever topic comes up in the comments.
I almost always learn something unexpected in the process. Today, I was looking at one of Emanuel’s sentences in English (“The moon is looking big today“) and realized you can probably use “heute” in German (“der Mond sieht heute sehr groß aus”). On my own, I probably would have said “heute Nacht”, since that’s how it is in English.
Or “dezamăgit.” I looked that word up the other day and promptly forgot it. But I think I’ll remember it now that you mentioned it :)
Just a small nitpick about the last question, number 9. It says:
“Of” doesn’t work. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it from a native speaker, and it sounds
prettyreally weird.There are some other prepositions you can use: disappointed at, about, over (fairly common in news articles), regarding (pretty rare and also a mouthful).
I’d be hard pressed to give any kind of guidelines about when to use which one, but this stackexchange thread has some interesting thoughts. Never thought about how complicated this is….
I’m obviously bad at keeping up with news, because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen or heard disappointed over, at least not consciously. I think I’d map the other uses this way:
Really, I think disappointed with is the one I’d recommend English (at least American) learners memorize.
(I didn’t look at the stackexchange thread, though)
Wow, that’s a surprise! I would have thought “by” was the most common one.
Thanks for these nuances!!
Sorry for being SOOOO late to this one, but I actually disagree a bit with the nuances that berlingrabers described…perhaps reflecting regional (Midwest US here), generational (ancient native US-speaker here) or other variations.”To be disappointed ABOUT something” is not so uncommon in my experience – particularly a topic, like election results (sheesh), or the lack of mountains in Chicago – and leo.org says that’s “über etwas enttäuscht sein” while verben.de seems to go with “von” in that passive phrase. Which is more common?
I feel like “enttäuscht über” is more about the “cause” while “von” is about the “bearer”.
– Ich bin von dir/dem Festival/ dem Film enttäuscht.
Here, you’re talking the person or thing disappointing you, but not the actual reason.
– Ich bin über die kleine Auswahl enttäuscht.
With “über” you’re connecting the “reason” that caused the disappointment.
There’s a huge overlap though, the distinction is not sharp and native speakers do use them synonymously at times.
I’ve asked on Reddit now to see what other native speakers say.
So there’s another thread where someone also throws “at” into the ring and says that “of” does exist but sounds archaic.
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/189984/we-are-disappointed-of-someone-disappointed-from-someone-disappointed-in-som
That’s a different meaning that’s now archaic. For example, to “disappoint someone of his legacy.” So to de-appoint him of it, remove it from him. You can see how that’s related to the modern meaning, but that meaning hasn’t existed for well over a century, as far as I know.
Something like “he was disappointed of the result” (instead of “disappointed with the result”) doesn’t sound archaic. Just sounds wrong.
hmmm, where is the quiz?
Ops, forgot to save it in place. Should be there now!
I would like to exchange/swap these white shoes for green one:
I’d go for exchange as i think it feels a bit more specific to the context but swap isn’t wrong. I feel like maybe there are some subtle differences. Curious what other Englishmuttersprachler think.
Great article by the way. I lol’d at the wife swap bit. Meme is a gud’n too
“Exchange” for sure. I think “swap” is just a bit casual/informal – you might use it in that context, but I think it would sound like you’re trying to act jokey or cute. In the business context, “exchange” is just standard.
Yeah, definitely “exchange.” But just for kicks, here’s an email I wrote the other day: