Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. And if you’re a Sissy you should leave right now. Because the word we’ll talk about this is incredibly scary. Behold…
trauen
Hmm… actually, it kind of looks sad. Hey, but do you know what looks sad AND scary?
Marriage.
Ohhhhhhhh, Emanuel is an unromantic millennial.
But no, first of, I am a Prellenial. We’re just as woke, but more diligent and sexier.
And then, I am super romantic. Just check out what I made for my shorty this morning, before she went for her morning dump (click here if you dare) .
Anyway, let’s jump right into the article. That’ll explain a lot. Maybe even this intro :)…
So yeah… trauen certainly does look like it is related to traurig, which means sad. But that’s a coincidence.
Traurig probably comes from the ancient Indo-European root *dhreu which was about falling and which also the origin of drip and drop. Just think of dripping tears or the head dropping.
Trauen on the other is related to the English words true and truth and the German word treu. Now you might think that trauen is something about being right. But there’s actually quite some room for confusion.
The main idea of true nowadays is “not false”. German uses the family of wahr for that.
- Die Geschichte, die Maria Thomas erzählt hat, war ein bisschen wahr.
- The story Maria told Thomas was a little bit true.
- Sag mir die Wahrheit!
- Tell me the truth!
Treu is only true in the sense of being faithful, loyal and that is actually pretty much the meaning of original Germanic word *treuwaz.
- Der Sänger bleibt sich treu.
- The singer stays true to himself.
- Sammeln sie Treuepunkte?
- Do you collect loyalty points?
(super common question at a super market cashier, is that idiomatic English?)
- Maria verspricht Thomas, ihm ein bisschen treu zu sein, während sie im Urlaub ist.
- Maria promises Thomas to be a little bit faithful to him, while he is on vacation.
Wait, “a little faithful”? That sounds complicated. They will have to talk about trust, I guess.
And so will we. Because trust is also a member of this family… uh… hold on, I gotta do something… *Emanuel, pats himself on the back for the transition… that makes perfect sense; we do trust people that are truthful and loyal. And to trust is the meaning of the German verb vertrauen.
Wait, vertrauen? Why not just trauen?
Well, trauen used to mean to trust and vertrauen, with the for-idea of ver, was just a slightly more personal sounding version of it.
But there was a desire, a yearning in trauen and one day, around its birthday, it bought a van and a surf board and and was like “Bro, we need to talk. I need to move…”
And vertrauen was like “No need to say more, bro! Follow your dreams!! I got your back, trust me.”
And so vertrauen became the main word for to trust.
- Das ist nicht scharf. Vertrau mir!
- It’s not spicey. Trust me!!
- Ich vertraue meinem Bauchgefühl und gehe auf Toilette.
- I trust my gut feeling and go to the toilet.
- Thomas hat Maria vertraut.
- Thomas trusted Maria.
The verb itself is super useful already but there also some really cool related words.
- Maria hat ihrer Frisörin ein Geheimnis anvertraut.
- Maria trusted her hair dresser with a secret/confidentially told her ….
- Dieses Beispiel ist streng vertraulich.
- This example is classified.
- Diese Brücke sieht nicht sehr vertrauenserweckend aus.
- The bridge doesn’t look very trustworthy (lit.: “trust awakening”).
And let’s not forget about das Vertrauen, which is trust and confidence.
- Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser.
- Lit.: “Trust is good, control is better.”
(is there a good English counterpart?)
- Du hast mein Vertrauen missbraucht.
- You betrayed my trust.
- Eine Ursache von Paranoia ist fehlendes Urvertrauen.
- One cause of paranoia is missing basic trust (psychological term)
- Der Erfolg war gut für Marias Selbstvertrauen.
- The success was good for Maria’s self confidence.
By the way, for those of you who are interested in etymology… the origin of confidence is the Latin fidere, which was also about trusting and being loyal and it’s actually where fealty, federal and faith come from. I was pretty surprised when my interns told me about that.
Not as surprised as I was when they told me they think it’s unprofessional of me to the prep meetings hungover, unkempt, unprepared and late. What the f**p?!?! If I want to come to the office without taking a shower, I’ll do just that. How dare they?!?! Damn millenials and their damn confidence.
But hey, speaking of confidence and daring, that brings us right to our actual word of the day trauen.
By itself, it can still mean to trust, but that’s rare and I think you only ever see it in context of not trusting a stranger, being suspicious.
- I traue ihm nicht.
- I’m suspicious of him/ I don’t trust him.
What’s useful is the trauen with a self reference – sich trauen. A few hundred years ago, this simply meant to trust yourself. But slowly the phrasing shifted more and more toward what you might do when you trust yourself… taking a risk. Or in one word… to dare.
THAT’S what sich trauen means today and it’s pretty common because Germans also use the negative version to express that they’re scared.
- “Na komm, frag sie nach ihrer Telefonnummer.”
“Ich trau mich nicht.” - “Come on, ask her for her phone number.”
“I’m scared/(I don’t dare).”
- Seitdem er die Einhorndoku gesehen hat, traut sich Thomas nachts nicht, auf Toilette zu gehen.
- Ever since he saw the documentary about unicorns, Thomas doesn’t dare to go to the toilet at night.
- Ich habe mich nicht getraut, ins Wasser zu springen.
- I didn’t have the guts to jump in the water.
I was actually a bit confused while thinking of the examples whether it is mir trauen or mich trauen because both sound kind of okay to me. But I think that’s just a regional thing and the Accusative (mich, dich) is the proper choice, while the Dative (mir, dir) is the proper choice for the prefix version zutrauen. This is not about guts though, but about the feeling that someone is capable of something. And it works for both, yourself and another person.
- Traust du dir zu, den Marathon zu laufen?
- Do you think you’re up to the challenge of running a marathon?
Lit.: “Do you trust to yourself to run a marathon?”
- “Maria hat dem Einhorn so richtig die Meinung gesagt.”
“Das hätte ich ihr nicht zugetraut.” - “Maria told off the unicorn.”
“I didn’t think she had it in her. /I didn’t think she could do it.”
Cool.
And I think, that’s pretty much it for today. Well… except one thing. Trauen is also used in context of marriage.
Now some of you might be like “Wait, I though that was Hochzeit.”
And some other might be like “Wait, I thought that was Ehe.”
And again some other might be like “And I though it was Heirat.
And you’re all correct. But hey, why use three words when you can use four, right? Trauen itself is sometimes (very rarely) used for the act of getting married, die Trauung is the marriage ceremony and der Trauzeuge/die Trauzeugin is the person walking the bride/groom to the altar.
Nothing you need to remember, but I wanted to mention it because it kind of brings all the ideas together. I mean, marriage is being treu (faithful) , it’s about vertrauen (trust) and you need to trauen yourself (dare) and ask your partner :). Oh and by the way… we already mentioned the Latin fidere and that it’s the origin of confidence and faith. Well, it’s also the origin of fiancee and infidelity. All one happy family :)
And that’s it for today, this was our look at the family of trauen and vertrauen.
As always, if you have any questions or suggestions or if you want to try out some examples, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
** vocab **
sich (acc) trauen – to dare, to have the guts
sich/jemandem etwas zutrauen – belief that someone is up to a challenge/has something in them
zutraulich – nice, friendly, not scared of humans (for animals)
treu – true, faithful, loyal
die Treue – the faithfulnes
die Untreue – infidelity (in relationships)
jemandem vertrauen – trust someone
das Vertrauen – the trust, confidence
das Selbstvertrauen – the self confidence
das Urvertrauen – the basic trust (psychological term)
vertraulich – confidential
vertrauenswürdig – trustworthy
vertrauenserweckend – trustworthy (“evoking trust”)
wahr – true
wahrscheinlich – probably (true-seeming)
die Wahrheit – the truth
heiraten – the action of getting married
hat geheiratet – has done the action of getting married, has married
ist verheiratet – is in the state of being married
die Hochzeit – the wedding
die Ehe – the marriage
die Trauung – the wedding ceremony
der Trauzeuge/die Trauzeugin – witness of marriage (person walking the bride/groom to the altar
Hi Emanuel-
Can you provide some usage tips between wagen vs sich trauen?
For example any difference in these two sentences:
Ich traue mich nicht, das noch einmal zu tun.
Ich wage nicht, das noch einmal zu tun
Thanks!
“Can you provide some usage tips between wagen vs sich trauen?”
Yes, here it comes: don’t use “wagen” :).
Leave it for the passive vocabulary.
Generally, “wagen” is a bit more “epic” so the stakes a bit higher, but you rarely hear people using it in daily life.
You could also add “betrauen” = entrust someone with something. I saw this word on a Lingoni YouTube short. Kennst du vielleicht jemanden, der sie (eine hündin) betreuen könnte?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AXLjNh57Rn4
Sorry. You can delete that. betreuen. Not betrauen. Oops.
True, thanks for mentioning it. I do have it in my dictionary, but I forgot to tie it up with the family, so now I have :)
https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning/deru-dreu/trauen/betreuen/
I’d translate “Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser” with “Trust is good, confidence is better” – for U.S. English people. An Englishman would may rather say “Trust is good, knowing is better”…? Just made this in my mind, I’m not at home in any of the two languages…
The vibe of “Kontrolle” and “confidence” is very different though, wouldn’t you agree? Like… the German saying is usually used in contexts where someone double checks something even though they actually have reason to trust. I can’t see the version with “confidence” fit in there. Unless you mean “confidence in what I have verified myself”.
I’m not a native speaker either, so yeah… I can’t ultimately tell :)
For some reason, I find this word mesmerizing. It also shares its Indo-European root with the English “TREE”, the German “TROST” and the Greek “DENDRON”. How cool is that?
Wow, I didn’t know about these two connections. That’s an impressive meaning tree :).
Hallo Emmanuel and thank you for your wonderful blog.
Can you please explain why it is ‘vertrau mir’ and not ‘vertrau mich’?
Also, this post does not appear in your vocab list on your home page for some reason.
Thanks
Annie
Hey Annie, yeah my archiving is a bit “incomplete” :). The “Home” page only shows the most recent 4 posts though. I think you mean the “by wordtype” archive. I always forget to update that one :).
About your question:
I didn’t mention it explicitely, I think, but “vertrauen” always goes with Dative.
If you look at the examples again you’ll see it:
– Ich vertraue dir/meinem Bruder/ihm/mir…
Does that help?
Does “Ich vertraue meinem Bauchgefühl und gehe auf Toilette“ sound as funny as it does in English?
So, can I say
„Wenn ich meinem Bauchgefühl vertraue, gehe ich auf Toilette.“
as a funny response to someone who says that he trusts his gut feeling?
It does work, but I’m not sure everybody would understand the pun right away :)
Ich habe zwar doch ein Paar Comments hier geschrieben aber ich traue mir halt nie zu. Ich bin immer so, wie jetzt, unsicher! Und darum geht meine Frage!
Und zwar was sind die Unterschiede zwischen “Selbstvertrauen”, “Selbstbewusstsein” und “selbstbewusst”?!
Übrigens sehr vielen Dank für alles was du hier mit diesem Blog machst.
“Word of the Day” is great, Emmanuel! I always dreaded learning vocab, but this makes so much sense, especially with the etymology.
By the way, is “trauen” related to “trauern”?
Great you like it :).
As for “trauen” and “trauern”… me too, I expected them to be related but they’re not. “trauern” and “traurig” (sad) are related to the family of “to drip” and “drop”. Think of tears dripping and your head dropping :)
Ich VERTRAUE darauf, dass du die Feiertagsgeschenke erhalten hast, die ich dir geschickt habe.
Ich brauche keine Wertschätzung, nur das VERTRAUEN zu wissen, dass PayPal geliefert hat.
TRAUST du DICH (Hast du die Traut), uns zu sagen, wo du barkkeepst, damit mein Mann und ich im Juni in Berlin ein Bier trinken können?
Es braucht viel SELBSTVERTRAUEN, um das alles in einem öffentlichen Forum zu schreiben.
Wow, toll, dass du dich traust!! Und du solltest mehr Selbstvertrauen haben, denn das war ohne Fehler!!!!!!
Trau dich bloß nicht, nochmal in Englisch zu schreiben. Dann gibt’s Ärger :)
Was meinst du denn mit Feiertagsgeschenk?
Und Barkeepen tue ich im Moment fast garnicht. Ab und zu im Supersonico, aber echt unregelmäßig.
Und ich glaube, ich bin leider gar nicht in Berlin, wenn ihr hier seid. Mitte Juni bin ich in Slowenien eine Woche wandern :).
Ich brauchte ungefähr eine Stunde, um das oben zu schreiben.
Jeden Feiertag (Weihnachten, Neues Jahr, Valentine, usw), schicken ich ein Geschenk durch Paypal. Ich brauche deine Emailadresse, um ein 10 € zu skicken. Die info@germanyaddayadda-adresse, glaube ich.
Wandern in Slowenien! Spaß! Too bad for us, we’ll (Husband and I) be in Berlin for the Stones concert and were hoping to have a beer at the bar, introduce myself and give you a face to put on my “handle”. Another time, perhaps. Will check Supersonico, though. We’re vegetarians, is that in the “Veggie-district”
Haven’t had time to devote to writing this properly, gotta be somewhere – check your PayPal account for “gifts” from mich! Think I started at Halloween or xmas, don’t remember.
Bear in mind that “to control” and “kontrollieren” are close to being false friends. In Dict.cc, nearly all the English translations of “kontrollieren” imply checking, verifying etc rather than the process of governing, which “control” normally implies – eg “The temperature is controlled by a thermostat” – the thermostat doesn’t just check the temperature, it turns the heating on or off to adjust it. “Control” very occasionally appears in the “checking” sense. Computer printout of financial accounts would often include the term “control total”, meaning a total used for checking purposes. A “controlled experiment” or a “randomised controlled trial” imply the creation of two sets of circumstances to check that a phenomenon appears in one and not in the other. A typical example would be a drug trial where one set of patients is given the drug on trial and the “control group” is given an inert substance known as a “placebo”. Generally speaking, though, it looks as if “kontrollieren” should hardly ever be translated as “control”.
Hmmm, I never realized that but you’re right. They don’t overlap that much (though I wouldn’t call them false friends).
I think the nouns “die Kontrolle” and “the control” match up better.
I have to ask though… how do you know about these nuances :)? Are you billingual? Or really really good at German?
No – my knowledge of German is pretty rudimentary but I think I have found the same confusion in other languages (eg Russian which I have largely forgotten). The nuances are all on the English side!
I’d personally say they are pretty much false friends. First time I encountered this was collegues using the word “kontrollieren” to check the work received back by freelancers. You just wouldn’t use the word “control” for this. I agree with your examples,the only other use of “control” I could think of that does have some of the sense of the german “kontrollieren” is “passport control”
Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser.
Lit.: “Trust is good, control is better.”
(is there a good English counterpart?)
This reminds me of President Reagan saying, “Trust, and verify!”
Thank you to everyone who donated a little bit more for making me able to read so much amazing lessons and to be a part of this amazing community!
Vielen Dank für die Hilfe :)
So, could I translate the signature quote from Col. Nathan R. Jessup (USMC) as…..
“Sie können sich nicht die Wahrheit verabeiten!!!
Sorry, when you started talking about “the truth”, I wasn’t sure that I could handle it. :)
Yes, looks like you can handle it :).
Some small corrections though: “verarbeiten” is not used with a self reference and the “nicht” has to go further back
– Sie können die Wahrheit nicht verarbeiten.
I looked up the quote in German and they translated it as
– Sie können die Wahrheit doch garnicht ertragen.
A bit long and blah blah if you ask me :)
Thanks, Emanuel. This is great. I’ve never been able to keep straight the differences between vertrauen, traunen, and zutrauen.
Freut mich, dass ich helfen konnte :)
Right, I don’t think English has a “control” saying like that.
I also thought of the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” where the weddings include a vow of “I pledge thee my troth”. We might also say “I will be true to you”.
Great article, Emmanuel!! :) Danke shön!
chg
Ha… that movie :).
If anyone wants to venture a guess how the German title was, go ahead… which of the wedding words did they use :)
I really liked the confidence mouse
she’s a savage though :)
Is it as common in German to dare someone to do something as in English? For example, “I dare you to eat this ghost pepper.” Would you say “Ich traue dich….”?
Great question, glad you brought that up. So, “trauen” does NOT work for this usage of to dare. It is based on the phrasing “trust oneself” so you can’t do that to someone else (“ich traue dich”).
I tried to come up with a good translation for “I dare you to…” and it depends on contexts. If you’re going for something like a bet, you’d say:
-“ich wette dass du nicht…”
– “I bet that you won’t … ”
If you want to use it in a threatening way you’d say “wehe”:
– Wehe du machst das. Dann bin ich wirklich sauer.
– Don’t you dare do that. I will be REALLY mad.
So I wondered about “trout” (“Forelle” in German) and looked it up in the Online Etymology Dictionary. Not surprisingly, it’s derived from a different root, but then I found this little gem at the end of the article:
“In late 17c. slang, trusty trout was used in a sense of ‘confidential friend.'”
Coincidence? I THINK NOT
Ha… nice one. Also, “trout” made me think of the German word “die Traute”. That’s a synonym for “Mut”
– Ich hatte nicht die Traute, ….
– I didn’t have the guts ….
… might be a Berlin thing though, and it’s kind of rare. Millennials might not know this, because they don’t read enough.
“Emanuel, FYI, we do read a whole lot…….. “
Interesting that in Duden I only found “vertrauenerweckend,” – ohne s. I’m assuming you could say both, though?
Oh, that’s interesting, indeed… or should I say, indud ;).
Seriously, to me, it sounds REALLY weird without the “s” and it doesn’t roll of the tongue quite as well but that might be a regional thing (I’m from Berlin) .
I did a search with Google n-gram and the two are moving toward a tie.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vertrauenerweckend%2C+vertrauenserweckend&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=20&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cvertrauenerweckend%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cvertrauenserweckend%3B%2Cc0
Duden should go with the times and mention both.