Word of the Day – “übrigens”

Hello everyone,

I hope you are doing great. I am a little tired today and all I did so far was doing groceries and go for a walk. Spring is finally here, and I have to say that Berlin is really a nice place to be right now because maaan… the city is sooooooo green. There are trees and bushes and high grass and just “in between green” everywhere. And right now everything is blooming. Cherry-trees and lilac and chestnut  which is Kastanie in German. Those are one of my favorites… anyway … so all I did today was buy things, eat things and go for a walk enjoying the green by the way… or is it along the way? Hey, speaking of by the way… do you know the German word for that? That’s what we’ll look at today :).
Wow, longest intro ever.

übrigens

Übrigens is the German word for by the way.  Now, it’s kind of clear why by the way means what it means while übrigens looks like a a real German word put in a blender. But übrigens is not as random as it seems.
Let’s take it apart.
The very core of it is the word über which is the German version for over, in sense of above.
Anyway, to get from über to übrig we just have to add the common German ending –ig and then drop the e. The -ig (or -ich at times) is an ending that transforms a word into an adjective… just like the English –y…

• der Hunger – hungrig
• the hunger – hungry (here, English dropped and e too)

• der Schlaf – schläfrig
• the sleep – sleepy
  

  
  

Based on that logic übrig should something like “overy”  or “kind of over”. And if we think of over in sense of “above the amount that was needed“ then we kind of have what übrig means: remaining and left over.

• “Ich mache jetzt den Wein auf. Willst du auch was?”
  “Nein jetzt nicht, aber lass mir was übrig.”
• “I’ll open the wine now. Do you want some too?”
  “No, not right now, but leave some for me (leave something left over for me – literally)”

• Ich habe noch ein bisschen von meinem Urlaubsgeld übrig.
• I have a little of my vacation money left.

Übrig itself is not used that much in daily speech. The 2 most common combinations are übrig lassen (leave over) and übrig bleiben (remain, be left over)  and there are  2 quite common expressions… the first one is with haben and für.

• Ich habe für Fussball nichts übrig.
• “I have nothing left over for soccer (lit.)”
• I don’t care/am not interested about soccer.

The second one has tricky grammar.

• Mir bleibt nichts anderes übrig als zu warten.
• There is nothing remaining for me but to wait. (lit.)
• I can’t do anything other than wait.

• Was bleibt mir anderes übrig?
• What other is left for me? (lit.)
• What alternative do I have? (implying that I have none)

At the very bottom, the grammar is nothing other then this weird “Mir ist kalt”-thing but I don’t want to get into that too much right now because that would take a while. The phrase is nothing you need to speak fluent German and it is enough if you understand it.
So…. this is the plain übrig. Über transformed into and adjective by adding -ig. And as with any adjective in German or you can make it into a noun super-easily… all you have to do is add an article and an e.

• Die Schöne und das Biest.
• The Beauty and the beast.

• Für viele Deutschlerner sind die Fälle das Schwerste.
• For many students of German, the cases are the hardest part.

Of course we can do this with übrig too. The meaning is then something like the remaining or simply the others… here is one example from summer camp and one from creative camp.

• Thomas, Marie und Jim machen den Abwasch… die Übrigen können schon zum See.
• Thomas, Marie and Jim will do the dishes… the others can go to the lake right away.

• “Okay, also die grundsätzlichen Fragen haben wir ja heute geklärt und alles Übrige besprechen wir dann beim nächsten Meeting.”
• “All right. So I think we’ve pretty much sorted out the basic issues today and we’ll talk about what’s remaining/all the rest/the details in our next meeting.”

Now, again I have to say that this is not used that much… mainly because there are other options like das Andere, der Rest or das Weitere but I think there are region in which das Übrige is quite common.
There is one fixed phrase that you should know which brings us even closer to übrigens… im Übrigen. Literally this means within what’s remaining.

• Nein, ich komme nicht mit in die Oper, denn ich habe eine schlimme Vibratoallergie und im Übrigen habe ich heute keine Zeit.
• No, I will no go to the opera because I am highly allergic to vibrato and besides, I have no time today.

Other possible translation are apart from that or as for the rest.. so basically everything that has this idea of remainder/left over/other in it. Now,  im Übrigen is not used that much in spoken German… hehe… I keep feeding you useless vocabulary today :)… but it is all just to get to übrigens … so… with im Übrigen we are only an s away. And this s is not just a random s… it is the same s as in frühestens or spätestens.

• Ich bin frühestens um 7 zuhause.
• I’ll be at home at 7, the earliest.

This s is a Genitive s. Spätestens super literally means of the latest and  frühestens is of the earliest. Back a few hundred years ago, Germans loved their Genitive and they used it for all kinds of things. This has changed and Genitive often sounds old fashioned today but the few words with this s-structure are here to stay… mindestens (at least), höchstens (at most), wenigstens (at least), schnellstens (the fastest possible) … I think there might be some more and they are all part of every day German.
And so there we are … übrigens… it literally means of what’s left or of the rest/remainder… and that makes total sense as by the way.
Now, how do you use it? Well, just the same idea of by the way… you talk about something and then you change topics and mention something that is a bit unrelated… and übrigens introduces this change of topics.

• “….blah blah blah und deshalb wird die Kernfusion nie funktionieren… übrigens, wie findest du meine neuen Schuhe?”
• “…bluh bluh bluh  and that’s why cold fusion will never work… by the way, how do you like my new shoes?”

Übrigens can be placed at the beginning of a sentence but you can also put it in the middle. At the beginning, you need to pause after it … it is not part of the sentence then

• Übrigens… Thomas und Marie haben sich gestern nach der Party getrennt.
• By the way… Thomas and Marie split up.

Here are the other versions:

• Thomas und Marie haben sich [übrigens] gestern [übrigens] nach der Party [übrigens] getrennt.
• [Übrigens] haben sich Maria und Thomas gestern…

The only place that does work for by the way that is NOT possible is the very end. That would be strange because.. after all übrigens indicates a change of topic… so why indicate it after you are done changing it :)
All right… there is not much more to say actually so we’ll just call it a day here…
Friday.
Yep, that pun certainly was of the lamest.
This was our German Word of the Day übrigens. It looks weird but it comes from über and  it literally means of what other there is… and just to make sure… unlike all the other words we’ve seen today, übrigens IS used … a lot.
If you have any questions or suggestion just leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.