Hello everyone,
and welcome to another epic-sode of the epic series about German Prefix Verbs. What’s so epic about it?
Well, this is you speaking German without knowing about prefix verbs, and
this is you is you after you mastered them. Yeah. Can’t wait. So let’s get right to it and have a look at the meaning of
übergehen
Many prefixes have two quite distinct notions.
Über, the German version of over, is easy on us in that it has only one. Or one and a half. It can express above-ness and across-ness and when you think about they’re closely connected. Across usually involves above.
Just think of crossing a river or crossing a street.
I mean sure, you could cross below it in a tunnel. But at least to me, across has a default built in sense of above and German has fused both ideas into über.
Now, gehen means of course to go, so does that mean that übergehen means to go across or to go over?
Well, it’s not that simple.
Especially because über can be both, separable and inseparable.
So we’re really talking about two verbs here. Three if we add in the r-version rübergehen. And yes, we do have to add that :0.
So let’s look at all three one by one.
The separable “übergehen”
The separable ÜBERgehen, with the typical stress on the prefix, is about crossing from A to B – in all kinds of abstract senses. A very good match is to transition which this is actually the exact same word.
Trans is Latin for over, across and the ition comes from ire which meant to go. But to transition is not always a fitting translation because übergehen is super broad…
- Da vorne geht die Straße in einen Kiesweg über.
- There, ahead of us, the street becomes/turns into a graveled path.
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- Die Songs gehen nahtlos ineinander über.
- The songs are organically merging into each other. (“transition seamlessly”)
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- Mütter, die ihr Baby stillen, sollten nicht zuviel Kaffee trinken, da das Koffein in die Muttermilch übergeht und ihr Baby sehr lebhaft machen kann.
- Mothers who breast feed shouldn’t drink too much coffee because the caffeine gets into the mother’s milk and might make your baby very animated. (transition from the cup to the blood to the milk)
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- Das Firmenauto geht in Marias Besitz über.
- The company car becomes Maria’s property/passes into her possession.
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Quite a range of contexts, right? And there’s more because the verb is also used in sense of transitioning from one behavior to another, or changing habits or procedures.
- Während des Films gehen Thomas und Maria langsam zum Knutschen über.
- During the movie Thomas and Maria slowly transition to French kissing.
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- Immer mehr Universitäten gehen dazu über, online komplette Studiengänge anzubieten.
- More and more universities begin offering courses of study that completely online.
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- Nach der Katastrophe versuchen die Leute langsam, wieder zum Alltag überzugehen.
- After the catastrophe people are trying to get back to their normal day to day routine.
(help, is that idiomatic?) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The noun for the verb is der Übergang. It’s fairly often translated as the transition and unlike the verb, it’s sometimes also used for actual physical crossings… only if there’s walking
- Der Übergang von Studium ins Berufsleben ist nicht immer einfach.
- The transition from studying to having a job is not always easy.
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- Thomas wartet am Grenzübergang.
- Thomas is waiting at the border checkpoint.
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Then, there’s the pretty useful adverb übergangsweise which expresses the idea of for a transitional period
- Maria wohnt übergangsweise bei einer Freundin.
- Maria is temporarily living at a friend’s place.
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and there are few compounds like Übergangsjacke (between-seasons jacket), Übergangsfreund(in) (between-relationships relationship) or Übergangsfrisur which is a hairdo you get to for the not so funky transition period between short hair and long hair. Damn… there really is word for that :). But it’s not important and I think we could have ignored it. And speaking of ignoring, that is the perfect Übergang to the inseparable übergehen :)
The inseparable “übergehen”
The separable ÜBERgehen is about crossing with the focus being to get from A to B. The inseparable überGEHen, with the stress on the GEH instead of the prefix, is also about crossing.
But here, the focus is NOT on getting from A to B – it’s about not “meeting” the thing you’re crossing. Of course we need to mix that with a pinch (or a pound) of abstract to get the real meaning. I think to pass over is the best translation but again it depends a bit on context.
- Thomas wurde bei der Beförderung schon wieder übergangen.
- Thomas was passed over again for promotion.
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- Der Kompromissvorschlag übergeht wesentliche Forderungen der Opposition.
- The compromise proposal omits/ignores essential demands of the opposition.
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- “Du hast Karten für’s Theater bestellt. Ohne mich zu fragen. Ich fühle mich übergangen.”
- “You booked tickets for the theater. Without asking me. I feel passed over.”
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This übergehen is mostly used in context of people and their wishes, it’s slightly formal sounding and is by far not as common as the other one so I’d say let’s put that on the passive pile and move on to something much more useful… the r-version.
The meaning of “rübergehen”
As usual the r-version is the one that actually takes the combination of base-verb and prefix literally. Rübergehen is about actually walking across something with the focus on getting from A to B. People use quite a but when it doesn’t really matter all that much what you’re crossing or if it is implied by context. You can see it a lot in context of streets but also in a more broad sense of walking over somewhere.
- Lass uns mal rübergehen. Kommt doch kein Auto.
- Come on, let’s cross. There’s no car anywhere.
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- Thomas geht rüber zur Bar.
- Thomas walks over to the bar.
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- Ich geh’ kurz zum Nachbarn rüber, nach Salz fragen.
- I’ll go over to the neighbors real quick, to ask for salt.
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Cool. And what about drübergehen? Is it the same? Well, sort of. People do use them interchangeably in many contexts but there are some situations where drübergehen wouldn’t fit.
- Thomas geht drüber zur Bar.
Unless there’s smoldering coal or something interesting to walk across, this sentence sounds wrong because drüber always needs something specific you’re crossing while rüber can be just about the A to B thing. Maybe we can put it this way…. drübergehen is going over it, while rübergehen can be just going/walking over.
By the way, a context where you’d rather use drübergehen is treating surfaces… painting, cleaning, coating, ironing and so on.
- Ich streiche mit weiß vor, und dann geh ich mit grün drüber.
- I’ll put on a white base coat and then I’ll go over it with green.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
In these contexts the focus is really on the surface and not at all on getting from A to B and so h… beeep beeep beeep beeep… oh… haha… that’s actually the alarm of the Who-cares-o’meter. The apparatus has a point. I mean, it’s good to be aware that these kind of annoying nuances exist but you definitely DON’T need to worry about them when you want to speak.
The only thing you do need to keep in mind is the difference between the r-version and the base form, übergehen. Übergehen for abstract transitions, rübergehen for literal crossings. Oh and then there was a non-separable version but I don’t know where it is… oh wait, we put it on the passive pile, did we. Well, I’m too lazy to rübergehen there and get it. I’d much rather übergehen to drinking my Feierabendbier :).
So that’s it. This was our German Prefix Verb for the Day.
As always, if you have any questions or suggestions just leave me a comment.
I hope you enjoyed it, and see you next time.
** übergehen – fact sheet **
separable
Spoken past: form of “sein” + übergegangen
phrasings/meanings:
auf mich übergehen – pass into my possession
zu etwas übergehen- shift a habit or change a procedure
dazu übergehen, etwas zu tun – same meaning, focus on activity
in etwas übergehen – pass over into
related words:
der Übergang – the transition
übergangsweise – temporarily/for a transitional period
non-separable:
spoken past: form of haben + übergangen
phrasings:
jemanden oder etwas (Akk) übergehen – pass over/ignore/skip something
Word for actual location: rübergehen
spoken past: sein + rübergegangen
phrasings:
zu/in rübergehen – go over there (the other side of the street as well as another room)
über etwas (Akk) rübergehen – crossing something (sounds redundant and tautological but Germans do that a lot when they talk about location)
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Loved it!
One typo “ Just think of crossing a bride. You can’t do that when you’re under it. “
I would never, never cross a bride.
I read the comments. I agree about the rot Ampelman dilemma. I have seen it – and felt it – a several times in my stay here in Berlin. My wife is more of the “Look both ways, and make your choice”. I am more of the “respect Lokal traditions” person…unless the ICE I need is leaving soon. I loved the joke about the wall being nothing but red lights.
Wow, I did not know that crossing does not work for bridges. In German, we use “rübergehen” for crossing a street and a bridge but I guess technically, we go along a bridge and across a river, so maybe English does have a point here :)
No, no, no… crossing bridges is perfect. You didn’t spell bridges… you spelt BRIDE. ohne ‘G’
On another note, we just landed back in the US. Berlin was great, Münster was lovely, and all of the towns we biked through had there own vibe and interest to us – as Americans. There is soooo much of Deutschland that we would love to have here. Trains is #1.
You have to come back and check out Ruegen island and Saechsische Schweiz some time.
We already talked about it and said we would cycle from Hamburg to Sassnitz. Or Frankfurt downward…. Eine Richtung, die mit dem Wind ist! Wir sind schon zweimal in der Schweiz. Ich würde gern mit einer Sprache bleiben, die ich vielleicht verstehen kann…
If you go to Ruegen, you MUST explore the South of it.
It’s got so much diverse landscape, perfect for biking and one of my favorite places in Germany.
Anything South of Sassnitz, especially South of Binz.
And the old forest North of Sassnitz of course.
And if you can, check out Hiddensee. It’s a car free island west of Ruegen.
the link for “this is you after mastering prefixes” no longer works
Or it never worked? And we are destined to never master the prefixes
haha, no you’re absolutely meant to master them. The picture is back! Thanks for letting me know :)
ahahaha I can’t wait to reach that point!
The first link to “this is you” refirects to some sketchy virus warning website. probably best to remove/change it.
Thanks for the heads up!!! I changed it (I was an image of a young duckling :)
“Ich gehe über vor Freude.” = “I am overcome by joy.”
This one is a bit special as there is neither a target nor something you cross in the sentence. That is even stranger than with “Er geht hinüber.” = “He transcends.” Where the target is at least implied (the realm of death or just the condition of being dead).
And here you just “go over”. Well, it would be easy to just say: “It is an idiom, it does not have to make sense.” But that would be too shallow I think. There is this a bit older meaning of “übergehen” (separable) Which is “to rise over something”. It is not really used nowadays I think. Duden said something about sparkling wine and how you want to keep it from overflowing. “Pass auf, dass nichts übergeht.” = “Pay attention that nothing slowly shoots out.” (I don’t know about the Wnglish translation.) But I think that is the meaning that is used in this idiom.
“Ich gehen über vor Freude.” =(lit.) “I rise above the border of normality and social customs because of joy.”
Again, a really nice article. I just wanted to add this, as that sentence was the first that came to my mind when I read the title. Cheerio.
Your analysis makes total sense and I think this is how the idiom was coined. The thing with that particular phrasing however is that I wouldn’t even know how to put it in past
– Ich bin vor Freude übergegangen/übergangen?
Both sounds really really odd to me and I feel like the idiomatic-ness is completely gone.
This one made me think of “Mir gehen die Augen über”. This is also pretty weird.
I think here I would use the Präteritum. “Ich ging über vor Freude.” It also seems to be one of these phrases where it sounds strange to put the separated prefix to the end.
I also thought about “Die Augen gehen mir über.” It should be expanable by the same “übergehen” as in the other phrase. “That is such a beautiful sight that my eyes try to get out of their sockets.” = “Da gehen mir die Augen über.”
Here the border is quite physical and is what hinders the eyes from falling out. On the other hand I have no clue. It is all just guessing.
That’s a very good piece of advice. The part with imagining being at a camp fire with a story teller. :) It’s nice to get advice from a Tolkien fan. While reading The Children of Hurin i often got frustrated thinking that maybe i started out reading the books in the wrong order. Like watching a movie series from the 3rd season, without seeing prior episodes. Names of places, of characters, events are abundant on every page, so i got overwhelmed. I even thought of taking a pen and paper and making some sort of family tree for each character to better understand their genealogy, since it was and still is confusing. I guess maybe i’ll go on like this, by reading this one and then continue with The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and so forth. Cause i haven’t read those yet, i was pondering for quite a while what order would be better to read them in.
Have you read the books with a few illustrations here and there? The Children of Hurin has a few illustrated pages by a man by the name of Alan Lee. His imagery really helps the “dreaming” process while reading the book. But they’re not very numerous, therefore the reader’s imagination can conjure whatever mental pictures it wants. Oh and, what did you mean when you said Unfinished Tales is more for the subconscious? Is it lighter in comparison to the Silmarillion?
i’m glad to hear you love Tolkien’s work, too. i really wanted to dive into his universe by reading his books in an order that would help me understand his stories better. maybe it would have been better if i started with The Silmarillion, and then continued with The Children of Hurin, Unfinished Tales, all the way to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. aaaand… there is also another book by him that is connected to these ones which is called The history of Middle Earth. i’d also love to the see more of his works on screen. it was the movies that inspired me to start reading the books and, i must say, i feel like i’m actually in that world with every turn of the page..
The thing with all of these books is that they are essentially the same. Tolkien left an abundance of fragments which his son then ordered. He finally compiled them into a coherent book. That’s the Silmarillion. But he also published them as fragments with a lot of comments and annotations. And then they also published single stories like “The children of Hurin”, which is also a part of the Silmarillion.
I actually did the same as you did. I started with “Unfinished tales” and I got really really confused at times. On the other hand, there are some REAL gems in there that are missing in the “streamlined” Silmarillion. I recall a version of the lore of Beren and Luthien where Sauron (or Morgoth… not sure) was a giant cat. Everything was random and crazy and felt incoherent in the beginning but I somehow really got sucked into the story and the world and I still have a few of the images I imaged in my head. Reading that story in particular was a bit like dreaming… you don’t always understand or remember everything but it is strong imagery and it is inspiring :). I’d say “Unfinished Tales” is more for the subconscious, the soul while Silmarillion is for the conscious side… if that makes sense :). Don’t try to understand everything with the tales, just imagine you sit at a camp fire and someone is telling fantastic stories.
Please keep up the good work. The way you write everything by adding some humor makes the learning process easier and more fun. All the grammar books i’ve come across have a somewhat cold tone that seems kinda intimidating :P Oh and.. Your intuition was quite close. I’m currently reading “The Children of Hurin”. She’s mentioned in there a bit. The Silmarillion is next on my “must read” list :)
I LOVE the Silmarillion and the whole lore. One of the few books I’ve read multiple times. I absolutely want to see this as a TV series!! At least the stuff of the Elben war after they reached Middle Earth. It’s perfect for a big production.
absolutely love your blog! i find it extremely helpful. it’s actually much better than the myriad of books for learning german that i’ve found in stores. i sincerely thank you for the time you invest in writing these posts. it must take a while, i think.. :)
Thanks for the nice feedback. Oh, for some reason I feel like you’ve read the Silmarillion.
Thought of writing “I love you” but it seems there’s a lot of competition ;-)
Thanks for a fantastic blog. Absolutely useful and great fun – you have such a sense of humor!
Haha, yeah it appears there is :). Thanks for the great feedback!!
I am still in love with you!
I’m just a cat explaining German after a nuclear accident in my litterbox gave me superpowers :)
“Froderungen” soll zu “Forderungen” übergehen. :-)
Eine berechtigte Forderung
How could translation “ire” be coming from to go? is it a sense of abstraction?
That’s the Latin word for it. “Ire”. The two are not related but they mean the same.
Erstmal danke.
Was ist mit “drüben”, also beispielsweise geh mal nach drüben.
Good question, that’s essentially the same as “rüber”… these pairs exist for many directions
-ich geh runter = Ich geh nach unten
– hoch – nach oben
– vor – nach vorne
– hinter – nach hinten
You can check out the post on “hinter vs. hinten”. There’s a bit more about that in there.
Oh… sorry für das Englisch… ich komm immer durcheinander, wenn ich Kommentare beantworte.
Hi,
I’ve recently started to follow this blog, and have been enjoying your posts very much. Your explanations of the words, and how they are used in a sentence, are funny and helpful (although I don’t always understand the grammatical structure – weakness on my part).
I always look forward to the sentence featuring the recurring characters of Thomas and Maria (it’s like a continuing story) – nice to see they have patched things up a bit after the yoghurt-eating incident ;-)
Just a small (not very important) note: “After the catastrophe people are trying to get back to their normal day-to-day routines.” would flow smoother – ending the sentence after “day to day” just feels a bit abrupt.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that particular example. Thanks for the fix and also for the nice feedback. And the adventures of Thomas and Maria will definitely continue. And they will get pretty crazy once Thomas discovers that time machine in the basem… but I don’t want to spoil anything :D
Oh, if there’s a structure you don’t understand feel free to let me know. Maybe I can point you to the right post, or at least give you a quick fix.
Thanks – great post as always!
By the way, would you possibly do a word of the day sometime on frieren, gefrieren, einfrieren, erfrieren, zufrieren (and unverfroren), etc.? These are pretty confusing :|
Good idea, but I’ve a lot coming up already. I can give you a quick fix though:
frieren – base verb, used for “to freeze” in sense of people feel very cold
gefrieren – water freezing to ice
zufrieren – freeze over (that’s what lakes and rivers do in winter)
einfrieren – to freeze in sense of putting something in a freezer, also used for toes and fingers sometimes
– erfrieren … freeze to death
– unverfroren… idiomatic word for “blunt, impertinent”
Noch zum oben Geschriebenen kann man hinzufügen, dass “zu”-Verben oft den Sinn des “Schließens” (verschiedener Grade) haben, z.B. zumachen, zudecken, zufrieren, zumauern, zubauen, zukleben, zunageln, …
I love you!
“Lass uns mal rübergehen. Kommt doch kein Auto.
Come on, let’s cross. There’s no car anywhere.”
Hahaha. Unless Germany has changed a lot since I lived there, this is NEVER a good idea. I was yelled at more than once for attempting to cross the street (when the sign said “do not cross”) even though there was NO car in sight. :)
Well, as far as Berlin is concerned we do do our fair share of crossings. If there is no car coming. It’s a fascinating field to examine group pressure. Like, when I walk up to a red traffic light and there are 3 or 4 people waiting, I am much more likely to wait even if I’m in a hurry than if there was no one. And then, if one person breaks the group others will soon follow.
I recently was at a comedy show and there was this comedian who talked about his day job as a tour guide.He said, sometimes during night tours he would try to motivate the German tourists in the Berlin city center to cross a red light. And the very center (Brandenburger Tor and so on) is COMPLETELY empty at night. But they would not cross. And then he was like “Why did the GDR even bother building a wall. They could have just put up traffic lights everywhere that were always red.
That was pretty funny.
Oh and some more traffic light trivia… in Dresden, there’s a traffic light which actually is always red. And it’s not the only one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DeMJOzuFR8
Hilarious! Love the idea about the GDR going to all that trouble to build the Wall — when permanent red lights would have been much cheaper and probably just as effective! Too funny.
He was pretty good actually. He cracked me up several times and that’s quite the feat because the acts before him were either awful or boring and I was kind of in hater mode already. Another good one was this: he would talk about the Pegida movement in Dresden (which is where he’s from) and he’d be like “blah blah blah… yeah, I know they don’t like to be called Nazi… that’s why I call them nahzuy”. (just using English “z” and English “i”) Took me a second to get it but then I cracked up completely. So hilarious.
Dear Emanuel,
Why is this not an ‘um…zu’ construction? “Ich geh’ kurz zum Nachbarn rüber, nach Salz fragen.”
Das ist eine Zusammenknüpfung von “Ich geh’ kurz zum Nachbarn rüber” und “Ich geh’ nach Salz fragen”.
Kleine Korrektur: Zusammenfügung oder Verknüpfung. Wobei Zusammenknüpfung an sich nicht falsch ist. Ist einfach nicht so idiomatisch.
Danke! :-)
That’s the “gehen + verb” structure which doesn’t really fit the standard system.
– Ich gehe [verben].
This is proper German, and not only in colloquial speech. The sentence in question is essentially that, just with a bunch of extra info in there.
– Ich gehe [mal… rüber] [ nach Salz ] fragen.
Hoffe, das hilft.
Ah! Danke schön! Ich habe nichts vorher über ‘ich gehe verben’ – außer ‘ich gehe spazieren’ oder ‘ich gehe klettern’. Ich dachte, sie waren ein paar besondere Beispiele, und keine inoffizielle Regel.
Ich habe nichts…gehört. (Ich habe ein Verb vergessen.)
Wow well noticed!, i can’t wait for the reply ;)
herausragender artikel wie immer! (Artikel oder Beitrag?)
I was wondering about the preposition used with the first übergehen,
“…IN einen Kiesweg über”
“..gehen nahtlos INeinander über”
“..das Koffein IN die Muttermilch übergeht”
“geht IN Maria’s Besitz über”
“Der Übergang von Studium INS Berufsleben”
But:
“..gehen Thomas und Maria langsam ZUM Knutschen über.”
“Immer mehr Universitäten gehen daZU über”
So im guessing if it’s a thing (noun) that you’re crossing/trasitioning then u use “in + akk” but if it’s a verb you’re transitioning to, you would use “zu” , is thing correct?
“In” steht für Zielorte (sowohl abstrakte, als auch konkrete), während “zu” Aktivitäten andeutet.
Jetzt, wo ich diesen Kommentar gelesen habe, ist mir doch Gegenbeispiel zur Theorie von dem Libyer eingefallen:
– zum Angriff übergehen
– zum Alltag übergehen
– zum Hauptgang übergehen (in einem Restaurant)
Aber zumindest “Alltag” kann man auch als Abstrakten Zielort auffassen. Eine Definition, die alle Fälle abdeckt, gibt’s wie’s aussieht nicht (wie immer).
Ist übrigens auch ein Übergang *zum* Berufsleben möglich?
Ja, ich glaub’ das geht. Aber allzu idiomatisch klingt es für mich nicht.
Your analysis is perfect, I think!! I can’t find an example that would fault it. I actually didn’t even realize that I was using two different prepositions.
Oh and “Artikel” is better, I’d say. “Beitrag” would be more fitting for a journal or something where there are several authors discussing one subject.