vorgehe
Hello everyone,
and welcome to a new episode of the acclaimed HBO series Prefix Verbs of Thrones, this time with a look at the meaning of
vorgehen
Gehen means to go, and vor is all about the idea of ahead, forward. So it would make a lot of sense if vorgehen meant to go forward.
Does it?
Well, it’s like Maria’s relationship status on Facebook.
Complicated.
So let’s take a look, shall we :)
Vorgehen, to some extent, does mean what the combination of the parts would suggest. For one thing, it can be used in the literal sense of going to the front though nach vorne gehen,which is more proper.
- Der Schauspieler geht vor/nach vorne zur Bühne.
- The actor goes forward to the stage.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Then, it can be used in the sense of to come first, but only in a few contexts.
- Sicherheit geht vor.
- Safety first.
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And vorgehen can also mean to go ahead.
- Der Gang sieht gruselig aus. Geh du vor.
- The hallway looks creepy. You go ahead.
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- Du kannst schon mal vorgehen. Ich komm gleich.
- You can go ahead. I’ll be right there.
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But ONLY in the literal sense of walking ahead and in case of a watch, being fast.
- “Hey, wie spät ist es?” (among buddies, don’t ask strangers that way)
“Kurz nach 6. Aber meine Uhr geht ein paar Minuten vor.” - “Hey what’s the time?”
“A bit past 6. But my watch is a few minutes fast/”ahead”.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Vorgehen does absolutely NOT mean to go ahead in phrasings like this one.
- “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead.” - “Kann ich dich was fragen?”
“Klar, (mach ruhig). (“klar” alone is enough here)
“Klar, geh vor.”…. SUPER CONFUSING!!!
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The translation for that depends on context and sometimes it’s actually best to just skip it entirely in German. But vorgehen doesn’t work AT ALL. It wouldn’t even be understandable because it would sound like the person should literally walk somewhere.
- Oh no, my boss is calling. I have to take this. You go ahead and eat so it doesn’t get cold. (at a restaurant)
- Oh nein, mein Chef ruft an. Ich muss rangehen. Aber iss du mal schon, wird doch sonst kalt. (I used super idiomatic language here, don’t do a word for word analysis)
- … rangehen. Geh du vor und iss….. NOPE!!!
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So, vorgehen does NOT mean to go ahead in the sense of proceeding.
And now guess what vorgehen is actually kind of the exact copy of… exactly: proceeding.
God, German. You suck.
But seriously… proceed literally means “to go forward”. “Cedere” , which is also part of words like concede or precede or recession, is Latin for “to go (away)” and pro is actually a brother vor and for and can just like them express forwardness.
Now, that doesn’t mean that vorgehen is a good translation for to proceed. Usually it isn’t because whenever proceed has a focus on continuation, vorgehen doesn’t fit anymore.
But the idea of some sort of process is part of all the more abstract uses of vorgehen.
First up, vorgehen is a somewhat technical sounding option for taking action in a planned manner.
- Wie wollen wir vorgehen?
- How should we go about it/(start and) proceed?
What steps of action should we take?
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- Der Politiker hat das Vorgehen der Polizei kritisiert.
- The politician has criticized the course of action/actions/approach of the police.
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- Thomas geht gerichtlich gegen seine Ex-Firma vor.
- Thomas takes legal action against his former company.
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It can be also used in a more general sense of stuff going on, which is also a kind of process.
- Was geht hier vor? Warum sind alle nackt?
- What’s going on here? Why is everyone naked?
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It’s not like German has enough words for stuff happening already (passieren, geschehen, sich ereignen, los sein). What makes this one useful is it’s “inner” version. Stuff happening in your mind or soul.
- Ich würde manchmal echt gerne wissen, was in deinem Kopf vorgeht. (usually in a negative context)
- Sometimes, I’d really like to know what you are thinking/what’s going on in your head.
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- Thomas hat oft keine Ahnung, was in Maria vorgeht.
- Often Thomas has no clue as to what is moving Maria/what’s going on in Maria’s head/heart.
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Note that it’s not a pure thought process. It’s about emotions. But yeah, this one is worth adding to your active vocabulary.
Cool.
Last but not least, there’s the noun der Vorgang and this is as close to process as it gets.
- Der Loginvorgang konnte nicht abgeschlossen werden.
- The login-procedure could not be completed.
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- Um den Vorgang abschließend bearbeiten zu können, benötigen wir von Ihnen folgende Unterlagen: [insert long list here]
- To uhm… process the case conclusively … be able… uh… we need the following underlyin… uhm wait, Unterlagen means documents… what the hell…
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God, this language must be awful for a learner :).
Vorgang fits right in there, because it’s pretty stiff sounding but you’ll definitely come across it if you ever make contact with German bureaucracy.
We’re almost done but of course when looking at prefix verbs we need to look at one particular variation of it. If you’ve read a few entries in this series you know that I’m talking about the r-version.
For verbs with vor- that’s always going to be a her-version.
hervorgehen
Hervor, basically combining here and forth, expresses the idea of coming out from under something or behind something. Like, the sun can come “hervor” from behind the clouds. And hervorkommen is actually much more common, but hervorgehen is about the same idea. It can mean to come from or to say but these translations are really not telling you very much about the actual use, so let’s just look at some examples.
- Aus dem Jazzhaus-Wohnprojekt sind viele bekannte Künstler hervorgegangen.
- Many famous artists came from/have their roots at the Jazzhouse-living-project.
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- Aus der Statistik geht klar hervor, dass politisch Konservative eine 10 mal höhere Wahrscheinlichkeit haben, ein lebendes Einhorn zu sehen als der Gesamtdurchschnitt, Punkt.
- The statistic clearly says/shows that politically conservative people are 10 times more likely to see a living unicorn than the overall average. Period.
(average: zero sightings in 500 attempts, conservative: zero sightings in 1.000 attempts, conservative need more trials to see no unicorns so chance to see not “none” is greater than for average #myheadhurts #spicerfacts)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
It sounds a bit high brow and it’s nothing for day to day conversation. But at least the last use, as to say to show, is one of those drivel words that’ll give the person reviewing your B2-exam a proper hard-o… uhm… I mean, they’ll like it very, very much (phew, that was close).
All right, and I think that’s it. This was our look at the various meanings of vorgehen, not the most common verb ever, but I’m sure you’ll see it around.
As always, if you have any questions or suggestions or if you have a fun bureaucracy story about a Vorgang, just leave a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Oh, and leave a like if you enjoyed… it’s like Youtube now here :).
** vorgehen – fact sheet **
meanings:
– go to the front (quite colloquial)
– go ahead (literally walking with a head start)
– to take action in a planned manner
– take legal action (gerichtlich gegen jemanden vorgehen)
– to go on (limited to a few phrasings)
– go on in someone’s mind/soul (in jemandem vorgehen)
– be fast (only for a watch)
past
ging vor
form of sein + vorgegangen
related words:
das Vorgehen – the course of action
die Vorgehensweise – the way of going about something
der Vorgang – the process, the procedure, the proceedings,; very common in bureaucracy
hervorgehen aus: come from (in sense of emerging), say/show (for texts and images)
Further reading:
Hi Manuel, I was hoping that you could answer a quick question on when to use “für mich” as opposed to “mir” to indicate that something pertains to you personally.
Like how you say “Mir ist es wichtig, dass…”, while I assume “Für mich ist es wichtig” is less idiomatic.
So would you then say that “Mir geht Sicherheit vor” is the best way to say “For me, safety comes first”?
Or would you just say “Für mich geht Sicherheit vor”?
Thanks for all your work!
Sure thing :).
That unfortunately depends to an extend on the exact context.
“- Das ist mir wichtig.
– Das ist wichtig für mich.
Here, both are correct, but the Dative version (like usual) sounds a bit more “personal”.
Maybe you can check this article and if you have follow up questions, let’s clear them up in the comments there :)
https://yourdailygerman.com/common-mistake-using-mir/
Danke Emanuel!!
Hey man, I found an interesting structure in the wild and I was hoping you could shed some light on it: “vor sich gehen”.
It seems to express a similar thing as “vorgehen” im Sinne von passieren, geschehen. Like “Was geht hier vor?” or “was geht in deinem Kopf vor?”
What’s the difference? Why might the author have chosen to say “Wie das Vergessen vor sich geht” and not “Wie das Vergessen vorgeht”?
Phew, nice question!!
“vorgehen” if there is a subject, often has a proactive sense. There’s a notion of intent.
The only exception, (I think) is was-questions
– Was geht hier vor?
– What is going on here?
“vor sich gehen”, which is not a prefix verb, just to make sure, is about to be going on without a direction. You have a box and something happens inside, a process.
That’s why you use that for “das Vergessen”.
– Wie das Vergessen vorgeht.
That sounds like the forgetting is pursuing some kind of agenda.
This was a hard question to answer though, and I might have missed out on some uses that contradict what I said :)
Was ist denn genau der Unterschied zwischen das Vorgehen und der Ablauf (oder die Verben vorgehen und ablaufen als “to proceed” übersetzt)?
Ich habe beides auf der Arbeit gesehen aber kann nicht erfassen, ob es einen Unterschied gibt.
Ich habe irgendwo auch das Verb “verlaufen” mit der selben Bedeutung gesehen, ist verlaufen auch “to proceed/taking action in a planned manner”? Was ist nochmal der Unterschied?
Danke im Voraus,
Interessante Frage!
“das Vorgehen” hat den Fokus auf den Handlungen und es gibt nicht unbedingt eine festgelegte Reihenfolge.
– Die Presse kritisiert das Vorgehen der Polizei.
– The press criticized the behavior/actions of the police.
Der Ablauf hat den Fokus auf “A, dann B, dann C” und die Übergänge dazwischen.
Der Verlauf ist ähnlich, aber nicht so fokussiert auf Reihenfolge, sondern auf den “Fluss”.Du findest es sehr oft in nicht geplanten Kontexten.
– Der Krankheitsverlauf
– the path/progression/process of the disease
Hilft das?
es hilft sehr für den Arbeitsbereich. Deine Erklärungen sind immer die besten :)
Ist “hervorragend” auch damit verwandt?
Mit “vor” ja, aber mit “gehen” nicht.
Das Grundverb ist “ragen”.
In these examples I notice that you use “du” in some of the imperatives – “Geh du vor” and” Iss du mal schon.” How would these feel different without the “du”? And thanks – I’m finding your site really helpful!
Great question!!
With the “du” they sound MUCH friendlier and informal. Like a suggestion more than a command.
The “mal” in the second example is also a “softener” but the first one without “du” sounds a bit blunt.
Hope that helps :)
Ah, thanks! I never knew that.
Sehr schön, danke!
Sehr gerne :)
You mentioned that vorgehen does not mean “proceed” whenever the action has a focus on continuation – what would be some examples of verbs that fit that meaning of proceed?
I was thinking of continuation in the sense of continuing to do something. The most common way to get that idea across in German would be using “weiter” in combination with a verb.
– You may proceed.
– Du kannst weitermachen.
A more formal option would be “fortsetzen” and “fortführen”. You’d use those for proceeding in contexts of a cooperation for instance.
Hope that helps.
Now it’s clicked. Thanks!
Isn’t vor also more like bevor (before)?
So when someone is saying vorgehen: is it like you before me?
(geh du vor: for example)
and so there is also the verb ‘vorhaben’: to plan in advance about what you have to do later…
Yeah, “vor” can be both, about space and time. I’m actually going to do a post on “vor” very soon, where I’ll round up all that stuff.
As for “vorhaben”, I covered that in my article on “haben-prefixed” :).
I would like to thank everyone very much who made it possible for people like me to learn german using this website by providing extra money!
Thank you! for me this website posts are more to me like “one more post and I will close” Facebook thing xD
Wow, that’s great. Really glad to hear that :D
moderation? I recommend “Moderation in all things.” Especially in Abstinence!
I concur :)
Use of vorgehen: You should not use it saying “I’ll forego my usual wine this evening.”
Because wine aids the digestion :)
Just to make sure… that’s not an instance where “vorgehen” would work :)
This is one of those cases of verb mixing… The word you’d use for “auf etwas verzichten” would be “forgo” (no “e”), related to “VERgehen” (not that “vergehen” would work any better there in German, I grant you). “Forego” basically doesn’t exist in modern English except in participle forms: “a foregone conclusion” is a pretty typical expression for something inevitable, decided long before the end of whatever process is going on. “Foregoing” refers to something previously stated/written; it’s really restricted to bureaucratic/legalese writing, though.
Good one today. Could you try to explain what that “schon mal” part adds to “Du kannst schon mal vorgehen”? I probably would have left that out, is it the same without? I’ll have a look in your words of the day section too.
The “schon” just expresses or underlines that the person doesn’t have to wait anymore (it’s already leaving time kind of) and the “mal” softens the statement and makes it sound casual.
“Du kannst schon vorgehen”… this is pretty much the exact same, “mal” only makes it sound even more friendly. “schon mal” is a super common combination though, so it’s kind of just automatic if people use it instead of just “schon”
“Du kannst vorgehen” is a little bland.
Hope that helps.
Emanuel love the baked in satire – you realise your chance of entry to the United States is now zero?
I’m British and we’re preparing for the Orange One’s royal visit.
Will he meet the Queen? Those two together are even more odd a couple than Merkel and him XD
And they say Germans have no sense of humour?! thanks for the giggles
Hi, cool article. Another connected noun would be “der Vorgänger” (“die Vorgängerin”) which is “the predecessor”. The one who went some place before/ahead of you. Also known from compound words such as “die Vorgängerversion” = “the previous/older version” or to show that I read the news “der Amtsvorgänger” = “the predecessor in office”. (I just hope that this fat blunt guy doesn’t start a war, I mean he has to fill some big shoes that’s is for sure, well, somebody has to be president I guess. Just a shame that he can’t stay foreign minister that way. What? I am talking about Gabriel and Steinmeier of course. Not everything is about the USA. Don’t be so self-absorbed.)
Why is that anonymous now? Can you check that, Emanuel? I am very sure that I was logged in while writing that. Maybe it was a temporary thing but it also took hours till this showed up. Thought at first it didn’t go through at all.
I actually felt like that comment was from someone who didn’t comment for the first time. Are you person243?
As for the login… I can’t check who’s logged in and who isn’t but you can check when going to the login page:
yourdailygerman.com/login
If you get the window for password and name, then you’re not logged in, otherwise you’d see your profile.
The comment didn’t show up because it came from a (new) anonymous. I have to clear those so sometimes it takes a day or so till I’m back here.
Completely got me on the Steinmeier-thing , btw :D. I was like “Man, someone calling Trump fat might lead to comment drama” (on youtube it sure would) and when I read the foreign secretary stuff I was legit confused :)
Yes, I am person243. I am logged in, I know that because I can read the article. The same as the first two times. Hopefully it works now. Otherwise I can just put my nick name under the comments I write, it’s not that big of a problem. Just a bit inconvenient.
Yes, it is all good now.
Thanks a billion for “der Vorgänger”. That’s actually a quite obvious one and it is common so I do not understand how I could forget it. I really was thinking “Man, there gotta be more related words… guess no.” Vielen Dank!
I am always happy to help.
I love your site and thought I would share a helpful tip – when you read this site on an RSS feed it clips the message and says “Whooops… looks like you just reached the limit you can read for free” etc. That makes it look like you can’t read it on the site itself without being a member, which might dissuade someone from clicking through to your site – which would be terrible! SO … you might want to amend that message to let RSS-format readers know that they CAN click through and read the article on the site.
That’s really great advice. Vielen lieben Dank!! I have literally no idea about RSS and I always just kind of ignored it but I’ll definitely look into that. Danke nochmal :)
Vielleicht es hat nur mir aufgefallen dass die Post noch schärfer als sonst ist? Naked people and a hard-o… Weiter so! :D
Der Blog kommt in die Pubertät :)
Very nice!