Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of
zwingen
Imagine a day in late spring. Sunny, balmy, a slight gentle breeze, the birds are singing. And all your friends including your new crush are going to have a BBQ at the lake at which your favorite band will play at sunset. For free.
But… you have like the most important paper ever to hand in the next day and so far you’ve done:
nothing.
That’s when it’s time for some zwingen.
And no, it does not mean “to screw the paper”.
The Meaning (and Use) of “zwingen”
Zwingen is about making someone do something they don’t want to do. And not by subtle manipulation. So in one word… zwingen is to force.
- Der neue Manager, ein Veganer, zwingt die Angestellten dazu, Sojamilch zu trinken.
- The team manager, who is a vegan, forces/coerces the staff to drink soy milk.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Stell mein Bier wieder hin!”
“Nein!”
“Zwing mich nicht, dir weh zu tun.” - “Put my beer down!”
“No!”
“Don’t force me to hurt you!” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria wurde im Kindergarten dazu gezwungen, Spinat zu essen.
- In kindergarten Maria was forced to eat spinach.
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- Eine Reparatur der Kaffeemaschine ist zwingend notwendig.
- Repair of the coffee machine is absolutely mandatory/an absolute must.
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I feel like zwingen is actually a little bit stronger than to force. Or maybe it’s just the sound of the word. Zwingen. Sounds like someone is pinching your arm.
And that’s actually kind of where the word comes from.
The origin of zwingen is a Germanic verb that was about the idea of compressing something by force. And wouldn’t that make a lot of sense if this verb was connected to the same ancient Indo-European root as the words zwei and two?
Like… you pinch someone’s arm between your fingers? I mean, come on… how much sense would that make? Exactly… all the sense in the celestial sphere. Scientists will say it’s false, that the words are not related. But that’s just their opinion, man. This… this compulsion to be scientifically accurate … it is totally out of control. The word being related feels right, that’s what should matter, damn it.
Anyway, speaking of compulsion… that brings us right to the noun for zwingen – der Zwang.
The Meaning of “der Zwang”
Zwang is part of like a bazillion useful compounds and the translation depends on context but the idea is always that there is some form of forcing going on, either internal or external.
- Der Komiker leidet unter dem Zwang lustig sein zu müssen.
- The comedian suffers under the urge/pressure to be funny.
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- Gruppenzwang ist eine starke Kraft.
- Peer pressure is a strong force.
(is there a word for peer pressure that is completely independent of age and social group? Just for the group you’re with at a given moment? Thanks a lot :)
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- Wegen dem Stromausfall muss das Team eine Zwangspause einlegen.
- Because of the power outage the team is forced to take an (unwanted) break.
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- In dem Casino ist Krawattenzwang.
- In the casino a neck tie is required/compulsory.
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- Krawattenzwang ist auch nur eine Zwangstörung.
- A Compulsory tie is just another form of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).
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- Thomas findet, dass Maria einen leichten Waschzwang hat.
- Thomas thinks that Maria has a slight compulsion to wash her hands (ablutomania).
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- Was seinen Schreibtisch angeht, ist Thomas echt zwanghaft.
- When it comes to his desk, Thomas is obsessional. (Thomas is obsessive when it comes to his desk.)
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Those were but a few examples and there are lots of other Zwänge out there. There’s even one for German verbs … the Präfixversionszwang (the compulsion for prefixes :).
That’s a super strong one and only few verbs are strong enough to resist it.
Prefix Versions of “zwingen”
Zwingen is pretty good at resisting the compulsion to build loads of verbs actually, because there are only three prefix versions of note.
The first one is jemandem etwas aufzwingen which basically means to force something onto someone.
- Thomas ist mit dem ihm von Maria aufgezwungenen Zölibats-Monat nicht so glücklich.
- Thomas isn’t that happy with the celibacy-months that was forced upon him by Maria.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
It’s not too common in daily life, but you will find it sooner or later in a book or newspaper article.
Then, next, we have erzwingen.
The er- adds the usual idea of reaching something through the action. So it’s mostly a grammatical difference to zwingen. With zwingen, the person you force is the direct object. With erzwingen, the thing you GET is the direct object.
- Man kann niemanden zwingen, gute Laune zu haben.
- You can’t force someone to be in a good mood. (the person forced is the direct object)
- Gute Laune kann man nicht erzwingen.
- You can’t force a good mood. (the goal of the coercion is the direct object)
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- Mittels Sexentzug hat Maria einen Opernbesuch erzwungen.
- Using sex withdrawal, Maria forced/(got) a visit to the opera.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And last but not least, we have bezwingen.
The be- does a very vague intensifying here, and bezwingen basically means to subdue. So it’s kind of a general once-and-for-all-zwingen if that makes sense.
- Thomas hat seine Höhenangst bezwungen.
- Thomas subdued/overcame his fear of heights.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
All right.
So, I’d actually say that’s enough for one day. We’ve covered everything and our heads are filled with plenty of examp… oh… what’s that… there’s another word running toward us. I hope it doesn’t want to get in on this post… oh… oh no, it does want to get in. Hey… hey…
zw… ugh
SIR, the lesson is full alre…
zwä… ugh… sorry…. zwä…ngen
Too late, it squeezed itself in.
The Meaning of “zwängen”
Well, zwängen is an offspring of zwingen and Zwang and it’s about forcing something into a rather tight location. Like a verb squeezing itself into a post that’s already quite full ;).
Technically, zwängen is not a reflexive verb. So you can zwängen something somewhere. A rock formation for instance can zwängen a creek into a narrow path or you can zwängen your belly into those pants that used to fit still totally fit.
But in practice, you’ll mostly see zwängen used with people squeezing themselves in somewhere.
- Der dicke Mann versucht sich in den vollen Bus zu zwängen.
- The chubby man tries to squeeze himself into the packed bus.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria zwängt sich in ihre alte Jeans.
- Maria forces/squeezes herself into her old jeans.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Oh, and it doesn’t really work in abstract senses. So you can’t zwängen yourself into a certain job, for example. That would be another word. Wait… I can actually see it… it’s running toward us. But now we’re REALLY full. Quick, let’s wrap this up before it gets here :).
This was our look at the meaning of zwingen. It is absolutely NOT related to zwei and two but thinking of it in terms of two fingers squeezing your arm helps a great deal to remember that it means to force, to coerce.
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 **
jemanden (akk) zu etwas zwingen – force, coerce
jemandem etwas aufzwingen – force something onto someone
bezwingen – to defeat (sounds a bit pompous)
erzwingen – get by coersion
der Zwang – the compulsion, coercion, pressure
der Gruppenzwang – the peer pressure
der Waschzwang – compulsion to wash yourself
Zwangsstörung – (obsessive) compulsive disorder
Zwangspause – forced break
Zwangsjacke – straitjacket
Zwangsehe – forced marriage
Zwangsversteigerung – forced auction
Zwangsräumung – forced eviction
zwanglos – casual, without pressure
der Zwinger – cage for dogs, castle in Dresden
Does zwanghaft also mean “forced” as in “That was a forced smile” or “They applaud and cheer the dictator as he passes by, but these are forced movements/reactions”.
Also do germans use it as obsessional in a more casual sense like – Er ist zwanghaft mit seiner Ernährung. (very careful and maybe exaggerate, but not in a pathological OCD sense).
As someone who actually had Zwangsstörung I am really curious.
Great question!
“zwanghaft” really only means “like there’s an inner compulsion”. Think OCD-style behavior.
If you use it in the context of nutrition, it definitely leans on the obsessive side and sounds negative.
– “That was a forced smile”
No, the proper word here is “gezwungen”.
For the example with the dictator, you could say “erzwungen” or “unter Zwang” but those two sound like VERY direct force. Using “nicht freiwillig” is the better choice here.
Hope that helps :)
From the examples I’ve seen online it appears that ‘wurde gezwungen, + zu clause’ is significantly more popular than ‘wurde dazu gezwungen, + zu clause’. Is this just colloquial or is the dazu a completely optional thing for extra emphasis?
It’s definitely optional, but I don’t feel like it adds anything in terms of flavor or emphasis. Without it, the phrasing sounds a little more elegant, that’s all I can see, in terms of difference.
Youre seriously the best. If i wanted to ask a professor at uni something by email they wouldnt answer for a week haha
I learned to enjoy beer from my peers in university. Think that would be called Bierzwang.
Hahaha… never heard of that, but Bierzwang kind of never ends. You know… there’s always this “come on, just (another) one” at parties or in bars :)
Also, Ist Schwanger jemand der ein Baby in den Bauch gezwäng hat?
Vielleicht ein bisschen :). Aber das würde man niemals so sagen, denn es klingt echt nicht gut.
What I really love is finding German buried under the dust that covers some English idioms. I find them so often I really ought to star writing ’em all down, but this is a particularly good one so I’m going to comment on it right now, before I forget.
In American English everyone uses the phrase “swing it”, which refers to something being possible. “Party tonight– think you can swing it?” “Movie starts at 7….sure the traffic is bad…but I think if we hurry, we could swing it.” “I bet I could swing a trip to Vegas next month if I save up.”
Na dann. You tell me if that isn’t just exactly what the “forcing” or “squeezing in” Zwang is all about? And here we’re just using it, never even questioning where it even came from or what it means. Seriously, NO ONE has ever stopped to think about it, ever. And there are a ton of these. The US has had so many German immigrants, my guess is that some kid generation (mis)heard their Old Country relatives using some words and picked them up as slang. Give it a couple of centuries and we have what seem like home-grown idioms that are actually just some straight-up Deutsch.
This is why learning yer Sprache macht mir such total Spaß, Alter. Keep on rockin’ it.
Ha, nice idea and surely a nice way to remember it. However, I’d say “swinging it” is not related to “zwingen”. Not that I knew… it’s just… the feeling. “zwingen” is NOT a positive thing. And it’s somewhat stronger than “squeezing” or “forcing”. “Zwang” is a compulsion. Germans don’t use the family in context of successfully pull something off and I think they never have.
I believe that this “swing” is based on the “proper” swinging and the core idea is swinging the pendulum in your favor. Or just the general idea of momentum. You swing your arm before a throw or punch can be abstractizised (made that one up) to I swing before making an impact.
I know this probably sounds less convincing to you than the swing-zwing similarity but my Sprachgefühl is very strongly rejecting the idea of “zwingen” having anything to do with any of the examples you mentioned.
That said… keep up coming up with this kind of theories. It’s hit and miss with this stuff :). But when it helps you remember a word, it turns to hit and hit ;)
So, would you use “zwingen” when you are trying to say that someone made you do something? Like “He made me laugh” or “my mom made me clean my room” or “I made her wash my car”. Would it be “Er hat mich gezwungen, zu lachen” Meine Mutti hat mich gezwungen, mein Zimmer zu putzen” and “Ich habe sie gezwungen, mein Auto zu waschen.”? Or is there a more common way to say someone made me do something?
You can use “zwingen” but that is REALLY REALLY strong. In the example with laughing it could be your boss being like “Laugh! Laugh hard! Or I’ll fire you.”
If there’s no or just mild coercion involved, you’d use the phrase “zu etwas bringen”
– Er hat mich zum lachen gebracht (told a funny joke)
– Meine Mutter hat mich dazu gebracht, mein Zimmer aufzuräumen (by convincing me)
hey, the English word for Zwangsjacke is “straitjacket”! ;)
I am oddly fascinated by that North Korean boy drinking moonshine with his white supremacist friends. Do you have any stories about him? :D
I think this is the guy after he drank ALL the moonshine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI-VD2bgGeM
Except for the kill part, he sounds pretty sober to me ;)
Sorry got mixed up. That’s the Korean guy that drank all the Kool-Aid.
Hi asskorka
3: not wrong but better “Wir mögen es, im Park zu laufen”
4: Your sentence can be a very elegant way of saying “you may draw in the afternoon” but I guess you wanted to translate “like”, in that case it’s “Ihr mögt es, am Nachmittag zu zeichnen.”
5: Meine Mutter hat gesagt, ich soll mehr schlafen. (I is not capitalized in German)
6: Mutter, darf ich heute Abend zu einer Party gehen? Your word order is not incorrect but a little bit unusual.
7: Am Strand darf ich sonnenbaden.
8: Ich weiss, wie der Name vom Deutschlehrer lautet (or ist – both possible). (sorry I’ve got a swiss keyboard without the sharp s – keep the weiss like in your example.
Try to use a keyboard with the Umlauts (äüö) or use ae, ue, oe instead.
Hope this helps;-)
A couple of additions :)
6) I would call the word order very unusual. “gehen” is just very strongly connected to location so separating those is strange.
And addressing your mother as “Mutter” sounds VERY formal to me :D
9) The most idiomatic for knowing people’s names is to
– Ich weiß wie er heißt.
– Ich kenne seinen Namen.
Using “lauten/sein” is not wrong though.
hello everybody !
I’m a beginer here. Recently I’ve benn studing rather A-level lectures, and I did some practise about modals. Could You pleas check if my sentences with modals are correct – I always learn 10 times more if I did my own examples, but I could have done an mistake.
Thanks for comments – best , Agata
1. Ich muss Morgen mein Zimmer aufraumen.
2. Sie will dieses Kleid kaufen.
3. Wir mogen im Park laufen.
4. Ihr mogt am Nachmittag zeichen.
5. Meine Mutter hat gesagt Ich soll meher schafen.
6. Mutter, darf Ich zu einer Party heute Abend gehen ?
7. Am Strand draft Ich sonnenbaden.
8. Herr Jackob kann Klavier spielen.
9. Ich weiß wie der Name von Deutsch Lehrer ist.
Related to peer pressure: conformity, conformism, the pressure to conform (to those around you), social pressure, group pressure, group-think, normative pressure; or bizarre and unnecessary combinations of these (normative group social pressure).
Thank you to anybody who donates to this site! Because of you i am able to use this site for free since I cannot pay. Thank all of y’all so much! What y’all do really does make a difference!
Great article. I like how you hint to a connection to “to twinge” (zwicken), although there is probably none, or is there?
Anyway, “zwingen” is also one of these few verbs whose participle I (present participle), I mean “zwingend”, is rather useful. You mentioned it as a kind of intensifier (“zwingend notwendig” = “absolutely mandatory”). Which is the most common way to use it, I would say. It gives the verb, you use it on, higher importance and makes it sound stricter. In your example, without the “zwingend”, you would still deem it necessary but wouldn’t tell that it is that important to you. (Although you stay quite objective, other than with the rhyming partner “dringend/Drang” which is about urgency and shows much more feeling.)
It is also used alone as an adjective: “Es gab zwingende Gründe dafür.” = “There were compulsory reasons for that.” (For the adjective “forced” you would use “erzwungen”; “forced peace” = “erzwungener Frieden”)
That reminds me of something. Just tell me, if you don’t want stuff like that here. I once watched an American tv-show, can’t remember what it was, anyway, they were in Germany on a tour, and they asked about the time between 1933 and 1945. A legit question of course but the German man depicted in the tv-show got angry and shouted that there was nothing and quit the conversation. Which is not the way that I and I guess the most Germans learned how to handle this shameful past. Of course that is nothing a German likes to talk about but not talking about it and hush it up (“es totzuschweigen”) is just plain wrong.
So long story short, if we talk about the word “Zwang”, we should not avoid the word “Zwangsarbeit” (forced labor). Not because we like or admire this despicable practice but because we should remember in order to never do the same mistakes.
Oh, why should I object to it? As usual, great additions :)
One little thing about the adjective “forced”… if you use it to describe how someone behaves, “erzwungen” wouldn’t fit.
– His smile looks forced.
“erzwungen” would imply that someone else literally forced him. If he forces it himself, I’d use “gezwungen” or “unecht” or (that’s the best IMO) “aufgesetzt”
Well, it got rather political there. No idea, why. I somehow got carried away (“die Pferde sind mit mir durchgegangen”). I had wanted it to be less heavy, with less pathos, a bit “ungezwungener” (more casual).
just a question: in the summary, do you mean
zwingen jemanden (akk.) zu (mit Dativ)
Yes, that’s it. The way I had put it was indeed a bit confusing.
Hi, can you please explain why “einlegen” is used in this sentence: “Wegen dem Stromausfall muss das Team eine Zwangspause einlegen.” I thought “man macht eine Pause”—“man kann eine Pause auch einlegen?” What is another example of einlegen?
You can find all about that here :)
https://yourdailygerman.com/2016/02/25/einlegen-reinlegen-meaning/
(einlegen as a word of the day)
I agree with many of the comments about peer pressure often being used generally to mean someone chose a course of action to “fit in.” I also thought of a social pressure phrase [that does not work in poor Jing’s camping adventure example]-“keeping up with the Joneses”–the self-imposed pressure to be as good as, if not better than, those in some social group. At work there is the corporate “group think” and socially there is, as mentioned, the “herd mentality [and “drinking the KoolAid”].
Just love this site–for entertainment value as well as tackling those frisky German language rules.
Your translation for “Stell mein Bier wieder hin!” is “Put my beer down!”. What is the purpose of the word “wieder” here. I don’t see what it adds to the meaning of the sentence if it doesn’t take on the literal meaning of “again”.
Oh, nice catch. The better translation would be “Put my beer back down!”. The “wieder” basically adds the idea that the beer was standing before, and then the person picked it up.
Du hast über der Wort Zwinger nicht geschrieben.
Und der bekannten Dresdner Zwinger.
P.S.
War ist richtig ?
ich hab’s in der Vokabelliste erwähnt. Ein Hundezwinger ist ein Käfig für Hunde, und der Zwinger in Dresden ist ein Käfig für Bilder ;).
Ich hab’ auch Schraubzwinge vergessen.
Achso… deine Sätze sind fast komplett richtig. “… über das Wort” (nicht der) und “… den bekannten” (nicht der)
Schraubzwinge ist ein gutes Wort.
Rede über ‘Schraub’, kann Man dieses Wort als Slang Verb benutzen wie im English ? :)
Nein, das geht nicht. Also… im Kontext würde man es vielleicht verstehen, aber man kann dafür ja fast jedes Wort verwenden, wenn der Kontext passt und man es klar genug macht
– That girl I met, last night I really studied/withdrew/founded her, ‘na mean, bro (*wink wink)
Wir werden dich vielleicht ZWINGEN muessen, die Gewinner der Adventswettbewerbe in einen Beitrag zu ZWAENGEN
Sehr gut! Hast du nix gewonnen?
I’m trying to think of how to respond to the “peer pressure” thing… I’d say “group pressure” or maybe “herd mentality” would work well, but honestly, I’m not sure how limited “peer pressure” is for many English speakers to actual peers (people of the same age/social standing or whatever). If you hadn’t asked about it, I don’t think it would have occurred to me that “peer pressure” isn’t quite the same as “Gruppenzwang.”
Would it sound weird to say
– 14 year old Jiing, an immigrant from North Korea who was camping with his bunch of 50 year old white supremacist friends, got wasted on Moonshine purely out of peer pressure.
I know the example is stupid but I’m curious as to whether the language brain reacts to the contradiction or not.
I notice dict.cc also translates Gruppenzwang as “group pressure” but I can’t claim to be familiar with that phrase nor can I come up with anything better. I think most people would instead say something like “…purely to fit in” or “…just so as not to be rude”.
But do you find peer pressure weird sounding if the group is not actual peers in the more scientific sense of the word? Or would that go unnoticed in less extreme examples than the one from my comment?
It would sound a little odd. I do understand “peers” to mean people of the same age and social group. For me this is also tinged a bit with the fact that members of our House of Lords are also known as “Peers of the Realm”, given their equivalent, elevated social rank.
I get what you’re saying, I wouldn’t say “peer pressure” in that kind of situation – I would just say someone was pressured (or felt pressured) into doing it. Often with this kind of thing people will refer to a “herd mentality” – for example, you might join into a riot with a bunch of random people (not necessarily of your age, race, etc.) at a train station because you got “caught up in the herd mentality.”
Yeah, I guess it would sound odd if you’re throwing in lots of details that contradict the “peer” thing… Of course, in that case the incongruity of “peer pressure” would be one of the LESS weird things about the whole situation :)
Outside of the phrase “peer pressure,” I think the word “peer(s)” means “age/social equals” pretty strongly. But while I’d most commonly associate “peer pressure” with kids/teenagers trying to fit in with their friends, I think the “peers” could be defined pretty flexibly to include members of any group you belong to, as long as there’s some level of community feel. You sometimes hear the phrase “a jury of one’s peers,” at least in the US, where trial by jury is a constitutional right, and in that case said “peers” are also considered to be potentially pretty diverse.
I imagine this is one where US and UK perceptions could be different – I’m aware of “Peers” with reference to the English aristocracy, but it’s not really part of my own language world.
In the case where the ‘peer’ bit doesn’t fit with the situation, I would have used ‘social pressure’ to describe what happened to poor Jiing. However, I’m not sure how common that phrase is, because my family members (teachers, psychologists, social workers) have used it for years. And yes, my English Sprachgefühl objects to using “peer” in the example you describe.
(Forgot to notify myself of new comments…)
This example sounds good to me. Although certainly the immediate image that comes to mind when you hear “peer pressure” is a bad 90’s anti-drug psa, people definitely use peer pressure to describe when a person is pressured by the larger group of people who are not in the strictest sense your peers. Certainly conversationally I would say peer pressure. And peer pressure if the most common phrase describing this phenomenon. If I were writing a paper, however it may raise an eyebrow.
That would not sound weird at all. I mean, I guess you could say that the North Korean kid gave into “group pressure” but that sounds like you’re overcomplicating the word (it almost sounds bookish, and I don’t even know if a book would say it). I agree that the term “peer” is very flexible when it comes to the word “peer pressure”, in terms of defining what a “peer” is.
Herd mentality is something that I would associate with larger group movements, and it implies doing something mindlessly, whereas peer pressure implies that you probably thought about something first and decided against it (against your better judgment). You know when you’re coming out of the U-Bahn and an escalator that normally works isn’t working, so everybody kind of stops for a second and looks at it before they get on and walk normally? That’s herd mentality. I wouldn’t say that they were doing that out of peer pressure :)
Haha, great example and great job at making the distinction between herd mentality and peer pressure :). Vielen Dank!
‘social pressure’ would work
Whoops, I just noticed I unintentionally repeated your suggestion of “herd mentality” below. Also I’m guessing purely based on your username and picture that you’re a liberal Mennonite missionary living short-term in Berlin :)
WRONG! I think it’s mid-term by now XD
Conservative, Presbyterian, long-term. :)
But I do come from Mennonite stock and probably look the part…