German word of the day11/14/2022 ![]() Well, I guess you can also just think of it as “bid away”, that’s a bit shorter actually.īut either way, it makes perfect logical sense that verbieten means what it means. And if we now think of making aware as a sort of announcing, then we get “ announcing as out of bounds” – and that’s very close to the idea of forbid. And one way to look at that is as a notion of away, out of bounds. If you’ve read my article on the ver-prefix you might remember that the very core of ver-(as well as its brothers for(e)-, per- or pre-) is the idea of crossing a boundary. Because while verbieten, doesn’t really tie in with the idea of to offer, it does tie in with the core notion of making aware, that we found earlier. What might not be so obvious is the connection to the plain bieten. Now, as far as usage and meaning goes I think this verb is pretty obvious. Dealer problem in the magical forest: more and more often unicorns offer drugs to hikers.Dealer-Problem im Zauberwald: immer öfter bieten Einhörner Wanderern Drogen an.The distinction is not super sharp, of course, but basically, anbieten is the word we need for the offers we make in daily life. I mean… a person can also bieten something, like but hotel can’t really “anbieten” comfort for example, just bieten. Bieten has got more of a long term vibe to it and it can be “done” by things or locations or jobs or whatever. Anbieten is the more direct, momentary, singular type of offer from person to person. The difference is not that hard to grasp though. Well, it’s kinda sorta a mandatory deal so… we have to take it, whether we like it or not :) anbieten So here it is: when you translate to offer, you don’t only get bieten, you also get anbieten.Īnd the best part is that they’re not even really interchangeable #nuance. The dark clouds are an harbinger of the storm.Īnd at this point I am really really happy to tell you that German was generous enough to cut a really special “two for one”-deal exclusively for you German learners.Die Dunklen Woken sind ein Vorbotedes Sturms.These are about making aware of information, and it’s pretty much the same for the German noun der Bote, which originally was a person delivering a message. “Maria’s angry face doesn’t bode well for Thomas’ romantic ambitions.” And a perfect example for that is the English verb to bode and its prefix version foreboding. There, the core idea of awareness was used with a focus on making aware. So… these were two nice little relations, but what matters most for us is of course the Germanic branch of the family. So those of you who speak a Slavic language… next time you curse at your alarm in the morning, remember that it is literally related to Buddha. His original name was Siddhārtha, but he is much wider known as … Buddha – the wise one, the awakened. The Bodhi tree literally means tree of wisdom and the person under it was of course… Jesus.īut it’s a guy almost equally as famous. That’s a huge sacred fig tree (also known as peepul tree or bo tree) under which a certain someone had an awaking experience. If you’re into meditation, you might have heard of the so called Bodhi Tree. In the Slavic languages for instance, it shifted toward the core idea of waking up, as we can see for example in the Bulgarian verb будя (“budja” – to wake someone up).Īnd we can also find it used for the “other” waking up. It expressed a broad idea of awareness and it has offsprings in many of the Indo-European languages. The origin is the filthily ancient Indo-European root *bheudh. Like… if you make a bid at an auction, you do basically offer a sum of money.īut that hasn’t always been the core idea and it’s not helpful with many of the related words. And the connection to the actual meaning isn’t that hard to see. Some of you might have had a hunch already – bieten is the German brother of to bid. And I can promise you that much: even if you are absolutely crushing it at German and you think you’ve seen it all, there will be a couple of surprises for you there.Īnd to top it all of, you’ll also learn about the origin of the family, which features a very very very very enlightened member. Because not only does it literally mean to offer, you also get a whole bundle of really cool fascinating related words and prefix versions. And that verb really has a lot to … ahem offer. ![]()
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