Word of the Day - "werden" - 09-20-2013

by German-is-easy - German is easy! - https://yourdailygerman.com

Word of the Day - "werden"

by German-is-easy - Friday, September 20, 2013

https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning-werden/

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German word of the Day. Summer is over. Finally!
It is autumn. Or as I liked to call it Awesotumn.
Days are getting short and it is getting cold and rainy. Which is something we all like.
But there's another great aspect of autumn
This poem by Goehte captures it perfectly**:

Colds will be caught,

Jackets will be worn,
Sheep will be shorn.
German will be taught.

(**might not actually be by Goethe)

Fall is awesome and it is the season in which we tackle the BIG things. No more humpdy dumpty like in
summer.
Fall is the time to step up the game. It's simple math: fall + game = stepped up.
And for my enginneeer out there: f ( fall ) = stepped up (game).
And for my computer science people out there:
if (season==fall)
{while (game<stepped_up)
{game++;}
}

Yeah... if you're new here on this site, you're probably pretty confused now. But the exanations are
usually pretty good.
And today, we'll talk about something that really could use a good exanation. We'll take a look at the
meanings and functions of

werden

And there's actually three of them. First of, werden is the German word for to become.
But it's also used as a helper to build the future tense. And as if that wasn't enough, it's also used to build
the passive voice.
In this article, we'll of course look at the grammar a bit. But our main focus will be exploring WHY

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Word of the Day - "werden" - 09-20-2013
by German-is-easy - German is easy! - https://yourdailygerman.com

German uses werden for those three things.

Like... why does it mean to become and what happened to the German bekommen? Why does German
use werden for future? And why do we use it for passive when so many other languages use to be?
So... are you ready to dive in? Coooooool.

"werden" and "bekommen"

So, we already mentioned, that werden is the German word for to become.
And for many learners, that raises the question, what about bekommen? So let's talk about that first.
Obviously, become and bekommen are brothers. But the translation of bekommen is to receive.
Something clearly went wrong there. I mean, the translations clearly have nothing to do with one another.
Or do they?
When we look a little closer, we'll find that the idea of receiving and the one of becoming are actually that
crazy a pair. In fact, English has a word that expresses both: to get.

I got an e-mail.... you receive something

I got tired.... you become tired.

What those two share is an underlying notion of reaching. The only difference is the direction. The email
reaches you.. you receive it. You reach the state of tired.. then you become. But in both instances, you and
something move "toward" each other until you "meet".
Back in the old Indo-European language, this phenomenon of bidirectional verbs was quite common. And
there are still some verbs like this around. We already mentioned to get, which can mean to obtain, but
also to become and even to reach places (get home). But there's also to make. You can make a salad or
you can make a bus. Same sentence structure, just a different object. And boom, the meanings are
completely different. When you make a salad, you "bring" the salad toward you. When you make the bus,
you move toward the bus.
Now, the ancestor of to become/bekommen is the Germanic *bikweman, and that used to be bidirectional
verbs, too. But then, this happened...

"Fellow English men, we have this word bikweman

and it means two things... that is confusing. Let's pick one."
"Yay!"
"Which one should we pick then."
"We have to get for to receive.."
"To get kicks ASS... best word ever."
"But we also have weorðan for the other mea..."
"Whatever. weorðan sucks anyway. Let's use bikweman instead."
"Okay...so from now on bikweman shall be our new word
for weorðan."
"I have a question... can we use to get for that too? Pleeeaase???"
"Uhg... fine."

Shortly after that, in Germany...

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Word of the Day - "werden" - 09-20-2013
by German-is-easy - German is easy! - https://yourdailygerman.com

"Fellow Germans. We have this bikweman and it means two

things. Brits just picked one. Let's pick one, too."
"Jaaaa."
"Brits picked to become. Should we do the same?"
"No way! We'll look like weak copycats!!
"And we have werden and werden is awesome... best word ever. WE can NOT replace that."
"So, the from now on we shall use bekommen only for to receive."
"Hooray!"

Well... not really sure if that's how it went down. I wasn't there at the time because I was on vacation.
Anyway, so both languages used their version of to become for different things, and to us now they seem
completely different.
And while English git rid of its version of werden, German kept it and uses it as to become to this day.
Time for example...

How can I become fluent in just a matter of days? (the answer: you can't unless you're a
snowman)
Wie kann ich in wenigen Tagen fliessend werden?
(not the most idiomatic German sentence ever)

Maria explains why she became a vegetarian.

Maria erklärt, warum sie Vegetarierin wurde.

Thomas becomes more and more arrogant.

Thomas wird immer arroganter.

Now, English actually has a whole bunch of words for the idea of development. But they are all translated
with werden.

Maria is getting tired.

Maria wird müde.

Sarah becomes/turns 24 this November.

Sarah wird diesen November 24.

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Word of the Day - "werden" - 09-20-2013
by German-is-easy - German is easy! - https://yourdailygerman.com

Man, you've grown tall.

Man, bist du groß geworden.

Thomas is going crazy.

Thomas wird verrückt.

So, whenever the core is self development or changing from one state to another state... werden is probably the
word you need because the concept is the very core of that verb. But where did it actually get that idea? Where
does the verb actually come from?
Well, let's find out. Because that'll be the key to the other uses of the verb.

The origin of "werden"

Werden comes from the implausably ancient Indo-European a root that meant to turn, to wind. Looks
like a rather specific activity... but man oh man... there are a LOT of words coming from that root.
Here are some examples from English...

vortex, work,to wind, vertical, warp, versus,

worth, ergonomic or worm

and in German we can find even more

Wert (worth, value), wirken(have an effect, seem), werfen (throw),

werden, Wand (wall), wenden (turn), winden (to wind)
Windel (diaper), Werft (shipyard) and many many more...

When I first read that in the draft that my interns gave me... uhm ... I mean during my research of course,
I was really really surprised. Like... how? What does work have to do with turning or bending, for
example?
But they all make sense, once you bend your mind a bit. The connection between Wand (wall) for
instance is related to winding because back in the days you'd "weave" your walls and fences from bast
fibers or straw. And that is also how work ties in there. Originally, working referred to the act construct
stuff by weaving. Or take the German werfen (to throw). That makes sense as soon as you realize that is
is simply a description of your arm movement... you turn your arm in a way.

And what about werden? Well, it is actually not that big of a distance either. If you want to become
something you kind of have to turn/bend your life in that direction. In fact, the verb to turn is actually
often used in a sense of evolving.

In fall the leaves turn red and yellow.

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Word of the Day - "werden" - 09-20-2013
by German-is-easy - German is easy! - https://yourdailygerman.com

We could also use to become here. To turn is used with that exact meaning. And that is exactly what
happened with werden. The only difference is that werden lost all connection to bending and turning
while to turn still has it.

Cool.
So now that we know what werden means and where it comes from, let's look at its other two function
and see if those uses actually make sense.

werden - the future

In English, there are a couple of ways to express that something is in the future. But the main one is using
the verb will. German, especially in spoken, doesn't always bother with the future, but when it does, then
it uses werden.

Ich werde morgen ins Ballet gehen... Spaß, natürlich nicht.

I will go to a ballet tomorrow... kidding, of course not.

Ich frage mich ob die Menschen in der Zukunft mal auf dem Mars leben werden.
I ask myself whether people will be living on Mars in the future.

Now, that's kind of weird. German and English are really close when it comes to helper verbs usually. So
why would they use different words to build the future, to begin with? The answer to that is that ...oh
wait... Steve, my producer, wants something... ... ... what?... I..... I don't understand, what do you mean
"out of time?!"... ... but... but... I can't just stop here. We just started intensive-season man! How intensive
is it to just stop right when we got going... ..... oh... ... ... oh yeah? well tell the network executives to go
hang themselves off a cliff if that is so cool... ... ... ... fine.

So guys... as it seems we have to stop here, because the network thinks the show is "too long". I know it
sucks but so does Kanye West.
That didn't even make sense.
So... if you have any questions about werden so far or you want to complain about the sudden stop, just
leave me a comment. I hope you liked it and see you next time.

If you're curious you continue with part two right away here:

werden 2 - future and passive

_______________________________________________

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 Word of the Day - "werden" - 09-20-2013
by German-is-easy - German is easy! - https://yourdailygerman.com

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