Hello everyone, Show and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of treiben A word that’ll really drive your German forward. Driiive. Draaaaiiiiiiiiifff. Traaaiiiiiiipffff. Treeeeiiibut hey let’s waste no more time with my nonsense and get right into the world of treiben. Sounds good? Perfect. Treiben has two close relatives in English, both of which can be a translation for it. The first one is to drift.
The other close English relative is to drive. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is driving a car. But that notion is pretty new. In Old English, some 700 years ago, people still called that “to fare a car”. Wait, can it be?
Now, what about this example:
Would treiben work here?
German would be all whiny like “Uh… uh…. where’s the turbine driving the generator to?! Oh god, it’s sooooooo imprecise. Please complete your sentence, I’m so confused. Waaa, waaaaa.”
I don’t really know what it is that they’re doing in the last examp… what? Ohhhhhhhh… I watch… uh… I mean, I see.
Trieb is also the name for shoots of plants… like… new little branches or twigs or buds coming out from somewhere and it’s just part of the noun das Triebwerk which is the German word for jet engine.
And that brings us back to the question of how to do the example of an engine driving a car and to the … drumroll… prefix versions of “treiben”And because treiben has so many good prefix versions, they all get their own headline so you can find them quicker. – antreiben –Remember German being OCD about treiben having a destination? Well, antreiben is the word to go for if you do not want to specify one. Just a general driving forward, and the range of contexts is super broad. A coach pushing his team, some inner motivation that drives you and most important of all… engines. And that applies to the verb as well as the noun and any other related words.
So… treiben means to drive, to push if you specify a destination. if you don’t have one, then an- kind of takes the role of that. – auftreiben –Auftreiben is a bit weird in so far as that only the noun has the literal meaning while the verb itself is some abstract craziness.
The verb on the other hand is completely different. Auftreiben is a colloquial term for to find. Think of a hunt. You’re having a party in a small town, it’s past 10 pm and you’re out of… beer? That’s when you would try to auftreiben some beer. So it’s not finding as in finding something you’ve lost, or finding something randomly on the street but finding something new after somewhat of a hunt.
Not super common, but colloquial and if you’re among native speakers you’ll hear it sooner or later. – abtreiben –Literally, it means to drive off but the only context for it is to drive off fetuses. That’s right… abtreiben means to have an abortion and the noun for the abortion itself is die Abtreibung.
Not one of the most poetic words of the German language but definitely worth knowing. – übertreiben and untertreiben –These two are really useful whenever you’re telling something. If your story is boring you’ll probably spice it up by making everything bigger, funner, more amazingerer. That’s what übertreiben is for… to exaggerate. And untertreiben is the opposite – to downplay, to underexaggarate…
The nouns are die Über-/Untertreibung and they’re totally in line with the verbs. Now, these were just some of the prefix versions. There are hundreds more. Okay, no, that was an Übertreibung, there are just a few. Eintreiben for example is what a debt collector does – “drive in” money. Austreiben can mean to exorcize or sprout (for trees) and sich rumtreiben is a slangy term for being outside, going around. And there are still a few more but they’re really not that common. So I think that’s it for today… but hold on, I see we have a call here… uhm… Alicia from Greensboro, North Carolina, welcome to the show. “Hey Emanuel, thanks so much for taking my call. And great topic… I’ve been waiting for treiben for a long time.” Yeah, I’m sure you’re not the only one… it’s really been on my list forever, too. Did the show clear it up a bit though? “Yeah, definitely… the connection to driving really helped, too… I have a question, though. “ Sure, go right ahead. “What about the non-separable prefixes? Like… Betrieb and vertreiben… aren’t they related to treiben, too? I feel like I see them quite a bit….” “Sure, why not.” – vertreiben and betreiben –So, do you have any idea what vertreiben means?
but it’s also used in a more figurative phrasing for passing the time.
“I guess we can’t skip the ‘mir’ here, can we?” Nah, then it would sound too much like chasing away. “And does it work with other words for time… like … Ich vertreibe mir den Montag… would that be idiomatic?” Not really, it only works with the word Zeit. There’s also the noun der Zeitvertreib, which means the pass-time. “Wait… you mean Zeitvertrieb, right?” No, I do do a lot of typos but this wasn’t one. Vertrieb is the noun the other meaning of treiben: to distribute.
No idea, if you can see a hint of chasing away in that sense.
“Ohhhh… that’s why der Betrieb is the word for a company.”
“betriebsblind … that’s a cool word.” “Hmmm… nope… at least not right now. And if I do later, I’ll just leave you a comment.” As always, if you have any questions or suggestions or if you want to try out some examples, just leave me a comment. I’m out. You all have a super Woche. I hope you liked it and see you next time. **vocab ** treiben – to drift, to drive (as in make move), also: colloquial for “to do” das Treibholz – drift wood der Jagdtrieb – the hunting instinct antreiben – push/motivate/drive (no destination specified) abtreiben – to have an abortion übertreiben – over-exaggerate der Auftrieb – the push, force upward under water eintreiben – “driving in” owed money |