Confusing Word Pairs in German
BRINGEN • NEHMEN
Part of a guide to Confusing Word Pairs in German
bringen & nehmen
| bringen | Ich bringe Sie zum Flughafen. I'll take you to the airport. Jeden Schultag bringt sie ihre Tochter zur Schule. Every school day she takes her daughter to school. Das bringt nichts. It's pointless. Der Winter brachte uns viel Schnee. The winter brought us a lot of snow. |
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| nehmen | Er hat 50 Euro dafür genommen. He took 50 euro for it. Ich nehme zwei Pillen pro Tag. I take two pills a day. Er nimmt alles zu ernst. He takes everything too seriously. |
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Both bringen and nehmen can mean "take" in English, but they are used differently, as you can see above. To express the idea of taking (driving, bringing) someone or something to a place, you use bringen (not nehmen) in German. However, there are at least two other German words that can mean "take" in English: dauern (to last) and brauchen (to need, require). If you want to talk about how long something will take, you can ask: Wie lange dauert der Flug von Boston nach Frankfurt? (How long does the flight from Boston to Frankfurt take/last?) or Wie lange braucht man, um das zu machen? (How long does it take to do that?). |
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