erzählen

German

Etymology

er- +‎ zählen

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ɛɐ̯ˈt͡sɛːlən/ (standard; used naturally in western Germany and Switzerland)
  • IPA(key): /ɛɐ̯ˈt͡seːlən/, /ɛɐ̯ˈt͡seːl̩n/ (overall more common; particularly northern and eastern regions)
  • audio(file)
  • audio(file)
  • audio (Austria)(file)
  • Hyphenation: er‧zäh‧len

Verb

erzählen (weak, third-person singular present erzählt, past tense erzählte, past participle erzählt, auxiliary haben)

  1. (ditransitive) to tell, to narrate, to recount (for example a story, to someone)
    Erzähl mir ein Märchen.
    Tell me a fairytale.
    Sie erzählte mir von ihrer Kindheit.
    She told me about her childhood.
  2. (with dative object and dass) to tell, to say (that something occurred)
    Ich habe dir erzählt, dass meine Mutter gestorben ist.
    I told you that my mother had died.
  3. (somewhat informal, regional) to talk a lot; to tell nonsense; to gabble
    Wir haben den ganzen Nachmittag erzählt.
    We talked the whole afternoon.
    Der erzählt hier wieder einen! (strong stress on “erzählen”)
    This guy’s talking some [bullshit] again today!

Conjugation

Lua error in Module:utilities at line 142: attempt to perform arithmetic on local 'h' (a nil value)

Derived terms

Further reading
  • “erzählen” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
  • “erzählen” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
  • “erzählen” in Duden online
  • “erzählen” in OpenThesaurus.de
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.