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How Well Can You Deal With It?

This week's new video, Märchen - Sagenhaft - Die Wichtelmänner, uses the prepositional phrase mit (etwas) umgehen:

 

Sie war keine Schneiderin,

She was not a seamstress,

konnte aber gut mit Nadel und Faden umgehen.

but could manage well with a needle and thread.

Caption 70, Märchen - Sagenhaft - Die Wichtelmänner

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The word umgehen on its own usually means to avoid, to circumvent, or to get around something, but when you put it with an adjective and the preposition mit, its meaning is broadened to mean how something is handled, dealt with, or treated. Here are a couple more examples from Yabla videos:

 

Ich werde dir beibringen, wie du damit umgehen kannst.

I will teach you how you can deal with that.

Caption 18, Lektionen - Morgen

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Da muss man sehr sauber arbeiten,

[There] you must work very cleanly,

muss sehr pfleglich mit seinen Grundstoffen umgehen.

[you] must handle your basic materials very carefully.

Captions 67-68, Whesskey - Whiskey aus Hessen

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Further Learning
Go to this link on Yabla German and see how the word umgehen is used in different contexts.

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