Frohes neues Jahr from all of us at Yabla German!

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If a German friend had asked you what your plans were for New Year's Eve, would you have said Ich gehe aus or Ich gehe raus? As you may already know, rausgehen means simply “to exit,” while ausgehen means “to go out” in the sense of going out on the town. 

There are many verbs that contain the verb gehen in German, and only some of them involve the physical act of going somewhere. Let’s look at some examples. 

The verb aufgehen has many possible meanings, from simply “to open,” to “to rise” or “to expand.” 

Man muss viele Türen öfter probieren, bis sie aufgehen.

One has to try many doors more times till they open.

Caption 65, Singer-Songwriter - Sebastian Niklaus

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The verb eingehen can mean "to shrink," but auf etwas eingehen or auf jemanden eingehen means "to respond to" or "to agree to."

Ich hoffe, ich konnte Ihnen so ein bisschen zeigen, dass man auf unterschiedliche Zielgruppen unterschiedlich eingehen muss.

I hope I was able to show you a little bit that you have to respond differently to different target groups.

Caption 56, TEDx - Lebenslange Fitness - Part 3

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Umgehen means "to go around" in the sense of "to circumvent", but mit etwas/jemanden umgehen means "to deal with someone or a situation."

Wir wussten eigentlich nicht so richtig, wie wir damit umgehen sollten.

We actually didn't really know how we should deal with it.

Caption 14, 3nach9 - Ehrlich Brothers - Show-Magier - Part 1

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Further Learning
Look up the following related phrases and additional verbs: davon ausgehen, in Flammen aufgehen, das Risiko eingehen, fremdgehen. You can see a large list of verbs that include gehen here and search for them on Yabla German.

In last week's newsletter, we looked at the various ways of expressing the adverb "even" in German. We shouldn't forget that adverbs not only describe verbs, but adjectives as well. In this case, "even" is expressed with "noch":

Und mit ein bisschen Unterstützung der Teamkollegen klappt's vielleicht noch besser.

And with a little support from the team members it might work out even better.

Caption 11, Fußball - Torwandschießen

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In English we say something is "even better" or that it is getting "better and better." The latter exists in German as well and is often constructed with the verb werden, the word immer, and a comparative adjective. 

Man wird ja immer besser durch die Übung.

One does get even [always] better through practice.

Caption 26, Singer-Songwriter - Sebastian Niklaus

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As you can see, this construction can be used with most adjectives: 

Sie wird im Spiegel immer kleiner

It gets smaller and smaller in the mirror

Caption 85, Wincent Weiss & Benni Freibott - Musik sein

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Und deshalb wird es auch immer wichtiger werden,

And therefore it is going to become more and more important

dieses auch in Zukunft, äh, zu verstärken.

to, uh, also emphasize this in the future.

Captions 35-36, Angela Merkel - beim Nachhaltigkeitsrat

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Sie ist, äh, durch die Erweiterung des Flughafens

It has, uh, through the expansion of the airport,

natürlich immer komplexer geworden...

become more and more complex, of course...

Captions 35-36, Berlins regierender Bürgermeister - Pläne für 2014

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However, make sure to take context of the sentence and the presence or absence of werden into account. The sentence below shows that immer can be combined with an adjective and still just mean "always."

Wenn man gemeinsam reist, ist es immer besser.

It's always better if you travel together.

Caption 20, Traumberuf - Windsurfer

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Further Learning
Based on the tips above, how would you translate the phrase immer wieder? Do a search on Yabla German!