{"id":11897,"date":"2020-07-22T23:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T23:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=11897"},"modified":"2020-07-22T13:44:18","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T13:44:18","slug":"whats-the-difference-lehren-and-unterrichten-in-german","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/whats-the-difference-lehren-and-unterrichten-in-german\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s The Difference? Lehren And Unterrichten In German"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag! <\/span><\/span><\/span>This is the second of three posts on the<\/span><\/span><\/span> difference in some very closely linked words. These are German words that are either similar in meaning or similar in appearance (or both), <\/span><\/span><\/span>which often means these words are<\/span><\/span><\/span> used incorrectly. This post looks at the word<\/span><\/span><\/span>s lehren<\/strong> (to teach) and unterrichten<\/strong> (to teach).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Unterrichten \u2013 to teach<\/h1>\n
\"\"

Photo by National Cancer Institute via Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

Unterrichten<\/strong> means to teach<\/em>. Here is the present tense conjugation of the verb unterrichten:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ich unterrichte<\/strong> \u2013 I teach
\nDu unterrichtest<\/strong> \u2013 You teach (to one person; informal)
\nEr\/sie\/es unterrichtet<\/strong> \u2013 He\/she\/it teaches
\nWir unterrichten<\/strong> \u2013 We teach
\nIhr unterrichtet<\/strong> \u2013 You teach (more than one person)
\nSie unterrichten<\/strong> \u2013 You teach (formal)
\nsie unterrichten<\/strong> \u2013 They teach<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“Er unterrichtet Deutsch.<\/strong>
\nHe teaches German.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Note: The verb unterrichten can also mean \u2018to inform\u2019.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So if unterrichten means to teach<\/em>, what\u2019s with the word lehren<\/strong>? Why does that also mean \u2018to teach\u2019, and how are the two words used?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Like the words lernen and studieren<\/a>, the difference is in the context; unterrichten<\/em> is what schoolteachers and private tutors do. Meanwhile, lehren<\/em> is what der Professor<\/strong> (professor) or der Dozent<\/strong> (lecturer\/professor) does at university.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the verb lehren<\/strong> in more detail:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Lehren – To teach<\/h1>\n
\"\"

Photo by Miguel Henriques via Unsplash.<\/p><\/div>\n

Here is the present tense conjugation of the verb lehren:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ich lehre<\/strong> \u2013 I teach
\nDu lehrst<\/strong> \u2013 You teach (to one person; informal)
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Er\/sie\/es lehrt<\/strong> \u2013 He\/she\/it teaches
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Wir lehren<\/strong> \u2013 We teach
\nIhr lehrt<\/strong> \u2013 You teach (to more than one person)
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Sie lehren<\/strong> \u2013 You teach (formal)
\nsie lehren<\/strong> \u2013 They teach<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

“Sie lehrt an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen Philosophie.<\/strong>
\nShe teaches philosophy at LMU Munich.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So even though the words der Lehrer<\/strong> (teacher) and lehren<\/strong> (to teach) look and are related, a Lehrer<\/strong> would use the verb unterrichten <\/strong>to describe what they do in class,\u00a0while a Professor\/Dozent<\/strong> (professor\/lecturer) would use the verb lehren.<\/strong> So remember:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“Ein Professor lehrt, ein Lehrer unterrichtet.”<\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hope this makes sense! Stay tuned for part 3, which will clear up any confusion around the words lehren and lernen.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bis dann! (Until then!)<\/p>\n

Previous posts<\/strong>: Lernen and studieren<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! This is the second of three posts on the difference in some very closely linked words. These are German words that are either similar in meaning or similar in appearance (or both), which often means these words are used incorrectly. This post looks at the words lehren (to teach) and unterrichten (to teach)…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":11902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[517059,95131,376023,499,1851,980,166,522203,1401],"class_list":["post-11897","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-dont-let-it-confuse-you","tag-german-language","tag-language","tag-language-learning","tag-learning","tag-same-words","tag-verbs","tag-verbs-german","tag-words"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11897"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11905,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11897\/revisions\/11905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}