Deutschlisch
Realisieren oder bemerken?
My flatmate has asked me recently if I knew that the Germans tend to use the verb realisieren in a wrong way as he was told (off) by a friend who’s (allegedly) into language matters. He claimed that in German it only has the meaning of verwirklichen and the Germans also use it to convey the meaning of erkennen, bemerken.
First I (admittedly negligently and a bit absent-mindedly) agreed as such cases are known to the public where similar words in two languages that used to mean something completely different (so false friends) have adopted the other meaning from the other language in one of the languages.
But today I decided to have a closer look at the matter and both Duden and Langenscheidt say that the verb realisieren has both those meanings in German. I think I’ve got to talk to my flatmate about that again, because it might be true that realisieren is now overused in situations where a simple erkennen or bemerken would do but still it’s not a mistake as such.
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2 comments for “Realisieren oder bemerken?”
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I think that has to do with the way Duden reacts on language changes: If a word is used in a new way that is understood and accepted, it will be included in the new Duden. Therefore the formerly wrong use is now correct. The same holds true for “wegen + dative”.
Hi Ulf, thank you for your comment. You’re definitely right. I’ve discussed the issue with a friend recently and we thought that Duden is pretty ‘forward and liberal’ in allowing old mistakes become acceptable and including neologisms and new meanings of ‘old’ words. What do you think?