A Foundation Course in Reading German, 2017a

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12/8/2017
Es ist den Engländern gelungen, über den Stillen Ozean zu segeln.
The Englishmen succeeded in sailing across the Pacific Ocean.
This verb is what we call an impersonal verb: the grammatical subject is es,
and the verb’s actor is in the dative case. We, however, ignore the es and
translate the dative pronoun / noun as the subject.
sich handeln um (to be a matter of, to deal with)
Hier handelt es sich um das neue Modell.
Here we are dealing with the new model.
[or:] This has to do with the new model.
Es handelt sich darum, Geld zu verdienen.
It is a matter of earning money.
liegen an (to be due to / to be the cause of)
Das liegt an den Katastrophen in diesem Land.
That is due to the catastrophes in this country.
Es liegt daran, daß die Autofirma in die Verlustzone gerutscht ist.
The cause is that the auto company slid into the loss column.
denken an (to think about, to think of)
Haben Sie oft an Ihre Tante gedacht?
Did you often think about your aunt?
[or:] Has your aunt often come to mind?
Prepositions Used Idiomatically
In Unit 5 we listed the major prepositions and their most common meanings. You
should have noticed by this point in the course that a preposition – just as in English
– will always take on an idiomatic meaning when used with a certain verb or noun.
Note the varied translations of um and an in the preceding examples. While it is a
good idea to learn idiomatic expressions, you will be able to understand prepositions
correctly only if you always consider the context of the sentence.
For example, in the following sentence für is best translated as “in” to fit our English
idiom. You would first discover this by consulting your dictionary entry for
interessieren.
Der Student interessiert sich für die Musik.
The student is interested in music.