lehren

From Middle High German lēren, from Old High German lēren, from Proto-West Germanic *laiʀijan, from *laizō (“lore”), from Proto-Germanic *laizijaną, from *lizaną +‎ *-janą, stative from the root *leys- (“track, furrow, trace, trail”).

Cognate with Low German lehren, Dutch leren, Afrikaans leer, Danish lære, Norwegian lære, Swedish lära, English learn. Related to lernen.

• IPA^(key): /ˈleːʁən/

• Audio:

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• Audio:

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• Homophone: leeren
• Rhymes: -eːʀən

lehren (weak, third-person singular present lehrt, past tense lehrte, past participle gelehrt, auxiliary haben)

1. (transitive or intransitive) to teach (a class, a subject); to be a teacher

   Ich lehre Geschichte. ― I teach history.

   Sie lehrt an der Uni. ― She's a teacher at the university.

2. (formal, transitive) to teach [with accusative ‘someone’ and accusative ‘something’]

   Meine Großmutter lehrte mich das Stricken.

   My grandmother taught me knitting.

• A more common word for sense 2, particularly in spoken German, is beibringen.
• Traditional grammar requires lehren (unlike beibringen) to be used only with accusative objects, i.e. with a double accusative as in the example above. However, a dative construction is also heard now and then. Thus:
  • Meine Großmutter lehrte mir das Stricken.

    My grandmother taught me knitting.

• Lehrbuch
• Lehre f
• Lehrer
• Lehrwerk

• lernen

• “lehren” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “lehren” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “lehren” in Duden online
• “lehren” in OpenThesaurus.de