durchfallen

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German

Etymology

From durch- +‎ fallen.

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Verb

durchfallen (class 7 strong, third-person singular present fällt durch, past tense fiel durch, past participle durchgefallen, auxiliary sein)

  1. (intransitive) to fail; not to pass (with regard to some test or examination)
    Ich bin durchgefallen.I failed.
    Ich bin bei / in der Prüfung durchgefallen.I failed the exam.

Usage notes

  • Unlike English “to fail”, German durchfallen cannot take a direct object. The thing that one fails may be given with the prepositions bei or in + dative case. However, an even commoner construction is fallen + durch + accusative. Note that this is not a compound verb, but a simple verb + preposition:
Ich bin durch die Prüfung gefallen.I failed the exam.
  • In order to express that a teacher or examiner “failed somebody”, that is “made them fail”, durchfallen is construed with lassen:
Der Lehrer hat mich durchfallen lassen.The teacher failed me.

Conjugation

Verb

durchfallen (class 7 strong, third-person singular present durchfällt, past tense durchfiel, past participle durchfallen, auxiliary sein)

  1. (intransitive) to fall through
    Das Gitter war zu weitmaschig. Der Ball ist einfach durchgefallen.
    The grating was too wide-meshed. The ball simply fell through.

Conjugation

Related terms

Further reading