helfen

German

Etymology

From Middle High German hëlfen, from Old High German helfan, from Proto-West Germanic *helpan, from Proto-Germanic *helpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱelb-, *ḱelp-. Cognate with Low German helpen, Dutch helpen, English help, Danish hjælpe, Norwegian Bokmål hjelpe.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɛlfn̩/

• audio (Germany)

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• audio (Germany)

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• audio (Austria)

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• Hyphenation: hel‧fen

Verb

helfen (class 3 strong, third-person singular present hilft, past tense half, past participle geholfen, past subjunctive hülfe, auxiliary haben)

1. (with dative) to help (someone); to assist; to aid

   Ich habe ihnen bei der Reparatur des Wagens geholfen.

   I helped them with the repair of the car.

   Dieses Mittel hilft dabei, Probleme beim Wasserlassen und Inkontinenz zu reduzieren.

   This product helps to reduce urinary problems and incontinence.

   Hat der Krieg diese drei Hauptschäden bekämpfen helfen?

   Did the war help combat these three main harms?

Usage notes

• When used as a catenative verb, helfen can be either take zu + infinitive or the bare infinitive.
• Similarly as in modal verbs like müssen and können, when used with a bare infinitive, the past participle geholfen can be replaced by the infinitive helfen (as shown in the third example), but this phenomenon does not occur unless in obsolete or archaic speech.

Conjugation

• The past subjunctive hülfe is rare. Even rarer variants are hälfe and hölfe.

Derived terms

Related terms

Further reading

• “helfen” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “helfen” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “helfen” in Duden online
• “helfen” in OpenThesaurus.de
• “helfen” in Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, 16 vols., Leipzig 1854–1961.

Anagrams

• fehlen

Middle High German

Etymology

Inherited from Old High German helfan, from Proto-West Germanic *helpan, from Proto-Germanic *helpaną. Cognate with Middle Low German helpen, Middle Dutch helpen, and Middle English helpen.

Verb

hëlfen (class 3 strong, third-person singular present hilfet, past tense half, past participle geholfen, past subjunctive hülfe, auxiliary hân)

1. to help

   Wer hülfe danne mir? ― Who would then help me?

Conjugation

Descendants

• Central Franconian: hellepe
• Cimbrian: hölfan
• German: helfen
• Luxembourgish: hëllefen
• Yiddish: העלפֿן (helfn)

References

• Benecke, Georg Friedrich, Müller, Wilhelm, Zarncke, Friedrich (1863) “helfen”, in Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch: mit Benutzung des Nachlasses von Benecke‎, Stuttgart: S. Hirzel

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɛlvɛn/

Noun

helfen

1. h-prothesized form of elfen

Mutation