einfallen

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See also: Einfällen

German

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Etymology

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ein- +‎ fallen

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈaɪ̯nˌfalən/, [ˈʔaɪ̯nˌfaln̩]
  • Audio:(file)
  • Audio (Austria):(file)

Verb

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einfallen (class 7 strong, third-person singular present fällt ein, past tense fiel ein, past participle eingefallen, auxiliary sein)

  1. (intransitive) to occur (to someone), to come (to someone); to come to mind [with dative ‘to someone’] (idiomatically translated by English think of with the dative object as the subject)
    Synonym: in den Sinn kommen
    Laß dir was einfallen!
    Think of something!
    Mir würde es nie im Traum einfallen, Astronaut zu sein.
    I would never dream of being an astronaut.
    Was fällt dir ein?
    How dare you?
    (literally, “What are you thinking of?”)
  2. (impersonal) for there to be a memory [with dative ‘to someone’] (idiomatically translated by English remember with the dative object as the subject)
    Es ist mir wieder eingefallen
    I remember again.
    (literally, “It has again fallen into my mind / There has again been a memory to me.”)
  3. (intransitive) to invade [with in (+ accusative) ‘somewhere’]
    Die Soldaten fielen in das Land ein.
    The soldiers invaded the land.
    Jedes Jahr im September fallen die Studenten wie Heuschrecken in diese Stadt ein.
    Every September the students invade this town like locusts.

Conjugation

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Further reading

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