German Grammar - kennen vs. wissen

BWV – September 27, 2009, 11:38 pm

3.8 Did you know?

The example shows: "Ich weiß viel über amerikanische Geschichte."
(I know lots about American history.)
However, the explanation says:
"...When referring to knowledge about a subject that you know well, or something you are familiar with, and places kennen is generally used ..."

Confusing. Which one should it be - wissen or kennen?

kennen vs. wissen

Paul-Weber – October 1, 2009, 8:07 pm

Hi there,

sorry about the confusion, I know it's not the easiest thing to get your head around.
Generally the rule that you mentioned applies. However there are always exception, it's German after all.
One exception is that the word "über" goes with "wissen".
"Etwas wissen über" means "to know something about". Even if you refer to a person you would use "wissen" in this case.
Ich weiss viel über ihn - I know a lot about him
Ich weiss viel über Hunde - I know a lot about dogs
BUT
Ich kenne ihn - I know him
Ich kenne viele Hunde - I know many dogs

Same with the example about American history - it is something you know about so you use "wissen über"
Ich weiss viel über amerikanische Geschichte - I know a lot about American history
BUT
Ich kenne viele Geschichten - I know a lot of stories...Read More

kennen vs. wissen

BWV – October 4, 2010, 9:09 pm

Thank you for the explanation.
Since this is a "beginning" course, I assumed that the examples would match the rules. I am well aware that all things have exceptions. In a beginning course, I would like to see the exception labeled as an exception. Otherwise, it causes more confusion. I have a hard time learning "by exception." I would rather learn "by example."
-Bruce

kennen vs. wissen

Paul-S – December 28, 2010, 5:24 pm

keeps us all on our feet though....

kennen vs. wissen

Jorge-D1 – December 30, 2011, 5:46 pm

Does Paul Weber still help around the German forums years later?

kennen vs. wissen

errant-italian-knight – June 8, 2016, 3:37 am

Can someone please explain this for me which on the same subject.
"Wisst ihr wo der Bahnhof ist?

Do you know where the train station is?"

Why is kennen not used here since it is talking about a place?

thanks,
Damien.

kennen vs. wissen

David K – August 17, 2016, 2:34 am

Guten Tag, errant-italien-knight.

I'm just a fellow student, so out of curiosity I ran your question through Google translate and Google provides the same example using Wisst, not kennst.

The way I've been learning it, we can use "kennen" when "familiar with" would be used in English. As we might do with people, or topics we know a great deal about.

Wissen, is used in cases where the knowledge is more of a factual bit of information.

So in this case the question seems factual. One is asking for an item of information. We would ask, "Are you familiar with the nearest trainstation?" As if we had a particularly keen interest in that particular train station.

I don't know for sure, however, if my theory is correct, we might learn that if the question were asked about one particularly famous train station of a historic nature or special unique monument we might hear someone use "Kennen Sie...Read More

kennen vs. wissen

kennen vs. wissen

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