kommen ("to come") and bringen ("to bring") sit at the heart of German idiom precisely because they form a pair: kommen is intransitive motion toward a point (and takes sein in the perfect), while bringen is the transitive counterpart — you bring something into a state (and takes haben). That mirror image runs through dozens of fixed expressions. Once you see the pattern, etwas kommt in Ordnung ("something comes right") and etwas in Ordnung bringen ("to put something right") stop being two facts to memorise and become one. This page collects the high-value idioms where translating "come" and "bring" literally will fail you — above all es kommt darauf an ("it depends"), jemanden zum Lachen bringen ("to make someone laugh"), and das bringt nichts ("that's pointless").
The core split: kommen vs. bringen
Think of kommen and bringen as the two halves of a single event. Something kommt into a state on its own; someone bringt it there. Compare:
Keine Sorge, das kommt schon wieder in Ordnung.
Don't worry, that'll come right again.
Ich bringe das morgen in Ordnung, versprochen.
I'll put that right tomorrow, I promise.
The first has no agent — the situation rights itself. The second has an agent (ich) who acts on an object (das). This is the same logic English uses with "come" (intransitive) and "bring" (transitive), but German extends it much further into idiom than English does.
kommen idioms
The literal kommen of motion stays useful for asking and giving directions, and for "coming home":
Entschuldigung, wie komme ich am besten zum Hauptbahnhof?
Excuse me, how do I best get to the main station?
Ich komme heute erst spät nach Hause, fang schon mal an zu essen.
I'll only get home late today, go ahead and start eating.
Note nach Hause (movement toward home) — no article, fixed. From here the idioms branch out. zu spät kommen is "to be / arrive late," and a whole family of zu + Dativ phrases means "to get to" a topic or point:
Sie kommt ständig zu spät zur Arbeit.
She's constantly late for work.
Lassen Sie uns bitte zur Sache kommen.
Let's please get to the point / the matter at hand.
Jetzt komme ich zum wichtigsten Punkt.
Now I come to the most important point.
A second cluster uses kommen for arriving at an idea or a fate. auf eine Idee kommen = "to hit on / think of an idea"; ums Leben kommen = "to die / lose one's life" (literally "come around one's life," i.e. be deprived of it):
Wie kommst du denn auf so eine verrückte Idee?
What on earth gives you that crazy idea?
Bei dem Unglück sind drei Menschen ums Leben gekommen.
Three people lost their lives in the accident.
Two more are everyday gold. in Frage kommen = "to be an option / be conceivable" (very often negated: kommt nicht in Frage = "out of the question"), and zu Wort kommen = "to get a chance to speak":
Ein Umzug ins Ausland kommt für mich überhaupt nicht in Frage.
Moving abroad is completely out of the question for me.
In der Diskussion ist sie kaum zu Wort gekommen.
She barely got a word in during the discussion.
There is also the separable zurechtkommen mit (+ Dativ) = "to cope / get along with":
Kommst du mit dem neuen Programm zurecht?
Are you getting on okay with the new software?
es kommt darauf an: the idiom you cannot live without
This is the single most useful kommen idiom and the one English speakers most often render wrong. Es kommt darauf an = "it depends." Literally "it comes down to it," it freezes es as a dummy subject and darauf (the da- compound for auf) as a placeholder. You can leave it bare, or unpack what it depends on with darauf, ob … ("on whether") or auf + noun.
— Kommst du morgen mit? — Das kommt darauf an, ob ich früher Feierabend habe.
— Are you coming along tomorrow? — That depends on whether I finish work earlier.
Es kommt ganz auf das Wetter an.
It depends entirely on the weather.
Closely related is Wie kommst du darauf? = "What makes you think that? / Where did you get that idea?" — a challenge to someone's reasoning, again built on darauf:
Ich soll das gesagt haben? Wie kommst du darauf?
I supposedly said that? What makes you think so?
bringen idioms
The literal bringen is "to take/bring someone or something somewhere" — note German uses bringen for taking a person home, where English might say "take":
Soll ich dich nach dem Konzert nach Hause bringen?
Shall I take you home after the concert?
The transitive state-changers mirror the kommen list: etwas in Ordnung bringen ("put right"), etwas zu Ende bringen ("finish / see through"), etwas zur Sprache bringen ("raise / bring up a topic"):
Sie hat das Projekt trotz aller Probleme zu Ende gebracht.
She saw the project through to the end despite all the problems.
Wer hat das Thema überhaupt zur Sprache gebracht?
Who brought the topic up in the first place?
And the mirror of auf eine Idee kommen is jemanden auf eine Idee bringen = "to give someone an idea / put an idea in their head" — the causative twin:
Danke, du hast mich gerade auf eine gute Idee gebracht!
Thanks, you've just given me a good idea!
Two more carry a sense of loss or deprivation. jemanden um etwas bringen = "to deprive someone of / cheat someone out of something," and the separable umbringen = "to kill":
Der Lärm bringt mich noch um den Schlaf.
The noise is going to rob me of my sleep yet.
The German causative: zum Lachen bringen
Here is the pattern competitors skip and learners need most. bringen + zu + nominalized infinitive is the productive German way to say "make someone do (an involuntary reaction)." The infinitive is capitalised as a noun and fused with zu into zum (zu dem):
Dieser Film bringt jeden zum Lachen.
This film makes everyone laugh.
Mit dem Brief hat er sie zum Weinen gebracht.
With the letter he made her cry.
Solche Fragen bringen mich zum Nachdenken.
Questions like that make me think.
This is genuinely systematic: zum Lachen / Weinen / Schweigen / Nachdenken / Verzweifeln bringen all work. Where English uses bare "make + verb" ("make her cry"), German nominalises the verb and routes it through bringen … zum -. Use it whenever someone triggers an emotional or reflexive reaction in another person.
das bringt nichts: that's pointless
Finally, the everyday verdict das bringt nichts = "that's no use / that's pointless / it gets you nowhere." Literally "that brings nothing," it judges that an action yields no benefit. The positive das bringt etwas / viel ("that helps / is worth it") and Was bringt das? ("what's the point of that?") round it out:
Hör auf, ihn anzuschreien — das bringt doch nichts.
Stop yelling at him — that's pointless.
Lohnt sich das neue Tool? — Ja, das bringt richtig viel.
Is the new tool worth it? — Yes, it really helps a lot.
Common Mistakes
❌ Es hängt ab. (für 'it depends')
Calque of English; abhängen needs an object. The fixed idiom is es kommt darauf an.
✅ Es kommt darauf an.
It depends.
❌ Das macht keinen Sinn — es ist nutzlos zu streiten.
Wordy and unidiomatic for 'that's pointless'; German has a fixed phrase.
✅ Das bringt nichts, sich zu streiten.
There's no point arguing.
❌ Der Film macht mich lachen.
Calque of English 'make me laugh'; German uses bringen + zum + nominalized infinitive.
✅ Der Film bringt mich zum Lachen.
The film makes me laugh.
❌ Ich habe nach Hause gekommen.
Wrong auxiliary — kommen is intransitive motion and takes sein.
✅ Ich bin nach Hause gekommen.
I came home.
❌ Wie kommst du darauf zum Lachen?
Confuses two patterns; 'how do you get that idea' is just Wie kommst du darauf?
✅ Wie kommst du darauf?
What makes you think that?
Key Takeaways
- kommen is intransitive (perfect with sein); bringen is its transitive twin (perfect with haben) — in Ordnung kommen vs. in Ordnung bringen.
- es kommt darauf an = "it depends," and Wie kommst du darauf? = "what makes you think that?" — both built on the da-compound **darauf.
- bringen + zum + nominalized infinitive (zum Lachen bringen) is the German causative for "make someone laugh/cry/think."
- das bringt nichts is the everyday "that's no use / pointless."
- Fixed kommen phrases to bank: zur Sache / zum Punkt kommen, in Frage kommen, ums Leben kommen, zu Wort kommen, zurechtkommen mit.
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Start learning German→Related Topics
- kommen: Full Conjugation and UsageA1 — Complete conjugation of the strong verb kommen 'to come' across every tense and mood, with the sein auxiliary, its many separable derivatives, principal parts, idioms, and the errors English speakers make.
- bringen: Full Conjugation and UsageA2 — Complete conjugation of bringen 'to bring / to take (somewhere)' across every tense and mood, with principal parts, the dative + accusative pattern, idioms, and the errors English speakers make.
- Verbs with Fixed PrepositionsB1 — The large class of German verbs that govern a fixed preposition with a fixed case (warten auf + Akk., teilnehmen an + Dat.) — why the preposition is never the literal English one and the two-way case is lexically frozen.
- da-Compounds: dafür, damit, daraufB1 — How German fuses da(r)- with a preposition to refer back to a thing, why animacy decides between damit and mit ihm, and how to insert the linking -r-.
- Expressions with geben and es gibtB1 — The invariable es gibt + accusative ('there is/are'), plus the rich family of geben idioms from Bescheid geben to das gibt's doch nicht!
- Collocations: Words That Go TogetherB2 — Why German verbs and nouns travel in fixed pairs — eine Entscheidung treffen, eine Frage stellen, ein starker Raucher — and how learning these partnerships as chunks is what makes you sound native rather than merely correct.