Welcome to the digital detox retreat! When you want to lay out the rules of the program, you will often need to talk about activities in a general sense—like "reading," "fasting," or "switching off."
Turning Verbs into Nouns
In English, we add "-ing" to a verb to turn it into a noun (for example, turning "read" into "reading"). In German, the process is even easier: you just take the infinitive form of the verb, capitalize it, and give it the neuter article das.
For example, the verb abschalten (to switch off) becomes the noun das Abschalten (switching off).
| There is a retreat here, and switching off makes sense. | Es gibt hier ein Retreat, und das Abschalten ist sinnvoll. |
Since these activities are now regular nouns, you can use them as the subject or object of your sentences. If the retreat program is strict, you might forbid das Arbeiten (working):
| The program is strict, because we forbid working. | Das Programm ist streng, denn wir verbieten das Arbeiten. |
Retreat Rules
These capitalized infinitives, or nominalized verbs, are perfect for outlining what is allowed and what is forbidden.
| Do you allow reading on the smartphone? | Erlauben Sie das Lesen auf dem Smartphone? |
You can also easily list multiple activities together. Just remember that each one is treated as a separate noun and takes its own das.
| Fasting and keeping silent are very important here. | Das Fasten und das Schweigen sind hier sehr wichtig. |
"While" Doing an Activity
You will frequently see these nominalized verbs paired with prepositions. A very common one is beim (a contraction of the preposition bei and the dative article dem).
Using beim directly followed by a capitalized infinitive is the standard German way to say "while doing" an activity. For example, beim Meditieren simply means "while meditating."
| While meditating, keeping silent helps. | Beim Meditieren hilft das Schweigen. |
