"Wir gehen um das Haus."
Translation:We are going around the house.
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It's a seperable prefix and sometimes an adverb. It means hither, to this place, to here, to me/us and also can mean "ago" when talking about time. See: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/her#German
I would say (I'm not a native speaker, so it's just guessing here) that they are not. I think you would be perfectly understood without shortening them. But I think some shortenings are more commonly used, and the Germans are so accustomed to them, that if you want to better "fit in" with your language, you will have to learn to use them ; D
It seems a little weird as in "the home", it seems as if anything is should be "the house" instaid of "the home" because "the home" makes it sound like its your home and "the house" sounds like it is a random house or at least someone elses house, home refers to your house, which house on the other hand makes it sound like your snooping someone elses house!?
1672
But "wir gehen um das Haus" means just that, you are walking along the outer perimeter of the house, you are not just passing it.
um / um ... herum = around
As a preposition, um has different translations into English, depending on context.
E.g.: Es geht um die Sache. = It is about the issue.
Sie kümmert sich um das (= ums) Haus. = She takes care of the house.
And um can also be a conjunction:
E.g.: Er kommt, um zu helfen. = He comes in order to help.
You're talking about how two way prepositions work. When we use a two way preposition such as 'unter, in', the dative case is used if the object is in a fixed position while the accusative is used when there is movement from one place to another. In this sentence, we make use of the accusative preposition 'um' so that means that whenever in a sentence you have 'um' or any other accusative preposition, the rest of the sentence will be in the accusative case.
Two way prepositions work like this: Sie ist in der Bäckerei ( She is in the bakery) Now in this sentence we know that the woman is in the bakery, that means that there's no movement, so we make use of the dative case.
Sie geht in die Bäckerei ( She goes in the bakery/She is going in the bakery ) Here, the woman is going into the bakery so there's movement, that's why we use 'die' (accusative case)
Hope this helps!
The translation for the discussion states "We are going around the house" but the answer claims "We go round the house" is the accepted. This is misleading to me because those are two different phrases. Going "around" the house is either literally circling the physical building or going room by room through it. Going "round" the house seems to be more saying "we are going by the house" as a stop along the way to somewhere else. I chose the latter since "um" can mean "by". Or at least I thought...any clarification or is DL just being DL?
1672
"Wir gehen um das Haus" always means walking around the outer perimeter. If you are walking around inside it is "wir gehen durch das Haus"