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What's the difference between "Beziehung" and "Verhältnis"?
I've noticed that "Beziehung" and "Verhältnis" are both translated as "relationship". What's the difference between the two?
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1536
German native speaker here - but probably I just suck in explaining or creating in context descriptions ...but I try to give some short examples as I personally see it.
Chooyo I guess you got it right.
Beziehung = could be a real constant partner (true love) relationship
or
could also mean: the correlation / connection between two things, not necessarily persons
Verhältnis could be a temporarily love / sexual partner relationship (e.g if either one is married and additional got a love affair)
or
Verwandtschaftsverhältnis (you usually do not say "Verwandtschaftsbeziehung"; but even that is IMHO not totally wrong) = kindship = connection between near and more far family members
or
Nachbarschaftsverhältnis: relation to neighbors; is it good or is it bad - how profound is it
synonyms Verhältnis (=Beziehung): objectively comparing things like mathematical x/y axis IMHO you usually use the word "Verhältnis" for that too.
Example Verhältnis: relation working hours to personal health/energy: The more you work overtime the more exhausted you will get in the long run and the sooner you could get ill if you do it too often / too long.
I hope there are some teachers around who do have more examples on hand and better descriptions :-)
Hello LegoLink, I'm not a native speaker but I did have this doubt back like some months ago. So, you can trust me as a guy that kinda found the difference but it'd be nice for you to find a native speaker and really confirm this.
The difference is that "die Beziehung" is about what kind of relation you have with someone, let's say a sister, a brother, a girlfriend, a friend. Now "das Verhältnis" is a rating of that a relationship, if it's good, bad, etc.
Hope I could ellaborate on that, I just got back from school, had 2 tests so I'm kinda tired.