verb
to guess, to advise
A2
Verbo forte e irregolare: raten significa “indovinare” oppure “consigliare”. Presente: du rätst, er rät; passato: riet; participio: geraten. Con haben nel senso di “consigliare” (ich habe dir geraten), con sein in in Schwierigkeiten geraten.
Esempi
Ich rate dir, mehr Wasser zu trinken.
Ti consiglio di bere più acqua.
Die Ärztin riet dem Patienten, weniger zu arbeiten, weil die Blutwerte besorgniserregend gewesen waren.
La dottoressa consigliò al paziente di lavorare meno, perché i valori del sangue erano stati preoccupanti.
Ich rate, dass er zu Hause ist.
Suppongo che sia a casa.
Dettagli
Mnemoniche
Picture someone with a question mark over their head while another person points and speaks (giving advice or making a guess).
Sounds like the English word 'rate' — imagine guessing a price or rating, which helps recall the 'guess' sense.
Note
Raten has two common senses: 'to guess' and 'to advise'. It typically takes a dative object when meaning 'to advise' (jemandem raten). The verb is irregular: present tense has a stem-vowel change (du rätst, er rät) and the past stem is riet-. The past participle is geraten. Depending on sense, the perfect can use haben (hat geraten) for the transitive/advice sense, but sein is used with the intransitive meaning 'to get into' (z. B. in Schwierigkeiten geraten → ist geraten).