bemühen

Bemühen is a German verb whose primary meaning is to make an effort or to strive for something. In everyday use, the verb appears mainly in the reflexive form sich bemühen, with the sense of exerting oneself to achieve a goal or to improve a situation. It is common to say sich bemühen um etwas or sich bemühen zu tun, where um introduces the object of the effort or the action to be performed, and zu introduces an accompanying infinitive.

Conjugation and usage notes: bemühen is a weak verb and appears most often as sich bemühen. Present tense: ich bemühe mich, du bemühst dich, er bemüht sich, wir bemühen uns, ihr bemüht euch, sie bemühen sich. Past tense: ich bemühte mich; du bemühtest dich; er bemühte sich; wir bemühren uns. Perfect: ich habe mich bemüht. The phrase kann also with um: sich um etwas bemühen (to strive for something, to seek to obtain something) or with zu: sich bemühen, etwas zu tun (to strive to do something). In formal contexts, bemühen without reflexive pronoun occurs less frequently and tends to appear in literary or administrative language.

Etymology and related forms: bemühen derives from the prefix be- combined with Mühe (effort, trouble) and the verb mühen/üben in older German. The noun Bemühung corresponds to the act of making an effort. Related synonyms include sich anstrengen, Mühe geben, bestreben.

Examples: Ich bemühe mich um eine zufriedenstellende Lösung. Sie bemüht sich, pünktlich zu erscheinen. Die Firma bemüht sich um neue Kunden. Das Kind hat sich sehr bemüht, das Rätsel zu lösen.

In summary, bemühen describes intentional effort and perseverance, most commonly in reflexive constructions, with variations like um or zu to specify the target or action.