No. 4,634 in German
treiben
"To drive, propel, drift, urge, or engage in an activity."
In a sentence
Die Kinder treiben auf der Wiese Sport.
The children are doing sports on the meadow.
In this sentence, 'treiben' refers to the act of engaging in an activity or practice.
Das Boot treibt langsam den Fluss hinunter.
The boat is drifting slowly down the river.
Here, 'treiben' describes the motion of drifting or being moved by external forces, such as water currents.
Was treibst du da?
What are you doing there?
In this example, 'treiben' is used colloquially to mean 'doing' or 'engaging in an activity'.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “treiben” in actual German podcasts.
Find “treiben” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays German podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into Deutsch, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
German books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).