# Student vs. Schüler



## thalaivi

Guten Tag,

Can someone please explain to me what is the difference between der Student und der Schüler?

I realise there is another post with the explanation, however the entire post was in German and me being a complete beginner in the language could understand only an odd word here and there 

Can someone please help

Danke
Vidya


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## Kwistax

Schüler=pupil
Student=student


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## Schimmelreiter

thalaivi said:


> Guten Tag,
> 
> Can someone please explain to me what is the difference between der Student und der Schüler?
> 
> I realise there is another post with the explanation, however the entire post was in German and me being a complete beginner in the language could understand only an odd word here and there
> 
> Can someone please help
> 
> Danke
> Vidya


_Student _is limited to post-secondary ("tertiary") education: _Universitäten, Fachhochschulen _etc.

By the way, in _gender-sensitive language_, the plural is either _(die) Studentinnen und Studenten _or _Studierende/die Studierenden _if referring to men and women.






Kwistax said:


> Schüler=pupil
> Student=student


Not in times of primary-school students, high-school students, let alone nursery-school students.


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## Kwistax

I think the distinction exists in every language. There's primary (obligatory) school and there's the after. Often, pupils are referred to as students, very wrongly.


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## Schimmelreiter

Kwistax said:


> I think the distinction exists in every language. There's primary (obligatory) school and there's the after. Often, pupils are referred to as students, very wrongly.


(1) Those "after primary school" are not at all referred to as _Studenten_​, see what I wrote about post-secondary (tertiary) education.

(2) How can you possibly call terms like _nursery-school student,_ _primary-school student _and _high-school student __*"wrong"*_? 




PS
You seem to be equating _student_ with its cognate _Student_, but unfoundedly so.


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## thalaivi

Danke all

Vidya


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## Kwistax

Schimmelreiter said:


> (1) Those "after primary school" are not at all referred to as _Studenten_​, see what I wrote about post-secondary (tertiary) education.
> 
> (2) How can you possibly call terms like _nursery-school student,_ _primary-school student _and _high-school student __*"wrong"*_?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PS
> You seem to be equating _student_ with its cognate _Student_, but unfoundedly so.



you're right; again I let go one of my posts too soon without giving it much afterthought. "student" is how people attending studies after the_ whole _obligatory curriculum should be called. 
I think "student" has become a sort of all-purpose term, above all with a view to flattering both teachers and pupils or more exactly pupils' parents.


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## Hutschi

Hi, it also depends on context.
So if you learn from a famous painter, you can be "Schüler" or "Meisterschüler" of the painter. Similar it is in music.


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## heybach

How should I call then a person I am teaching German or any other language? Mein Schüler, mein Student? Something different?

Danke im Voraus!


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## διαφορετικός

heybach said:


> How should I call then a person I am teaching German or any other language? Mein Schüler, mein Student?


"Schüler", except if you are teaching at (and on behalf of) a university or a similar institute.


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## heybach

διαφορετικός said:


> "Schüler", except if you are teaching at (and on behalf of) a university or a similar institute.


Thanks! I assume it applies to any age of the "Schüler". Even a 63-year-old man would be "mein Schüler", right?


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## διαφορετικός

heybach said:


> Even a 63-year-old man would be "mein Schüler", right?


Yes.


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## elroy

heybach said:


> How should I call then a person I am teaching German or any other language?


What's the situation?  In what setting are you teaching them?  Is it a whole class, or private one-on-one instruction?


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## Kajjo

Schüler = going to school (or generally being taught non-academically)
Student = going to university (or generally being taught on academic level)

In German is straight-forward. I don't understand the lengthy discussion.

EDIT: I believe "academic" is the right way to explain the limitation of "Studium / Student" in German.


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## Sowka

Kajjo said:


> Schüler = going to school
> Student = going to university
> 
> In German is straight-forward. I don't understand the lengthy discussion.


There are "Schüler" who don't go to school. For example I, who left school in 1977, would be a "Klavierschülerin" if I decided to reactivate my former hobby.


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## Thersites

Hanna Arendt war eine Schülerin von Martin Heidegger.


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## Perseas

Kajjo said:


> Student = going to university


Maybe it's not irrelevant that "Studium" refers to this kind of high education.


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## Kajjo

Thomas(CH) said:


> Hanna Arendt war eine Schülerin von Martin Heidegger.


Yes, that's a pretty old-fashioned way of phrasing it and as such an exception. Mostly restricted to philosophy anyway.



Sowka said:


> a "Klavierschülerin"


Yes, in some compound words, "Schüler" extends to other things that can be taught non-acedemically.

I edited my post accordingly.


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## Sowka

Kajjo said:


> Yes, in some compound words, "Schüler" extends to other things that can be taught non-acedemically.



Not only in compound nouns. My Klavierlehrerin would say about me, 62 years old, school education long forgotten : "Das ist eine meiner Schülerinnen".


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## JClaudeK

Sowka said:


> There are "Schüler" who don't go to school.



Und Studenten gehen nicht nur an eine _Universität_: 


> Student
> jmd., der an einer Universität, Hochschule oder Fachschule studiert


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## Demiurg

It's similar to _Professor_ vs. _Lehrer_.


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## Hutschi

Student
jmd., der an einer Universität, Hochschule oder Fachschule studiert (JClaudeK, #20)

As simple as this is - and I agree as rule of thumb - with add on "Fachhochschule".
But how would you translate "Universität, Hochschule oder Fachschule"?


I could say: Studenten studieren, Schüler lernen.
But this is also just a kind of circle. And as well "lernen" and "studieren" have other meanings and they are also overlapping.

Also context is important.

My wife studied - studierte - to become a nurse in the GDR.

In the West and in earlier times in the GDR she would have been "Lehrling" and later "Auszubildende". Both refer to "Berufsschule".

So we have another "Gegenwort":

Student vs. Schüler - relation in time
Auszubildender vs. Schüler - relation in time

(Schüler become Studenten or Auszubildende.)

Studenten= (now) Studierende *vs*. Auszubildende --- they have different groups of professions

Schüler becomes Student or Auszubildender after school.

Note: "Hochschule" and "Highschool" are false friends.
"Hochschule" is a kind of small university with restricted areas of professions.

"studieren" has also additional meanings. Example:_ Professor Müller studierte=erforschte Eigenschaften von Bazillen. Dabei lernte er viel über ihre Eigenschaften.

So: der Schüler lernt _and_ Der Student studiert _are basically true. But you cannot exclude the contrary in appropriate context.

It is rather complex.


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## Hofmannsthal

> Note: "Hochschule" and "Highschool" are false friends.
> "Hochschule" is a kind of small university with restricted areas of professions


In the USSR, it was_ institut _(later, they "upgraded" themselves to universities)_. _As in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I've never seen any other similar cases of 'Institute=Hochschule' in English, though. Always been curious why they (MIT) named themselves so.


​


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## Thersites

Kajjo said:


> Schüler = going to school (or generally being taught non-academically)
> Student = going to university (or generally being taught on academic level)


A few exceptions have been mentioned but the above is the answer I suggest you take with you from this thread, @thalaivi.


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