langgehen

Definition & meaning

Langgehen means to walk or go along something, such as a road, path, or river. It is commonly used in informal speech.

• Wir gehen den Fluss lang. — “We’re walking along the river.”
• Geh den Weg lang. — “Go along the path.”

A related but different expression is lange gehen (“to go on for a long time” or “to last a long time”). Here, lange is an adverb, not part of the verb langgehen: Die Veranstaltung wird lange gehen means “The event will last a long time.”

Grammar & Word origin

Langgehen combines lang (“along”) and gehen (“to go, walk”). It is a separable verb: in a main clause, lang typically appears at the end (Ich gehe die Straße lang). In the perfect tense, it is langgegangen and takes sein: Ich bin die Straße langgegangen.

Synonyms & antonyms

• entlanggehen ↗ — “to walk along”; a more standard or neutral alternative.
• entlanglaufen ↗ — “to run along” or “to walk along”; it can suggest faster movement than langgehen.
• stehen bleiben ↗ — “to stop, stand still”; a contextual opposite.
• umkehren ↗ — “to turn back”; an opposite when contrasting continuing along a route with retracing one’s way.

Common phrases & collocations

• eine Straße langgehen ↗ — to walk along a street
• einen Weg langgehen ↗ — to walk along a path
• einen Fluss langgehen ↗ — to walk along a river