Hmm. To bother is more informal.
Ich wuerde sagen, wenn ich jemanden nicht gut kenne, can I disturb you, und wenn's jemand ist, mit dem ich 'per Du' bin, sage ich, can I bother you.

bother geht in die Richtung nerven..das andere ist stoeren.

They are often interchangeable (context).
- bother has a sense of irritation involved
- disturb usually involves an interruption of some kind

They are NOT interchangeable:
- bother: ärgern, auf die Nerven gehen, sekkieren (provozieren)
- disturb: belästigen, stören, aufhalten

@MiNeum71: What's your source for claiming the words aren't interchangeable? No one claimed that they were completely interchangeable, just that in some contexts either word might work. In fact, the meaning of the words are quite similar, which is shown by referring to an English dictionary.

AHD: bother tr. 1. to disturb or anger, esp. by minor irritations; annoy. 2a. To make agitated or nervous; fluster. b. To make confused or perplexed; puzzle. 3. To intrude on without warrant; disturb. 4. To give trouble to. intr. 1. to take the trouble. concern oneself. 2. To cause trouble.

In the intransitive sense, only bother works.

Tim: Should I take the potato peels out to the compost pile?
Sue: Don't bother. Just put them in the container and I'll take it out in the morning.

Or one could check LEO.
bother: Dictionary: bother
disturb: Dictionary: disturb

Under the listings for both words the translations "jmdn. stören" and "jmdn. belästigen" show up.

Dear Amy-MiMi,
there is a difference between being a native speaker and learning a language. I believe the entries, but language is more than simple sequences of words. To disturb and To bother are not interchangeable. Never.

Yes they are. The nuances of meaning pointed out quite well above make them interchangeable in some situations. Learning a language is more than just hard, fast and rather arbitrary rules as well.

Dear Selkie,
well I don´t know even one situation you can use both saying the same, but you´re welcome to show me one.

When you knock on the office door of a co-worker who is also a friend, as you walk in: Am I bothering/disturbing/interrupting you? It's 6 of one, half-dozen of another.

Try this...

I am working in the same room with somebody else. I have a problem, and want to ask them a question, but I see they are quite involved in what they are doing.

I can say:

Can I bother you for a moment?
Can I disturb you for a moment?

and they mean more or less the same thing. Bother might have a nuance that the disturbance will be of a short duration.

Note that there is no real noun from bother. Botheration is an exclamation, from Winnie the Pooh I believe, and is not really used.

Winnie the Pooh says "Oh bother!" a lot. I do not remember "botheration", but it is a very fun word.

Dear tengun,
thank you for your answer, as you wrote there is s difference, not as big as between fire and ice, but i notice the difference.

Dear Selkie,
as tengun has already wrote, there is a difference:
bothering = for a moment, without interrupting (e.g. I have a short question)
disturbing = a bit longer, without necessarily interrupting (e.g. please pay attention)
interrupting = necessarily interrupting (e.g. stop what you´re doing and look at me)

interchangable: Capable of replacing or changing places with something else; permitting mutual substitution without loss of function or suitability.

For words to be interchangable, they do not have to mean exactly the same thing, they simply need to fulfil the same function, as they do here: "Can I come in/ask you something?"

Dear Selkie,
interchangable ... without loss of function or suitability ... they simply need to fulfil the same function, I see the problem now. But I don't feel like explaining it right now.
And, Can I come in/ask you something? Are you joking? People asking questions don´t need a smattering of knowledge of English language. It´s a bit annoying that non-natives want to know the languagge better than natives because of a school graduation or a journey somewhere in UK or in the states for few weeks.
The first question was Gibt es einen feinen Unterschied zwischen diesen beiden? The answer is: Yes, there is a difference.

Good Lord, what are you on about MiNeum71? I meant the question: "Am I bothering/disturbing/interrupting you?" means "Can I come in/ask you a question/talk to you?" no matter which way you turn it. I cannot make heads nor tails of the rest of that semi-rant.

As to the original question, that was answered completely satifactorily. I was reponding to your catagorical statement: "To disturb and To bother are not interchangeable. Never." That is simply not true, as plenty of natives have confirmed. You (a non-native I presume from your postings) may choose to believe us, or remain convinced that you know better. That is entirely up to you.

Then we should agree to disagree.

Haha, best laugh I've had all day. *bookmark*

@ 14 MiNeum71

Ummmm ... may I - as a native German speaker - please tell you that "language" is written with only one "g"? ;-)

And may I further pont out that there are masses of native speakers (German and English ones) that do not command their native languages without mistakes? So in grammar and spelling questions I'd rather trust a German who studied English at a university for many years than an English native speaker who left school at the age of 15 to become a binman. (No offend, though).

corr: point

Grrrrrrr IE wouldn't let me log in again .. .

corr 2: no offense/offence. :-)


As for the tpoic of this thread:
My English colleague (London) uses both, "bother" and "disturb".
E. g.: Several e-mail exchanges about the same topic he needs to be explained - and sometimes he ends with "Sorry for bothering you again", sometimes he writes "Sorry for disturbing you to again ..."

@18
Es gibt nichts Peinlicheres, als jemanden eines Rechtschreibfehlers zu bezichtigen, während einem selbst solche unterlaufen ... zweimal. Urgs. :)))

Toll ist auch, daß Sie zwar sehr wohl Unbekannte persönlich mit Begriffen wie binman beleidigen, um danach mit einem (No offend, though) dies zu relativieren. Das erinnert mich an meine Schulzeit in der Unterstufe.

Ist MiNeum knows it all witzig oder auch nicht als Beleidigung gemeint, oder hat es einfach nicht für einen eigenen Nickname gereicht? Und welcher Teil des Wortes agree to disagree ist Ihnen nicht klar, daß hier einfach zwei gleichberechtigte Meinungen aufeinander treffen, Sie Pappnase?

@MiNeum71

As a native speaker with higher degrees in English and 15 years' teaching experience, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. It seems you approach language very prescriptively instead of seeing language as a living thing which, like all living things, tends to surprise. I agree with you that there is no perfect synonym: all words which seem interchangeable offer tonal or semantic differences. However, this was not the question. The point is if I say, "Can I bother you for a moment?" or "Can I disturb you for a moment?" the semantic and tonal differences (in this context) are to all intents and purposes irrelevant and therefore as near to perfectly synonymous as it's possible to get.

Fun discussion, though.

Dear Lord Scrotum,

I agree with you that a language is as vibrant and dynamic as the cultures of which they are a part, and that words are no more than labels for concepts about the world around us, and so words and their meanings change like our world changes. But language is also a convention as a tool to communicate, so it´s important to agree on meanings of words (single word or idioms).
 
I didn´t say that to disturb and to bother are completely different, and I believe you and I know that they are similar, but only because one or two exceptions you can´t say that there are no feinen Unterschied zwischen diesen beiden. I´m sure you can find that one moment when one town in Sweden is warmer than one town in Spain. So is Sweden warmer than Spain generally?

I appreciate your effort and knowledge, and maybe now to disturb and to bother are more similar than I thought, but only disagreeing with me would mean that you agree with the others that there is no difference between these two words, and this is, I´m sorry, definitly wrong.

You're right, "einen feinen Unterschied" gibt es. However this is true of all synonyms, and so tells us nothing in particular. To pick up on your "language is a tool" metaphor, if I hammer a nail in with a shoe, is the shoe at this moment a hammer or a shoe? Tools depend on the context of their usage, too.

I like your weather/country analogy,too. However, it doesn't seem to me to stand up to inspection. Of course Spain is generally warmer than Sweden - this is a measurable fact. However, words don't let themselves be measured in any other way than in their particular usage. "Bother" is never always the same word like Spain is always (within reason) the same country but is much more amorphous and adapts continually to the needs of its users.

For me, the best way of beginning to understand the complexities of how language works is to be found in Wittgenstein's "language games" idea. Too complex to go into it here. But I'd certainly recommend reading "The Philosophical Investigations", I'm sure you'd find it interesting.

(By the way, I would never subscribe to the view that " words are no more than labels for concepts about the world around us". They're far more than that.)

All the best.

Lord S.

Ooops, I forget to add: Of course the words sometimes mean completely different things. But as Selkie pointed out they are: "interchangeable in some situations". She/He does not claim that they are simply interchangeable. And neither do I.

Interesting discussion. I'm going to have another look at Wittgenstein myself.

Dear Lord Scrotum,

thanks for your answer. I grew up in Ireland, went to an American school and have been doing research and publishing in English in the last years, and this language still drives me to despair.

A very good friend of mine told me once: The English language is the easiest language to learn and the most difficult to master.

Best wishes

Please note: No one claimed that there is no difference between bother and disturb. The point was made that they can be used interchangably in some contexts.

Dear MiNeum71,

you wrote, "there is a difference between being a native speaker and learning a language". Could you explain your point? I don't see that anyone claimed that being a native speaker and learning a language were the same thing.


I'd also appreciate it if you would explain what you mean by "language is more than simple sequences of words." Once again, I don't see that anyone claimed that.

Thanks.

MiNeum71, in #23 you wrote: "it's important to agree on meanings of words". The problem with that claim is that English words are used by many speakers all over the world and individual speakers don't necessarily agree on precisely what words mean. They typically will agree on the general meaning of a word, but there will be differences as to exact word use. Selkie and I are both native speakers of American English, but we don't use all words in the same way. We don't need to in order to communicate. Should misunderstandings arise, we can clarify things, but it is fallacious to assume that it is possible to nail down the precise meanings of words in order to avoid misunderstandings. And even if one could fix language in this way, language changes, so 10 years from now our definitions would be off again for some words.

Also, your attempts to define the words narrowly miss the point, I'm afraid. Consult a dictionary, such as the OALD, and you will see from the definitions (there are more than one after all because words refuse to be pinned down to one "agreed upon" definition) that

interrupt sb/sth = 1. to say or do sth that makes sb stop what they are saying or doing, 2. to stop sth for a short time.

disturb = 1. to interrupt sb when they are trying to work, sleep, etc.; 3. to make sb worry

bother = 2. bother sb (about / with sth) to annoy, worry or upset sb; 3. to interrupt sb; to talk to sb. when they do not want to talk to you.

There is a great deal of overlap here and I think your attempts to tease the words apart in their core meanings will fail. You would have more success distinguishing among the words with respect to other aspects of their meaning, such as "can't be bothered (to do sth)" = used to say that you do not want to spend time and/or energy doing something. In this meaning only bother works; disturb and interrupt don't, as I mentioned in #5.

Dear Selkie:

Your point was not They can be used interchangably in some contexts, your point was They are often interchangeable. And some means not often. And only one example doesn´t concern some contextes, this is one exception.

Dear Amy-MiMi:

I know that many different countries/cultures speak English and this implies different uses of language, language is vivid and dynamic, and so meanings can change. This is not the point. The point is this is a place where many users are looking for basic and not often for specific knowledge. The question Gibt es einen feinen Unterschied zwischen diesen beiden? shows that this persons wants a multiple choice yes/no. So the answer the meaning of the words are quite similar is wrong. Maybe a dictionary can´t specify the differences but an educated native speaker normally can do that. Also What a pity and What a shame (familiar quotations as Can I bother/disturb you for a moment?) have the same meaning, so are pity and shame interchangeable? No. Maybe you find one or two exceptions, but exceptions are called exceptions because they are exceptions and not rules otherwise you would call them rules and not exceptions. To disturb and to bother aren´t interchangeable. I remember the sentence bothering always disturbs, but disturbing doesn´t necessarily bothers.

We have the same problems also in German language. In the dictionaries you can read that nowadays derselbe and dergleiche have the same meaning, but an educated person would roll his eyes.

MiNeum, you're not fooling anyone. Your English is good, but it's perfectly obvious that you are not a native speaker. And find the apostrophe on your keyboard, for goodness' sake.

MiNeum: You obviously are more interested in finding an apparent loophole that will allow you to retain your sense of being right than you are in actually listening to what is being said here, or bothering to read what was written. Bothersome, if not mildly not disturbing. Consider my towel thrown.

*picking up selkie's towel and throwing it, too*

*edit*

Oops! It landed on a chair by the pool.

The Americaker (ummm, Ameripier)is showing latent Germanism.;-))

This thread should be linked to the dictionary to explain: Dictionary: nitpicker

MiNeum71: you made my day!