What is the difference between “behalten” and “halten” in German?

behalten means “to keep.” Start with halten, “to hold,” add the prefix be-, and the passing act of holding becomes keeping something for good. In verbs like this one, be- pins the action onto a direct object: you don’t just hold the coins, you behalten them — now they’re yours. Watch the narrow sense, though: this is “keep” as in not giving it back, not “keep doing something.”

In the clip, one friend finds ten euros in a borrowed jacket and shrugs, “Kannst behalten” — “You can keep it.” Spoken German loves to trim: the full sentence is Das kannst du behalten, but the subject du and the object das both drop away once they’re obvious from context. That clipped, easy-going kannst behalten is exactly how the offer sounds between friends.