Does the AmE idiom "meet with" transfer into German?

Question

In American English we prefer to say "meet with (someone)" when we are already familiar with that person. For example, "He met with his mother and father for lunch on Saturday." On the other hand, you would say "He met his wife in Puerto Rico" if he met his wife there for the first time.

Do we find this same idiom in German? For example, if you wanted to say "I met with my friends today", would you say Ich traf heute mit meinen Freunden? And if you wanted to say, "I met with Tom and Jane today," (assuming that Tom and Jane are familiar) would you say Ich traf heute mit Tom und Jane?

Answer 1

Not quite: There are two variants of the word in German.

jemanden treffen

This can be a planned or an unplanned encounter, although it is rather the latter.

For the described meaning of "to meet someone", you would usually add "zum ersten Mal", as in "jemanden zum ersten Mal treffen" (and again, this can be planned or unplanned). Alternatively, you could use "jemanden kennenlernen".

The word "jemandem begegnen" is more or less a synonym, leaning even stronger towards the unplanned encounter.

sich mit jemandem treffen

This has the exclusive meaning of being planned. It underlines that the meeting is something that all involved actively participate in.

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Addendum:

The figurative meaning from the English expression "to be met with something" is not present in German. Instead, the word "reagieren" could be used:

The announcement was met with criticism by the audience.

becomes

Das Publikum reagierte mit Kritik auf die Ankündigung.

Some impersonal forms ("... rief kritische Reaktionen hervor", "... wurde kritisch aufgenommen", ...) are possible, as well.

And lastly, while German uses the anglicism "das Meeting" for a business meeting (as a synonym of "die Besprechung", and maybe also some other kinds of work-related meetings depending on context), the above variants of "treffen" are also used as a verb in that context (beside compound forms like "ein Meeting haben").

Answer 2

You can indeed use mit in this context to mean 'meet (up) with'; however, treffen would need to be used reflexively: Ich traf mich mit meinen Freunden or Ich traf mich mit Tom und Jane.

As a side note, in your second example ('He met his wife in Puerto Rico'), where 'meet' means 'make the acquaintance of,' you would use, e.g., kennenlernen, not treffen.