What does "dran" mean?

Question

Slow German 233 includes the following sentence:

Also: Mein Teekesselchen ist oben an jedem Zimmer dran.

Duden offers no definition for "dran", only a variety of examples of its use, of which there appear to be many, without an obvious pattern of meaning. In an attempt to understand what purpose this word (if that is what it is) has in the given sentence I looked at the Google translation of the sentence with and without including it. With:

So: my kettle is on top of every room.

Without:

So: my kettle is upstairs in every room.

Assuming these translations accurately reflect the effect including this word has on the meaning of the sentence it would appear to cause the "oben" to point to the "Zimmer" rather than the general upstairs. So is that what "dran" does, is cause a direction to point at or in a specifically designated thing?

Answer 1

As David Vogt points out in a comment, “dran” is short for “daran” - a word that basically means “at” or “on” some location. The location is assumed to be given in context, so “dran” is - as Duden describes - colloquial way of saying “at [this/it]”. The corresponding English preposition will depend on the context of the location/place (“this”) refers to. This is true for many prepositions, where a 1:1 translation either doesn’t exist or would be applied incorrectly; you will need to use context to determine how to translate them.

For example: If I had to translate “Ich denke daran” I’d translate that as “I think about it” but the following phrase from some song lyrics: “an meinem Fahrrad ist alles dran” would mean (lit. “everything is on my bicycle”~ “my bicycle has it all”).

Strangely enough, I can’t replicate the error you specify. When I use Google Translate, it also says “in” when “dran” is at the end. That said, it seems like a bizarre translation.

Without further context: I personally would translate it as: “My little tea kettle is upstairs at [the door of?] every room.” I read “dran” as being outside and near each room. But I’ve never heard a sentence phrased like that, and I asked a German native speaker and they also never heard a sentence phrased like that. And even for my interpretation, it was pointed out that you’d be more likely to see it phrased as “Ein Teekesselchen steht vor jeder Tür” (“There’s a little tea kettle in front of every door”).

*Edit: the comments below explain the meaning of the sentence in context of the homonym game and clarify how the sentence is meant to be read. (i.e. “The [ceiling] is attached to the top of each room upstairs.”)