As was trying to understand "Machen wir uns nichts vor" (in chapter 9 of Schlamassel in Stuttgart) and discovered that sich vormachen means lying to oneself.
This post says vormachen means lying, but it doesn't explain why. That is, I'm trying to connect what I know about machen (meaning to make or do) to understand this new word. Can a native speaker help?
Edit: After seeing the answer posted by Tim, I found these sites explaining meanings of vor and the etymology of pretend:
"vormachen" has several meanings. In the meaning you refer to, "vormachen" is used transitively and "vor" is the equivalent of English "pre", as in "pretend". "vormachen" in this meaning literally is to make ("machen") something for ("vor") something different, i.e. to pretend something is something different.
In that case "sich etwas vormachen" does not mean lying, but to deceive oneself or to have illusions about something.
Update:
In contrast to that, "jemandem etwas vormachen" is closer to lying. It means to pretend something or to trick somebody.
The English to deceive also fits in both cases.
Anyway, the German "lĆ¼gen" definitely includes a wilful intent whereas "etwas vormachen" has a broader range. Especially in the "sich etwas vormachen" variant it may indicate that one does not realize something which is obvious to other people or that one has an unfounded hope.
I'd like to answer only the following part of your question:
That is, I'm trying to connect what I know about machen (meaning to make or do) to understand this new word.
There are many separable verbs in German language (abhauen, vormachen, abgehen, anhalten, abziehen ...) that have two meanings: One literal one and one completely different one.
An example containing both meanings of "vormachen" could be:
Er machte mir vor, ihm wĆ¼rde diese Arbeit SpaĆ machen. Deswegen bat ich ihn, die Arbeitsschritte vorzumachen, damit ich sie nachmachen kann.
The second sentence contains the "literal" meaning of "vormachen": "Vor"+"machen". I could bet that there are many Germans who (falsely) say that the verb in this sentence is "machen" (instead of "vormachen").
The first sentence contains the "non-literal" meaning of that verb. I think that the "average" German speaker will tell you that the word "vormachen" in the first sentence has definitely nothing to do with the word "machen".
And there are even separable verbs (for example ausbaden) that only have a non-literal meaning: You will be told that "ausbaden" has absolutely nothing to do with "baden".
This is just like an English speaker would not ask what "bye" in the expression "good bye" means.
If you didn't ask this question in English language, don't try to understand how the second meaning of a separable verb (e.g. "vormachen" = "to fool") is related to the literal meaning!
According to the Duden or https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/vormachen it has 3-4 different meanings. Although they are quite related.
The verb "machen" means to do or to make something. The syllable "vor" is used in the sense of "in front of". So the meaning is to show how to do something in front of someone other. It has a positive connotation, because this is used like "to demonstrate" how something is done in the right or a good way.
Im Sportunterricht sollte er die Ćbung vormachen.
But it also has an implicit meaning for distrust. That means, someone is doing something in the right way only if another person is watching or if it is done in front of another person. Sometimes it can mean "to impress someone". Usually a word to express a limitation like "nur" is required:
Er macht euch nur etwas vor.
If it is related to a self like "sich etwas vormachen", it means to delude oneself in a way, that one has a better perception of something than it is in reality. It would not be used in a cynical way. It is like someone is acting in front of oneself to let it look better than it is. The expression "machen wir uns nichts vor" would mean to look at the reality or to end a wishful thinking.
So a better translation than "lying to oneself" in my opinion would be "to delude oneself" or "to deceive oneself".
"Vormachen" does not explicitly mean lying. "Machen wir uns nichts vor" can translate as "Let's not tell ourselves fairy tales". It doesn't relate as much to a downright lie as it does to misinterpretation, exaggeration or being overly confident. Presenting things in a seemingly plausible, yet unrealistic daylight.
I feel a duty to correct Tim (mandatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/386/) ;-).
Equating "vor" with "for" is not quite correct. The two share a (proto-)Germanic root *fur but vor/fore separated at least half a millenium ago from fĆ¼r/for.
The Latin equivalent of fĆ¼r/for is pro: fĆ¼r umsonst1 = Pro bono = for the good [free of charge], fĆ¼rs Vaterland = pro patria = for the fatherland.
The Latin equivalent of vor/fore is pr[a]e: Vormann = foreman ~ praetor, voraussehen = foresee ~ predict, etc. The meaning of of this word group is "before", in a spatial, temporal or metaphorical, e.g. social, sense.
The German prefix vor- is very frequent; here is a long list. Some have a similar meaning as vormachen: vorschĆ¼tzen, vorgeben, vorspiegeln, vorspielen or vortƤuschen; vorlĆ¼gen is a reinforcement bordering on a pleonasm, but emphasizing the "performative aspect", if you want.
Getting back to the original question: My entirely unsourced native speaker intuition interprets the semantics of vormachen as "performing something in front of the actual situation". It is obscuring the facts behind it, almost a theater piece. A facade, like a Potemkin village. Der Zarin wurde etwas vorgemacht.
By contrast, fĆ¼r/for/pro indicate a direction or goal (of intent, of an action) which sometimes can be mutual, forming an equivalence (stand in for someone, tit for tat). While there is a common root with "before", which apparently lasted longer in English than the German fĆ¼r/vor connection, the meaning is now quite different.
1That's grammatically borderline wrong, very casual German, but for bad German it's quite idiomatic and a nice example.
