handelt von = deals with, has to do with
Der Artikel handellt von... The article deals with...

es handelt sich um = it is about
Bei der Musikschule handelt es sich um... The music school is about...

very basically.

hmmm...gute frage.
also mein erster eindruck sagt mir dass man zb bei inhaltsngaben von geschichten (film,bücher etc) handelt von benutzt,handelt um verbinde ich mehr mit konflikten,problemen etc.
was meint ihr?

handelt von = (a medium) deals with / treats (a subject).
Artikel, Meldungen, Bücher, Filme etc. handeln von etwas.

"es handelt sich um" = "it is about" oder einfach "it is".
Eine Beschreibung / Erläuterung, manchmal ein Synonym. Zum Beispiel: Bei einem Laptop handelt es sich um einen tragbaren Computer.

Dieses Buch handelt von der NS-Zeit.

"The plot of this book is..." "This book is about..."

= is about
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Warum willst du kein Geld sparen? Es handelt sich um deine Zukunft!
"... We are talking about your future here!"

Ich habe heute die Rechnung bekommen. Es handelt sich um (einen Betrag von) 3,000 Euro!
"... It is in the ammount of..." or "It's a matter of..." (I guess depending on what you mean...)

= "at stake/issue is....", "it's a question of...", "its a matter of..." or something like "we are talking about"

Germans seem to like to use it for an amount of money when someone owes or is owed/ is paying or being paid money...

I would also never ever translate "es handelt sich um" as "it is about"

unless my understanding of the phrase is totally off, the only time "es handelt sich um" could be translated as such would be the very colloquial expression "all about"

For example: "The music school is about..." technically makes no sense at all (in AE at least). You cannot really come up with a logical way yo finish that sentence, unless you really want to stretch it and talk about its location... but that sounds too poetic.

But colloquially, you could say something like: "That music school is all about success!" which really means "... is really concerned with..." or "... has a lot of..."

and the other way around you would never translate such a slang expression using "es handelt sich um"

Well... I guess you could say:

"Bei der Musikschule handelt es sich um Erfolg."

Which you could.... COULD... translate as "At the music school it is (all) about success." But that would be much more colloquial (AE) than the original German.

"At the music school it is a matter of success." "The music school is very concerned with success." "The major issue at the music school is success." or anything else that spells it out in standard English would be better... especially if this a legit text.

It would work for an advertisement though...

Bei dem Stellzylindern kann es sich beispielsweise um Hydraulik- oder Pneumatikzylinder handeln. ->

The positioning cylinders can be hydraulic or pneumatic cylinders for exemple.

aha - da sind die Zylinder wieder.
aber ich stimme michma zu dass "handelt sich um" eigentlich recht oft mit "ist" ersetzen lassen könnte.

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