In celebration of the launch of our new online class about verbs this week we thought it might be “fun” to shed some light on one of the most difficult verb families the German language has to offer: separable verbs in German. If you don't know them let us listen to how my favorite German student, Mark Twain, explains them:
“The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called “separable verbs.” The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German. The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One is sure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will not be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify it."
This description sums up nicely what these dreadful verbs do and why they are called separable verbs, doesn't it? But let me dig a little deeper. Separable verbs consist of two parts. One "verb part" and one "prefix part." The "prefix part" is often a preposition (but not always) and has to have its own meaning, i.e. has to be a proper word. Now, if you use a separable prefix verb in a sentence as the only verb you have to separate the two parts (the name gives it away, I know ;-)) and then twist it around and put the "verb part" in the 2nd position and conjugate, it whereas the "prefix part" has to be placed in the last position.
Now let's talk about the prefixes. You might hope that there is consistency when it comes to prefixes and that a certain prefix always adds a certain meaning to the verb. Unfortunately, I have to disappoint you. That is not the case. Some prefixes change the meaning of the word completely: hören (to hear) vs. aufhören (to cease, to stop), and some only change the meaning of the word slightly: kommen (to come) vs. ankommen (to arrive.) In addition, a certain prefix can add different meanings to different verbs: zumachen (to close) vs. zusagen (to accept) or even worse umfahren (to drive around someone) vs. umfahren (to hit someone)! If the same prefix added to a verb can either describe an action or the opposite of the action clearly all gloves are off.
You can see, we use the prefixes willy nilly and the only way to see through this mess is to memorize the verbs carefully.
If you want to find out more about separable prefix verbs or any other verbs check out our new class about all things German verbs! You will learn all there is to know about German verbs.
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