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German: Verb prefixes | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4027 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes  Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 1 of 12 19 November 2013 at 2:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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gehören means to belong, hören means to hear.
How do you get the meaning of gehören from hören? Is there any logic to verb prefixes other than to confuse the learner? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5265 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 2 of 12 19 November 2013 at 9:19am | IP Logged | |||||
According to the Grimm dictionary "gehören" used to be an emphatic version of (zu)hören and changed its meaning over time. There's also "jemandem hörig sein" = to be under someone's spell.
I might as well ask how behold is related to hold. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dumbl3d0re Newbie United States Joined 4671 days ago 11 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 3 of 12 19 November 2013 at 11:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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Frankly, the prefixes are pretty random. There are some patterns but in the end it'd be
more work to learn them all, and there there'd be countless exceptions. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5265 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 4 of 12 19 November 2013 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Unfortunately, this is true for most inseparable prefixes, but knowing the intrinsic meaning of separable prefixes might help you better memorize them. This website has a nice summary. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5505 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 5 of 12 19 November 2013 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If something emphatically listens to you, it's not too far from obeying, in which case it
must belong to you. Edited by schoenewaelder on 19 November 2013 at 5:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5134 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 6 of 12 19 November 2013 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been finding a series of blog posts by a German teacher useful for understanding more about prefixes. If you start here:
http://yourdailygerman.wordpress.com/category/german-prefixe s-2/ you will find his highly detailed posts explaining be-, um-, zer-, and ver-. Hopefully the series will continue. But you are right, there are a lot of exception words like gehören in the language which make little sense and are better off being memorised individually. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4027 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 7 of 12 20 November 2013 at 1:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you. Now I wont ever forget what gehören means.
There is some logic there. Behold conjures up an image in my mind of a magician holding up something. "I be hold this magical object!!! See this!!!" Thanks chokofingrz and Doitsujin for the useful links!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4027 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 8 of 12 09 March 2014 at 7:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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What is the difference between:
1a. anmachen 1b. einschalten and 2a. ausmachen 2b. ausschalten and 3a. zumachen 3b. schließen (PS: Anymore links on verb prefixes welcome. Aus, an, auf prefixes are difficult for mw as they sound kinda alike). EDIT: Found this: http://coerll.utexas.edu/gg/gr/v_04.html Edited by Gemuse on 09 March 2014 at 8:03am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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