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German separable verbs | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| SchwarzerWolf Newbie Italy Joined 4468 days ago 20 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Italian* Studies: English, German | Message 1 of 12 09 December 2013 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi everybody, I'm studying German and I'm probably at an intermediate level. One of the most difficult things to learn for me are separable verbs and I'd like to have your advice on how to get used to them and use them properly.
The problem is that, especially in "long" main clauses, my attention is caught by the "root" of the verb that's in the second position of the sentence, which makes me misunderstand the meaning of the sentence I'm reading. Mmm, an example is the following "nonsense" (please forgive me for that, but this explains perfectly what I mean): - heute bringe ich eine Freundin von mir im Kino um well, needless to say my mind starts focusing on the verb "bringen" and the first thing that comes to my mind is that someone wants to bring his friend to see a movie, while he/she actually wants to kill her. I don't know if you agree, but those verbs may be confusing and I wonder if there's a way to avoid misunderstanding: how do native speakers sort it out? Edited by SchwarzerWolf on 09 December 2013 at 10:06pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tollpatchig Senior Member United States Joined 3952 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Maltese | Message 2 of 12 09 December 2013 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Natives can sort it out by virtue of being natives (the lucky bastards, lol)
They're kinda confusing for me as well but the only advice I've been told is to simply wait for the entire sentence to be spoken. In English we know right off the bat what's what because we don't have to wait for a separate ending and I assume you don't have to in Italian either. I also had the same problem with subordinate clauses and the only thing that helped my to remedy it was listening to natives speaking on YouTube and talk out loud to myself. I've found that practising these difficult sentences structures to yourself is a good way to become accustomed to how they work and makes them more recognizable. It's how I've gotten used to the whole "conjugated verb at the end" thing. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4271 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 3 of 12 09 December 2013 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm learning German too and I've faced similar problems related to word order. In this
kind of situation, the best thing you can do is keep getting exposure and continue practising. Eventually, you'll get used to it. PS: I love the example!, haha :P Edited by nicozerpa on 09 December 2013 at 10:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4466 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 4 of 12 09 December 2013 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think you might get a garden path effect on this sentence :D (the "im" causing the
reanalysis because you would expect accusative). It's all about probabilities/expectations ... just read/listen a lot. In most cases, you will be able to predict pretty soon in the sentence whether a separable verb is used or not just because of the context. Prosody can give you clues too. Edited by daegga on 09 December 2013 at 10:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4789 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 5 of 12 09 December 2013 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think, in the example, it's the cases what makes things relatively clear for natives. If you were taking a friend to the cinema, you would say: "Ich bringe meine Freundin ins Kino mit." The dative case (im Kino), however, makes clear that it's not a movement towards a goal, but an action that takes place somewhere.
On the other hand, if you brought something to your friend in the cinema, there could be no accusative case for "meine Freundin". It would be something like: "Ich bringe meiner Freundin im Kino (ein Bier, Popcorn, Schokolade...)". So, as soons as the native speakers hears: "Ich bringe meine Freundin im Kino...", he or she already knows that the next word will be "um". There is no other possible solution. Of course, it's hard to get this into your head when you're learning the language, but input and practice is the only way to learn it. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| SchwarzerWolf Newbie Italy Joined 4468 days ago 20 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Italian* Studies: English, German | Message 6 of 12 10 December 2013 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Another example:
- der Händler nimmt jeden Samstag eine ganze Menge Geld ein - der Händler nimmt jeden Samstag eine ganze Menge Geld auf I hope what I wrote above is grammatically correct. The first sentence is what you will probably hear in real life. The shopkeeper has a pub or something like that very crowded on saturday, and he earns a lot. In the second sentence, the shopkeeper is a dark weird person who has a lot of money lying on the floor, maybe behind the counter, and someone sees him taking this money from the floor to do something. And I'm supposed to catch the difference just paying attention to the prefix at the end of the sentence, well, it's very difficult, my German (and Dutch) friends. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4466 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 7 of 12 10 December 2013 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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"The first sentence is what you will probably hear in real life."
If you are able to recognize this, then you don't have a problem. Given the context, you can make your assumptions even without hearing the particle at the end. The second sentence actually means that the shopkeeper is taking out a loan each Saturday, which is not very likely (or it could mean he absorbs the money eg. by eating it :D ). What you thought of is "aufheben". Edited by daegga on 10 December 2013 at 9:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| SchwarzerWolf Newbie Italy Joined 4468 days ago 20 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Italian* Studies: English, German | Message 8 of 12 11 December 2013 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
It's great to have a help from native speaker. Thank you I'm sorry there are no tips&tricks, though. As regards aufheben/aufnehmen, I thought they were synonyms. Sometimes, when I'm not sure about the definition given in my biligual dictionary, I look it up on the website http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/aufnehmen which gives me the following definition for the word "aufnehmen" -> "vom Boden zu sich heraufnehmen" Isn't it correct? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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