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German: Verb prefixes

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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
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Studies: German

 
 Message 1 of 12
19 November 2013 at 2:46am | IP Logged 
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?
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Doitsujin
Diglot
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Germany
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 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.

Gemuse wrote:
Is there any logic to verb prefixes other than to confuse the learner?

I might as well ask how behold is related to hold. :-)
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dumbl3d0re
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United States
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 Message 3 of 12
19 November 2013 at 11:47am | IP Logged 
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.
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Doitsujin
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 Message 4 of 12
19 November 2013 at 12:01pm | IP Logged 
dumbl3d0re wrote:
Frankly, the prefixes are pretty random.

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.
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schoenewaelder
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Germany
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 Message 5 of 12
19 November 2013 at 5:15pm | IP Logged 
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

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chokofingrz
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 Message 6 of 12
19 November 2013 at 6:41pm | IP Logged 
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.
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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
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Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 7 of 12
20 November 2013 at 1:34am | IP Logged 
schoenewaelder wrote:
If something emphatically listens to you, it's not too far from
obeying, in which case it
must belong to you.


Thank you. Now I wont ever forget what gehören means.


Doitsujin wrote:

I might as well ask how behold is related to hold. :-)

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!!



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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4083 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 8 of 12
09 March 2014 at 7:50am | IP Logged 
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



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