Hi everyone! I’m currently studying German in Cologne (Köln) and I thought to share a super important aspect of the German language with you as I haven’t really seen it discussed on other German langblr sites. (Correct me if I’m wrong!)
Trennbar verbs are extremely common in the German language and they are basically ‘separable verbs’. This means that the start of verb has to always be at the end of the sentence. This may sound confusing but it is actually very simple to get the hang of!
Let’s take an example: abholen - to pick up.
Ich hole meine Kinder von der Schule ab - I pick up my children from school.
As you can see at the beginning part of the verb or ‘participle’ is always at the end of the sentence while the stem verb is conjugated. I hope this makes sense and I’ll give a few more examples to show you what I mean.
mitbringen - to bring with
Ich bringe Bier und Wein zur Party mit - I bring beer and wine to the party.
ausschlafen - to sleep in
Ich schlafe aus - I sleep in.
Am Samstag, schlafe ich bis 11 Uhr aus - On Saturday, I sleep in until 11 o’clock.
You know if a verb is trennbar if it BEGINS with:
ab-
abholen - to pick up
abstellen - to stop
an-
anrufen - to call
anfangen - to begin
anziehen - to attract/ to put on
anklofen - to knock
auf-
aufhören - to stop listening
aufmachen - to open up
aus-
ausschlafen - to sleep in
ausgehen - to go out
ausziehen - to take off
ein-
einladen - to invite
einkaufen - to go shopping
her-
herkommen - to come here
hin-
hinfallen - to fall down
los-
loswerden - to get rid of
mit-
mitkommen - to come with
mitnehem - to take away
raus-
rausgehen - to leave
rein-
reinkommen - to get in
vor-
vorlesen - to read for
weg-
wegfahren - to move/to pull away
zu-
zumachen - close
zuhören - to listen/ to listen in
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In German, there are three genders which are male, female and neuter. These affect the articles for nouns. In the nominative case, if a noun is male you would say der (the) or ein (a), female die or eine, neuter das or ein. The nominative case is just the subject which would be I, you, he, she, it, they. It is what the sentence focuses on.
e.g. I am a boy / Ich bin ein Junge (all nouns are capitalised)
All of this is in the nominative case because the subject is me, and it is describing what I am so it can't be in a different case. In German, there are four cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive (auf Deutsch: Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ, und Genitiv.) I shall talk about this a bit later.
Verbs are not that difficult to grasp. They work just like English. You have the pronoun and then you have the verb. They usually conjugate like...
ich -e (I)
du -est (you informal)
er/sie/es -t/et (he/she/it)
wir -en (we)
ihr -et (you plural)
sie/Sie -en (they/you formal)
... but there are ones that don't work the same. These are irregular.
e.g. sein - to be conjugates like this:
bin
bist
ist
sind
seid
sind
... which doesn't follow that rule at all. And there are some words that conjugate sort of normally with small changes. The change is an umlaut. An umlaut is a letter with two dots on the top of it which makes it be pronounced differently. An a with an umlaut sounds like ae, an o with an umlaut sounds like oe, a u with an umlaut sounds like you but without the y. So if I want to put an umlaut somewhere in a word it will just have an e after the letter. Umlauts can only be put on vowels. If you struggle with the pronunciation then you can always watch a youtube video.
e.g. fahren - to drive
fahre
faehrst
faehrt
fahren
fahrt
fahren
These verbs only differ on the you singular and third person singular. Present verbs in German are always the same. If you say I eat Fish it is Ich esse Fisch. If you say I am eating fish it is Ich esse Fisch. It never changes.
The dative is quite simple. It is what is done to you or to anyone else.
e.g. I am giving it to you / Ich gebe es zu dir / Ich gebe dir es
e.g. You gave it to me / Du gabst es zu mir / Du gabst mir es
The dative pronouns are:
mir
dir
ihm/ihr/ihm
uns
euch
ihnen
The accusative pronouns are:
mich
dich
ihn/sie/es
uns
euch
sie
The accusative case is what you may be giving to a person, eating, holding. It is called the direct object whereas the dative case is called the indirect object.
e.g I have an apple / Ich habe einen Apfel
Ich gebe den Apfel zu dir
Du isst den Apfel
The article changes for these
The dative and accusative articles are
m. n. f. pl.
acc. den das die die
einen ein eine (keine)
dat. dem dem der den
einem einem einer (keinen)
Past perfect in German is rather simple. Stick a ge- in front of the verb's infinitive and you have the verb. Chuck it to the end of the sentence and use either haben or sein in the beginning of the sentence. In past perfect, you use bin if you were going from one place to the other and habe for anything else.
e.g. Ich bin nach Deutschland gefahren - I drove to Germany
Ich habe einen Fussballspiel gesehen - I saw a football match
Future tense is relatively easy too. You use the word will in German (werden) and chuck the infinitive of the verb you want to use at the end.
e.g Ich werde nach Deutschland fahren
Ich werde einen Fussballspiel sehen
If you want conjugations of these verbs I would suggest going on conjugator reverso and searching up the verbs in the German section. For present tense go to Indikativ, Praesens and for past perfect go to Partizip, Perfekt.
Separable verbs are an annoyance. Ich sehe einen Vogel an - I am looking at a bird. The word for to look at is ansehen. It splits up into sehen and an. It is much easier in the past perfect and the future tense because it stays in the infinitive at the end of the sentence and requires no ge-. The an isn't separate and it makes life so much easier. (I would suggest that you try to find a better explanation of them)
If there are two verbs in a sentence you send the second one to the end in the infinitive.
e.g. Ich konnte Koch sein - I could be a cook
Reflexive verbs are ok. You get the verb and use the accusative pronouns directly after it.
e.g. Ich dusche mich - I shower myself / I have a shower/ I take a shower / I shower
The genetive case I wont talk about in this because I don't understand how to use it. It is possesion. The genetive pronouns are:
mein
dein
sein/ihr/sein
unser
euer
ihr/ Ihr
The only bit that confuses me is what to do when you aren't using pronouns. If you wanted to say Charlie's pencil case how would you say it. There aren'r possesive apostophies in German so I don't know how to do it. I know how to say That belongs to Charlie which is Das gehoert Charlie but how would you say it the other way round?
Anyway that is all I know about German grammar. Hope you like it :)
