Chris travels Wer schreibt Chris einen Brief Wen
Chris’ travels • • • Wer schreibt Chris einen Brief? Wen ruft Chris an? Wohin moechte Chris fahren? Wann faehrt der Zug ab? Wann kommt Chris in Zuerich an? Wer faehrt Chris zum Bahnhof? Wann? Warum fahren Chris und Lars zurueck? Wann kommen sie am Bahnhof an? Was macht Chris alles am Bahnhof?
The awful German language In MARK TWAIN’s book A Tramp Abroad there is a chapter entitled “The Awful German Language”. In it he writes:
[. . . ] The Germans have a 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 anyone conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called ‘separable verbs’. 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. A favourite one is reiste ab, which means departed. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:
“The trunks now being ready, he de- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, parted. ”
Sometimes, little things make a big difference… • verstehen – to understand • kommen – to come • zählen – to count • reisen – to travel • rufen – to shout • geben – to give • mißverstehen – to missunderstand • bekommen – to receive ankommen – to arrive • erzählen – to tell • abreisen – to leave anreisen – to arrive • anrufen – to call • ausgeben – to spend aufgeben – to give up
prefixes seperable prefixes • 2 - or 3 -letter syllable at the beginning of a verb • they dont seperate from it when we conjugate the verb inseperable prefixes • they are unfaithful: they only stay with the verb in the infinitive • when we conjugate the verb, they go far away – to the end of the clause erzählen Peter erzählt Geschichten. abfahren Der Zug fährt um 10 Uhr ab. (The train parts at 10 de-)
The big Question is: How do I know which is which? Luckily, our brain has a very good memory system. . • inseperable prefixes beerentmissverzer- • seperable prefixes ab, an auf, aus ein, mit hin, her mit, um weg, weiter zu, zurück
which go together to make a word?
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