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- "Er hört auf Zeitungen zu les…
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the phrase "aufhören, etwas zu tun" is being used here, which means to stop doing something. So you put in the subject, er, and since aufhören is a seperable prefix verb, the prefix "auf" moves to the end. Then the "etwas" would be "Zeitungen" and instead of "tun" this sentence uses "lesen". Hope that helps
Are you sure it needs the comma? "auf" is part of the word, like saying "beat up" in english is different than "beat" and "up", but when you put them together, you don't need a comma.
I am going to beat you, up. <--see, it just doesn't look right.
and in like in german
i am going to beatup you.
no need for a comma, german's say it without a pause or break for a breath.
These kinds of German expressions (complex objects, actually) with 'zu' always take commas to avoid exactly the kind of confusion that people here have.
If it's easier, try translating this sentence to English literally, with its weird (for English) word order:
'He stops newspapers to read.' Here, he stops newspapers.
'He stops, newspapers to read.' Here you immediately see that something's odd (or maybe it's a line from poetry), but you definitely won't take it as him stopping the newspapers.
Hi phle, there's no real connection to "hearing" to be made with the verb "aufhören".
However, to help you remember the meaning, you can think of someone who was working, heard a noise, and then "horchte auf", which means "to perk one's ears up/ sit up and take notice", and then stopped working to see what made the noise. This verb sounds similar to "aufhören" and has to do with hearing, so you can relate with it the action of stopping to investigate the sound. I hope that helps, and I definitely hope it didn't confuse you more. I tried my best to come up with a good example.
There are specific prefixes, such as auf, aus, zu, ... that separate from the verb when used in a sentence. You can read a short introduction here http://coerll.utexas.edu/gg/gr/v_04.html or just search for "trennbare verben" or "separable verbs"
aufhoren is a separable verb. You conjugate the "horen" part (e, t, st, en, t, en) and it becomes hort. And when you separate auf from horen, the auf part comes later....Hence: Er "hort" "auf" zeitungen.... I'm only learning myself, so I could be way off base, except that I have learned the key to separable verbs is to place the the first part of the ver AFTER the second part, strange as it is.
879
Because of the missing comma :-) "Er hört auf, Zeitungen zu lesen". So the "auf" is at the end of the first clause.
268
Could it also be "Er hört Zeitungen zu lesen auf"? where 'Zeitungen zu lesen' is the object?