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- übernehmen und aussteigen.
übernehmen und aussteigen.
Why are there prepositions in front of these verbs? To create new verbs?? That threw me for a loop when I first saw it.
Can you just do that for any verb and preposition? (as long as the new combination makes sense, I guess it is possible). I cannot think of anything equivalent in English that I can compare this 'trick' to.
Note the conjugations of both verbs, and see in the aussteigen link, you can have "(Ich) steige aus". (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/aussteigen#German)
Now note the conjugation table breaking down übernehmen (https://www.duolingo.com/skill/de/Verbs%3A-Present-2/5). In this case, it looks like the preposition is separated - similar to the Wiktionary example "aussteigen". However, Wiktionary shows the preposition remains a part of the verb. (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/übernehmen#German)
Basically, can you breakup verbs again or what? Which conjugation table is correct?
20 Comments
By adding a prefix you create a whole ne word. It happens in English, too. underestimate, overestimate.
Yes, You can do that for more or less every word - get creative:-)
I did the duolingo session following your link, there was no übernehmen. But the prefix über is never seperrated in present tense, not even in the reflexive verb "sich übernehmen"
You might want to correct the link... https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%BCbernehmen#Verb
some words are seperatet when conjungated, some aren't. It really depends on the prefix
Ich rege mich auf.
Ich lege auf.
Ich lege etwas weg.
Ich unterliege.
Ich lasse mich auf etwas ein.
Ich überfordere.
Ich unterfordere.
Ich fordere auf.
Ich fordere ein.
Ich unterschätze.
Ich unterschätze.
Ich schätze ein.
Ich schätze ab.
Ich übertreibe.
Ich untertreibe.
Ich treibe weg.
Ich überbringe.
Ich bringe mit.
Does that help?
Yes, that helps.
If you go to the same lesson, and hover your mouse over the word "übernimmt", you will see a green button. It says conjugate. Click it, and you will go to another page that separates the preposition from the verb - as you said that was wrong.
If, in the same page of the example of "übernimmt" you hit "Discuss sentence" you will find others explaining it. Some say that you can split it up and sometimes you cannot.
Regardless, it seems like splitting up the prep and verb is something I am not going to get hung up about just yet. Better for me to just "roll with it".
mich is needed because sich überessen is a reflexive verb in German though not in English.
ich überesse mich, du überisst dich, er überisst sich, wir überessen uns, ihr überesst euch, sie überessen sich.
overeat on something - sich überessen.
Unteressen doesn't exist in German. If you want to say you didn't eat enough, than say (zu) wenig essen
Ich esse (zu) wenig, deswegen bin ich nicht dick. (position of nicht!)
The position of "nicht" is going to drive me crazy. 10,000 rules and exceptions. That's a funny thought. If nicht is in the wrong place, the sentence doesn't sound right to me. It's so easy
now, when it comes to exceptions in grammar - did you know that more than 50% of the English verbs are irregular???
Have you ever thought about English pronunciation? - Try the following: butcher, bus, busy, burger...
German is so nice to be pronounced: bunt, Bus, Burg.
Good thing, you reported that issue with übernehmen . Hopefully it will be changed. Keep an eye on "sich übernehmen" once you learn more reflexive verbs. Maybe they got that wrong, too...
I actually found one compound verb, where the prefix unter moves: untergehen. ich gehe unter (I drown)
funny enough the emphasis on unter (on the u), while in untergehen, unterliegen, untertreiben, the emphasis is on the verb ( first syllable)
There must be a reason for this...
"now, when it comes to exceptions in grammar - did you know that more than 50% of the English verbs are irregular???
Have you ever thought about English pronunciation? - Try the following: butcher, bus, busy, burger..."
-I suppose you are correct. It appears we both forget how easy our native languages our to ourselves. "I will say never that." Much easier for me to notice this - as I don't have to think about it.
When I started learning Spanish I was told to translate a sentence word by word to realise the differences between the construction of a phrase. That was interesting but it had an amazing effect.
Ich werde das niemals sagen - I will that never say.
I will never say that. - Ich werde niemals sagen das.
I thank you for allowing me to help you a bit :). It's an interesting way of looking into a language and it's fun!
hoffmant99 wrote:
The position of "nicht" is going to drive me crazy. 10,000 rules and exceptions.
It's actually just one rule (of thumb), namely: "nicht" precedes whatever it negates. However, it is not always quite straightforward. If you want to negate a positive sentence, you need to negate its predicate, and this is realised in German by placing "nicht" in front of the non-finite part of the predicate. This follows at the very end of the main clause, i.e. a normal German sentence is structured as follows:
topic (first position) - finite verb (second position) - additional objects adverbials and potentially the subject if it isn't in the first position (midfield) - non-finite part of the predicate
In principle, "nicht" could negate any part of the sentence, but if the entire sentence is being negated then "nicht" will be after the midfield and before the rest of the predicate. If the predicate consists of one word only, "nicht" is consequently the last word of the main clause.
Another caveat is the usage of "kein". Often this is described as negating the indefinite article "ein", but that is a bit inaccurate. Since "ein" can mean both "an" and "one" simply saying "nicht ein" literally means "not one", i.e. it might be zero or two or whatever, but not one. On the other hand, "kein" means only "zero" of something and is therefore used whenever you want to state that you have zero of something. It is therefore strictly speaking not a negation in the same sense as "nicht" or "not", and if we want to actually negate "ein", "nicht ein" is in fact used, not "kein".
See also e.g. this site: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~deutsch/Grammatik/WordOrder/MainClauses.html#negations