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[02:09.400]Hallo und herzlich willkommen zu Coffee Break German.
[02:12.560]Welcome back to the Coffee Break German Show. Ich bin Marc.
[02:15.360]Ich heiße Thomas. Wie geht's dir, Thomas?
[02:17.480]Sehr gut, danke schön. Und dir?
[02:19.040]Ja, sehr gut. Ausgezeichnet heute.
[02:21.040]Das freut mich.
[02:22.800]In these weekly episodes, Marc and I talk about different German topics,
[02:27.080]helping you to improve your German one Coffee Break at a time.
[02:30.960]That's right. And if you're watching our video version,
[02:33.440]then please make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel.
[02:36.120]And if you're listening to the podcast,
[02:37.760]then make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[02:41.200]Also, Thomas, was machen wir heute?
[02:43.080]We are talking about separable verbs.
[02:45.520]When do they separate? When do they not?
[02:47.520]What are the different prefixes? Lots to talk about.
[02:50.240]Also, los geht's.
[02:53.560]So, separable verbs sound a little complicated
[02:56.440]to anyone who's just beginning their German language journey.
[02:59.720]Yes, they kind of don't think they're unique just to German,
[03:03.480]but they don't really exist in the same way in English.
[03:06.400]So it's a little bit hard sometimes to get your head around the concept
[03:10.000]that a part of the verb just splits off
[03:12.480]and goes to the end of the sentence.
[03:14.240]But we'll see what effect that has in an example sentence.
[03:18.280]Okay, let's have a look at the example sentence.
[03:21.080]Okay, let's have a look at the example sentence then.
[03:23.520]So I've chosen a little bit of a longer one
[03:25.800]just to show how difficult it sometimes can be
[03:28.800]to wait for that last prefix.
[03:30.920]Martin macht jedes Mal,
[03:33.800]sobald er vom Fußballtraining heimkommt,
[03:37.640]erst mal alle Fenster im ganzen Haus zu oder auf.
[03:44.080]Right, okay.
[03:45.280]So the separable verb in here is zu machen or auf machen.
[03:50.000]Ja, ganz genau.
[03:51.440]Zu machen means to close.
[03:54.240]Ja.
[03:55.200]Aufmachen means to open.
[03:57.040]To open, genau.
[03:58.000]Okay, so let's translate the sentence.
[04:00.320]Martin macht jedes Mal,
[04:03.240]so Martin, then start off whether he opens or closes.
[04:07.720]He does something.
[04:08.480]He does something, yeah.
[04:09.280]Jedes Mal, every time,
[04:10.800]sobald er vom Fußballtraining heimkommt,
[04:13.320]as soon as he comes home from football training,
[04:16.520]erst mal alle Fenster im ganzen Haus zu oder auf.
[04:22.920]So the erst mal is like as soon as.
[04:25.560]Yeah, the first thing he does, yeah.
[04:28.440]Alle Fenster im ganzen Haus,
[04:30.000]all the windows in the whole house,
[04:32.200]and then, only then do we find out
[04:34.760]whether he opens or closes them.
[04:36.440]Yeah, and I think that's sometimes the difficulty
[04:38.760]because you have that prefix
[04:40.720]and it can be combined with so many different verbs,
[04:43.680]but you don't know what the verb of the sentence means
[04:46.960]until you look to the end of the sentence,
[04:48.640]which we saw can be after quite a lot of different
[04:51.160]or other information.
[04:52.720]So it's good to keep that in mind
[04:53.840]to check at the end of the sentence,
[04:55.560]is there a wee prefix hidden,
[04:57.120]and then what does the verb actually mean,
[04:59.200]and then you can translate it.
[05:00.360]So if we were interpreting this sentence
[05:03.120]in a situation of simultaneous interpreting,
[05:05.560]we would have to wait until the very end of the sentence
[05:07.720]to know exactly what was happening
[05:09.440]because the zu machen,
[05:11.760]it would be er macht zu, he closes it,
[05:16.360]or er macht auf, he opens it.
[05:20.320]Which has two very different meanings.
[05:21.800]Absolutely, okay.
[05:23.280]So in German, we can add prefixes
[05:26.280]at the beginning of lots of different verbs
[05:28.600]and lots of different prefixes.
[05:29.960]Are they always separable?
[05:32.080]No, but the handy thing is they come in categories.
[05:35.080]So some of the prefixes always are separable,
[05:37.760]meaning they form a separable verb,
[05:39.640]and some of them,
[05:40.440]and you've come across them as well,
[05:42.840]they don't separate.
[05:44.400]And it actually has quite a lot of consequences,
[05:46.800]how we, for example, form the past participle,
[05:49.400]or what we do if we form like infinitive sentences with zu,
[05:52.440]but we'll have a look at that
[05:53.720]and go through each category one by one.
[05:55.720]Okay, so just before we do that,
[05:57.320]just a reminder that with separable verbs,
[05:59.080]what happens is we've got an infinitive like aufmachen,
[06:03.520]open, and the auf part at the beginning of that infinitive
[06:07.760]is going to separate from the rest of the infinitive.
[06:11.120]And in a normal sentence
[06:12.520]where we're seeing the conjugated verb,
[06:15.000]we would see the pronoun er macht, the conjugated form,
[06:21.000]then whatever is he's opening or closing
[06:23.920]or whatever else he's doing,
[06:26.360]and then the preposition right at the very end, zu or auf.
[06:29.960]Genau, you kind of split the verb up into
[06:31.760]and take the preposition, moving it to the very back.
[06:34.680]So let's have a look at some of the prefixes
[06:37.600]that form separable ones.
[06:39.160]Okay.
[06:40.200]There's quite a lot,
[06:41.040]but I've picked the kind of more common ones.
[06:42.880]Okay.
[06:43.720]And we have ab, an, auf, aus, ein, mit, nach, vor und zu.
[06:56.800]Okay.
[06:57.640]Maybe I picked a few too many.
[06:59.560]Right, one thing we've deliberately chosen not to do there
[07:02.040]is translate each of these as we go,
[07:04.840]because the fact is when they're combined
[07:06.960]with the verb, they may take on slightly different meanings
[07:09.480]from what they mean when they exist on their own.
[07:12.240]Yep.
[07:13.080]So let's look at some examples.
[07:14.240]I think that will help.
[07:15.400]Gerne.
[07:16.240]One that you've definitely seen before is ankommen.
[07:19.160]Ankommen, to arrive, yeah.
[07:20.280]A classic example, exactly, for a separable verb.
[07:21.800]So you could say,
[07:22.800]meine Freunde kommen morgen früh an.
[07:26.160]So meine Freunde, my friends,
[07:28.280]kommen, they come morgen früh an,
[07:33.360]towards us, they arrive tomorrow morning.
[07:35.880]Genau.
[07:36.680]Ankommen, full verb, ankommen,
[07:38.640]but we're separating it into common, an,
[07:42.200]in a straightforward sentence.
[07:43.560]Yes, and you also see here,
[07:44.680]it's hard to translate the an into a preposition in English,
[07:47.680]because ankommen just means to arrive.
[07:49.880]To arrive, yeah.
[07:50.720]Okay, give us another example.
[07:52.320]Another one would be nach, the preposition or the prefix,
[07:55.960]and the verb is nachdenken.
[07:58.160]Nachdenken, so nach means when you're going to a place
[08:03.120]or after a time.
[08:05.240]Ja.
[08:06.280]And denken is to think, so what does this exactly mean?
[08:09.480]So nachdenken means to think about,
[08:13.400]and the difference here, if you just denken means to think,
[08:16.360]but if you're nachdenken,
[08:17.720]then you're thinking about something.
[08:19.880]However, it also then uses the preposition über.
[08:23.320]Right, so the nachdenken part.
[08:24.520]We have nachdenken über, to think about.
[08:27.080]Okay, so let's see that in an example, then.
[08:29.200]Okay, we could say,
[08:30.560]sie denkt oft über die Zukunft nach.
[08:34.560]Right, so sie thinks often about the future.
[08:39.680]Genau, sehr gut.
[08:40.560]Okay, good.
[08:41.560]So that's the present tense.
[08:42.960]You mentioned that there are some issues
[08:44.680]sometimes with the other tenses,
[08:47.200]so when we're forming past participles, for example.
[08:49.200]Ja, very well remembered.
[08:50.680]Exactly, when we form the past participle,
[08:53.040]and we put the ge that we often use
[08:55.800]between the prefix and the verb.
[08:58.160]So for example, we would have angekommen.
[09:02.040]So angekommen is the past participle of ankommen,
[09:06.160]where we're taking an, our separable part,
[09:09.560]sliding it over a little,
[09:11.280]inserting a ge, and then common, angekommen.
[09:15.720]Another example would be, for example,
[09:18.160]wir haben das Paket abgegeben.
[09:21.560]Abgegeben, so we've sent off,
[09:24.040]no, we've delivered the package.
[09:25.600]Genau, so abgeben to handen or to deliver.
[09:28.600]Okay, good.
[09:30.520]There's one more construction
[09:32.600]where it's important to know if it's separable or not,
[09:34.960]is if we do infinitive sentences with zu,
[09:38.280]you know we have the construction um zu,
[09:40.680]or sometimes just zu,
[09:42.520]and there something similar happens
[09:44.960]that the zu just slides in between our prefix
[09:48.560]and the rest of the verb.
[09:49.960]Can you give us an example of that one?
[09:51.640]Ja, we could say wir warten,
[09:54.760]um uns einen besseren Plan auszudenken.
[09:58.520]Right, so ausdenken is like to think up a plan,
[10:01.360]like a come up with a plan.
[10:02.680]Ja, genau, sehr gut.
[10:03.680]Okay, so wir warten, we are waiting,
[10:07.320]um uns einen besseren Plan auszudenken.
[10:12.520]So we're waiting in order to come up
[10:16.120]with a better plan for us.
[10:18.240]Genau, and it's a reflexive verb as well,
[10:20.440]that's why we have uns ausdenken,
[10:22.760]so sich ausdenken,
[10:24.240]but it's auszudenken,
[10:26.280]so the zu just goes in the middle there.
[10:27.640]Just when it's that infinitive structure.
[10:29.640]Exactly.
[10:30.240]Good, okay.
[10:31.240]Okay.
[10:31.960]So you said that those prefixes
[10:33.880]always form separable verbs.
[10:35.680]Are there some prefixes
[10:36.960]which don't form separable verbs?
[10:38.920]Yes, never ever.
[10:40.800]Examples would be be.
[10:42.880]Ja, so be.
[10:44.080]Genau, and then emp, so E-M-P,
[10:48.120]ent, E-N-T,
[10:50.480]and then er, fer, or zer.
[10:54.560]So they are ones you've probably seen
[10:56.320]in different German words,
[10:57.360]and again there's a couple more,
[10:58.800]but the list is too long to include all of them,
[11:00.520]so they're kind of the, I think,
[11:01.480]the most common ones you would come across.
[11:03.480]And we'll see examples of these
[11:05.080]in our blog article that are.
[11:06.680]Good point.
[11:07.200]That will help you get into this a little more.
[11:09.520]We'll tell you more about that
[11:10.760]at the end of this podcast.
[11:12.920]Give us a couple of examples of these ones
[11:14.680]which never form separable verbs.
[11:16.760]Okay, I've made an example
[11:18.760]already in the perfect tense
[11:20.240]to see how that changes things
[11:21.680]if it's not separable.
[11:23.040]Er hat uns ein gutes Restaurant empfohlen.
[11:27.640]So empfehlen is the infinitive of the verb to recommend.
[11:31.560]Sehr gut.
[11:31.960]So empfohlen, I'm guessing,
[11:33.160]is the past participle.
[11:34.200]Yeah.
[11:34.720]So er hat uns ein gutes Restaurant empfohlen.
[11:39.240]He had to us a good restaurant recommended.
[11:43.640]Ja, sehr gut.
[11:44.480]Recommended a good restaurant.
[11:46.440]But it's not er hat,
[11:50.400]I don't even know how I would say that.
[11:51.840]Empfohlen.
[11:52.480]Yeah, empfohlen or anything like that, no.
[11:54.440]It's just a straightforward empfohlen one word,
[11:56.920]no separation.
[11:57.920]And it's always the same.
[11:59.560]So you never find a G-E in any of those verbs
[12:04.280]that have a prefix, but don't separate.
[12:06.040]Okay.
[12:06.360]So neither at the start or in between.
[12:08.560]Good, okay.
[12:09.800]And similar, it changes things
[12:11.720]when you use that infinitive construction.
[12:13.760]So in the sentence,
[12:15.160]dieses Gefühl ist nicht leicht zu beschreiben.
[12:20.240]Right, so that zu is coming before the infinitive.
[12:24.880]Exactly, it's two different words.
[12:26.520]Zu beschreiben.
[12:28.520]So dieses Gefühl, this feeling, ist nicht leicht.
[12:33.440]It's not easy, it's hard.
[12:35.760]Ja, perfekt, ja genau.
[12:36.680]Zu beschreiben, to describe.
[12:38.600]Genau, and our verb here is beschreiben.
[12:40.600]And again, because it had this B-E as one,
[12:43.040]it forms a non-separable, inseparable verb.
[12:45.640]Okay, so so far we've looked at prefixes
[12:48.640]which always make the verb separable.
[12:51.920]We've looked at prefixes
[12:53.280]which never make the verb separable.
[12:56.040]Is there another category?
[12:57.120]Of course, there has to be the third one
[12:59.000]and that's the one that can do both.
[13:00.440]It can do both, okay.
[13:01.760]And can you choose, or does the meaning change?
[13:06.000]Yes, the meaning change,
[13:07.280]or it's more the case that some verbs take the prefix
[13:11.920]and it's separable,
[13:13.320]and some verbs take the same prefix,
[13:15.080]but it's not separable.
[13:17.000]So there are very few cases
[13:18.480]where one prefix and the same word can do both.
[13:22.400]Right.
[13:23.080]So I'll give you an example.
[13:24.360]Okay.
[13:25.040]For example, we have wieder as the prefix
[13:28.520]and we can say wiederholen to repeat something.
[13:32.120]Yeah.
[13:33.000]Or we could say wiederfinden,
[13:35.760]which means to find again.
[13:38.120]So you said wiederfinden to find something again.
[13:42.160]Genau.
[13:42.640]And that one's separable.
[13:44.240]Yeah, sehr gut.
[13:45.440]And then wiederholen is to repeat,
[13:48.960]but that's not separable.
[13:50.120]Yeah.
[13:51.160]Okay.
[13:51.960]I can give you another example.
[13:52.960]Maybe you pick something up.
[13:54.120]Okay.
[13:54.400]So we also have übersetzen, which we use a lot.
[13:57.400]To translate, yeah.
[13:58.760]And we can also use über to form überkippen to tip over.
[14:04.320]So like, for example, for boat, tips over.
[14:06.320]Ah, right, okay.
[14:07.080]So überkippen.
[14:08.920]Überkippen, yeah.
[14:09.920]Überkippen.
[14:10.840]So überkippen, and then the other word was übersetzen.
[14:15.880]Genau, to translate.
[14:17.800]So übersetzen and wiederholen are not separable.
[14:25.120]Sehr gut.
[14:25.720]They're just one word that stays the same, yeah.
[14:28.760]I can give you an example sentence if you want as well.
[14:31.040]So we could say, ich übersetze gerne alte Kinderlieder.
[14:36.440]I like translating old children's songs.
[14:41.880]Yeah, perfect.
[14:42.800]And as the über doesn't go to the end, it's just ich übersetze.
[14:45.880]Yeah.
[14:46.760]However, if you go back to the example of a boat, then I would say,
[14:50.000]das Boot kippt über.
[14:53.280]So the boat tips over.
[14:54.680]Yeah, so our über goes to the back here.
[14:57.120]Is there something about the stress here?
[14:59.600]Because I think when you said übersetzen, when it's not separable,
[15:04.520]the stress was on the zetzen part, like where the stress would normally be.
[15:07.760]Yeah, well noticed, yeah.
[15:09.200]But when you say überkippen, then you're saying the stress is on the über.
[15:13.920]Genau, it's the same with our wiederfinden,
[15:17.400]where the stress is on the wieder, on the prefix,
[15:19.840]and wiederholen.
[15:21.760]Wiederholen, so it's on the holen.
[15:23.920]So when the stress is on the prefix, it means it's separable.
[15:27.840]And when it's not stressed on the prefix,
[15:30.240]it's stressed on the main part of the verb, it stays together.
[15:33.120]Genau.
[15:34.360]And it's actually the same for the verbs we come across before,
[15:38.440]but it's not so important there to notice,
[15:40.160]because they always belong to a certain category,
[15:42.840]but it's ankommen, abfahren, vergessen,
[15:47.000]oder empfehlen, oder zerreißen.
[15:51.280]Right.
[15:52.120]As I said, we're going to see more examples of this in the blog article,
[15:56.160]but just to summarise what we've looked at today.
[15:59.400]We've talked about the prefixes that always form separable verbs.
[16:04.040]Ab, an, auf, aus, ein, mit, nach, vor, zu.
[16:07.720]Sehr gut.
[16:09.440]And they always form separable verbs.
[16:11.640]With the separable verbs, we need to remember about the perfect ends,
[16:14.840]for example, when we've got a past participle,
[16:17.080]the get slides in between the prefix and the main part of the verb.
[16:21.120]The ge, yeah.
[16:22.120]And the same for the infinitive ones,
[16:23.560]where we put the zu in between.
[16:25.280]Aus, zu, denken, und so on.
[16:27.960]And then we looked at the prefixes that never form separable verbs.
[16:31.920]And these were be, empf, ent, er, fer, zer.
[16:36.560]Ja, perfekt.
[16:37.760]And finally, we looked at a couple of prefixes
[16:41.800]that can form separable or inseparable verbs.
[16:44.880]We looked at wieder and über.
[16:48.840]Yeah.
[16:49.280]Anything else there?
[16:50.080]There's not so many more.
[16:51.280]Durch would be another one.
[16:52.560]Okay.
[16:53.480]Um.
[16:54.160]Right.
[16:55.000]Or also unter.
[16:56.800]So generally there are a lot less that can do both.
[16:59.440]Okay, good.
[17:01.200]I think we will round things up there.
[17:03.600]Gute Idee, gute Idee.
[17:07.680]As ever, we hope that you enjoyed this lesson of Coffee Break German.
[17:13.400]And as Mark already mentioned, besucht unseren Blog
[17:16.800]und ihr könnt all die Beispiele dort nachschauen.
[17:20.880]Nachschauen?
[17:21.880]Is that separable or not?
[17:23.520]Ja, it's one of these nach, nach always separable.
[17:26.680]So you can look these up.
[17:28.080]How would you say, look these examples up on the website?
[17:32.440]Ah, imperative.
[17:33.720]Schaut die Beispiele nach.
[17:36.240]Excellent.
[17:37.160]So check out the website for all of the examples.
[17:39.640]And also, if you would like more help with your German
[17:42.160]and would like to receive weekly email lessons,
[17:45.360]then just head to coffeebreaklanguages.com slash German.
[17:49.320]Super Idee.
[17:50.160]Oh, also das reicht für heute.
[17:52.600]Ich glaube auch.
[17:53.720]Bis zum nächsten Mal.
[17:55.200]Happy Coffee Breaking.
[18:02.920]You have been listening to a Coffee Break Languages
[18:04.920]production for the Radiolingua Network.
[18:07.280]Copyright 2024, Radiolingua Ltd.
[18:10.520]Recording copyright 2024, Radiolingua Ltd.
[18:13.920]All rights reserved.
[18:22.560]Welcome to It Takes Energy, presented by Energy Transfer,
[18:26.280]where we talk all things oil and natural gas.
[18:28.920]Oil and gas drive our economy, ensure our country's security
[18:32.560]and open pathways to brighter futures.
[18:35.680]When it comes to meeting the world's energy needs,
[18:37.760]more is better.
[18:39.080]What we mean is our world needs a wide range of energy sources
[18:42.040]to meet our increasing needs.
[18:43.800]Just wind or solar won't get us there,
[18:45.920]as the sun doesn't always shine
[18:47.600]and the wind doesn't always blow.
[18:49.520]With our growing population
[18:51.000]and the increasing use of energy-demanding technologies
[18:53.680]like AI, reliability is key.
[18:56.480]And the reliability of natural gas is unmatched by wind and solar.
[19:00.760]That doesn't mean we all can't work together,
[19:02.920]but natural gas is vital to ensuring we meet our energy needs.
[19:08.040]Look around and you'll see the essential role
[19:10.880]oil and gas plays in our lives.
[19:12.920]Our world needs oil and gas, and people rely on us to deliver it.
[19:17.080]To learn more, visit energytransfer.com.