Hello everyone,
and welcome back to your favorite German learning blog, today with a little surprise for you :).
Hooray!!!
Because today, I actually want to show you a new type of post, which we could call
“All Prefixes Of”
In essence, this post is a quick comprehensive list of all (well, almost all) the prefix versions of a given verb, together with SHORT definitions and examples.
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Also “es fällt mir runter” It is not clear to me whether there is intention or whether it is an accident. The translation in italian is strange because they use “let fall” that in my brain means you did it intentionally.
We have “fallen lassen” in German, and that can be intentional but doesn’t have to be.
– Ich habe die Tasse fallen lassen.
– I dropped the cup.
“jemandem runterfallen” is NOT intentional. I mean, you can use it ironically of course, but inherently it sounds like an accident.
Alles klar. Danke wie immer für deine schnelle Antwort. Hey, geniße deine Reise nach Italien! Divertiti:)
Grazie :)
Es ist auch ok zu sagen “Die Tasse fällt mir runter” oder es ist eine seltsame Reihenfolge?
Total okay!
“Da vorne ist ein Loch, pass auf, dass du nicht reinfällst.“ Warum ist nicht “pass auf, dass du nicht fällst rein?” Reinfallen ist ein Trennenbarverb, oder? Danke!
Yes, but it’s used in a “side-sentence” (subordinate clause). dass, weil, and so on. In these sentences the verbs are all the end.
Think of it as simply moving to the end and queuing up there.
– Ich falle nicht in das Loch rein [empty slot].
– Ich passe auf, dass ich nicht rein[falle].
Hope that helps!
Oh, ja, dankeschön
For this kind of article you should give a warning at the first place that it would be very long and not suitable for a 15 mins commuting in train.
Otherwise, it is a good article. I just read it on a Monday morning
Emanuel… Every time I look up a word in your dictionary I go down a rabbit hole and find out at least 10 other words! I think this article exemplifies that. Thank you for all your hard work!
Awesome, that’s exactly what the dictionary is meant to do :). That feedback made me really happy. Perfect match for a Feierabend. Danke dir!
No worries, I am currently on exchange here in Germany and without your resources I don’t think it would be going as well as it has language-wise :)
Yes!!!!Please make a series out of these tricky little words. Perhaps “Die Fallen Geschichte” zum beispielen. Can you pack all the variations in ? (Or you could farm it out to your grateful readers.)
To learn, I first listen, then read the German (to check I got the words), then read the English to see if I understood.
So could you please put the Play button above the German text?
Also, with great ingenuity, could you end the section with a short paragraph using many of the verbs you have just reviewed, as a revision exercise?
Do you mean a German text that uses all of these verbs? That would take a lot of work, actually.
I was thinking about putting the button either on the right of the examples or on the left. Would that also work for you?
Hello Emanuel. Thanks for the effort, there are so many verbs and meanings, this is a titanic job!
But for that same reason, the result is difficult to use. For me at least, it is impossible to take in all this at once. Something which would really help is to hierarchize the contents:
Congratulations anyway!
Absolutely, it’s too much to digest at once. Think of these more as a place to look them up.
I’ll add an indication of how common a word is to the dictionary. I like the icon suggestions, but I don’t think I’ll do two separate categories, as that would mean I have to change a lot of code I already have written.
I was thinking something along the lines of:
1) Never used
2) Rare, passive vocab
3) Mainly in writing
4) fairly common
5) must have
And maybe make an indictation for A1, A2, B1, B2 tests… what do you think?
Sounds good, separate spoken/written was just an idea, actually I like your classifciation more. Just a thing: it would be very useful in the article as well, not only in the dictionary.
Thanks!
I too would find it helpful to have a rating system so that I could hone in on the most important ones. I love how you are so open to suggestions.
Super Emauel. Alle besten für dich
Sehr, sehr wirklich! Danke!
Meinst du “wichtig” :)?
Love it!! I always ask my German friends whether I need to be able to use, to just understand in context, or not needed for a new word. Perfect!
I’ll actually add a “rating” to all words in my dictionary (the search function) that tells you “must have, nice, not need, DON’T use” or something along those lines, so you can know quickly.
Very useful: especially the notes on how common and what register
I have those for way more words in my dictionary (the search function) :)
Diese Sendung hat mir gefallen.
Excellent–when will we ever conquer the German language?
In time :)!
Danke für diesen Beitrag. Echt super. Ich habe viele Zeit verbracht, um solche Listen zusammenzustellen. Ich freue mich auf diese App!
FYI, there is an English equivalent of anfallen, which is to fall upon or fall into. It can mean to attack, as in ‘the lion falls upon its prey and eats it.’ It also means a change of status, usually for the worse, as in ‘After the stock market crash, many Americans fell upon hard times’ or, ‘Poor Joe has fallen into poverty’ or, ‘Susan fell into a deep depression.’ It can less often have a happy meaning as in, ‘I hear that Tom just fell into a big load of money.’
“to fall upon” matches up quite well, but the uses for “to fall into” do not line up with “anfallen”… just to make sure :)
A terrific job you have done! Brilliant
This is absolutely so helpful. Thanks a lot.
This is the feature I’ve dreamed of since I started reading this site. Absolutely love love love it.
Good things come to those who wait :D.
Seriously though, is this list comprehensive enough or are there any prefixes that immediately struck you as missing. Of course, there are many missing, I’m just trying to figure out the “important” ones.
I guess the only thing I wonder about is whether gefallen should be in there. Do you even consider that to be a prefix version of fallen?
Absolutely yes, but there are overall very few “ge-verbs” that also have an independent base verb.
I mean, there’s enough of them, but compared to the rest, it’s not so many, and at least for the card game, that wouldn’t work, as you can’t really “play” with “ge-” and create new words or guess meanings. With many of the others that does work to an extend.
Oh okay, that makes sense. I guess I wasn’t thinking about it in terms of a set of prefixes to run different base verbs through… maybe durchfallen? Not sure if durch- is a lot better, but at least there are durchhalten, durchmachen…
“durch” is much better. I just limited my prefixes to 19 for the first version of the card game. The core idea is that you have to lay down all your cards and you can always lay one down when you can form an existing verb and you know a meaning for it.
Still figuring out the precise rules, though.
I’ll do a post about that soon, with a little kickstarter to get it of the ground.
ive always found prefix verbs to be quiet a confusing part of learning and this explains this case really well! maybe turn this into a series (perhaps with “halten” next?) article aside, i wanted to thank everyone on here who’s paying extra to help people out who cant afford the membership (ha! me). you’re really making a difference and it does not go without appreciation!
“halten” is among the 20 base verbs I am currently working with for the card game :)