Hello everyone,
And welcome to the second part of our look at “The verbs whose real name we may not speak!”.
Because they don’t really have a name.
At least not officially, so we can basically make one up.
My first idea was Pepsi-Verbs, but Pepsi hasn’t replied to my sponsorship offer, so I went with a more descriptive name:
The r-versions and its cousins
These are essentially variations of a prefix verb.
For example, we have aufgehen – that’s our prefix verb. And then, we have also raufgehen (that’s the r-version), draufgehen (the dr-version) , heraufgehen and hinaufgehen.
At least the r-version is so common and so important in daily life that you can’t speak idiomatic German without it.
Let me say that again: you cannot speak idiomatic German without knowing the r-version.
In part one, we went over the all basics of the r-versions, and we saw why what most teachers, textbooks and courses have to say about them is… NOT CORRECT.
If you haven’t read that yet or you want to read it again, you can find it here:
Today, we’ll take a closer look at all the versions – the r-version, hin-version, her-version and dr-version. We’ll learn where they come from, what they express and why and what the differences are between them. And we’ll once more get a good look at German’s absolute obsession with being specific in a 3D space, and get some insights that are helpful way beyond these verbs.
And to round it all off, we’ll go over each version and get some practical usage advice.
It’ll be nerdy, it’ll be intense, but it’ll be a fun ride with a lot of aha moments. So if you’re ready, let’s jump right in.
rauf, drauf, hinauf, herauf – Why do these versions exist
The bulk of the German verb separable prefixes are prepositions. There are exceptions of course, like wieder or zusammen which are adverbs, but the most common prefixes like auf, an, über, unter, aus … they’re all prepositions.
Now, the function of prepositions is to express how objects and entities relate to each other and the most important and basic field are the relations in space. The cat is on the box, under the box, in the box and so on.
However, what prepositions CANNOT do is to constitute a location by themselves.
So you cannot use a preposition alone to “establish” a location in your sentence. Or in other words, prepositions by themselves cannot answer the question “Where?”.
- “The cat is somewhere at the bed.”
“Yeah, but where?”
“On!”
We know from context that we’re talking about the bed, but still it doesn’t sound complete, simply because the preposition on cannot fill that role of “location” by itself.
It’s like they’re ONLY relation, but they don’t have any “substance”, if that makes sense.
So we need to combine them with something to create a unit that can play the role of location.
The most common combinations in English are with a noun:
- On the bed!
Or with a pronoun:
- On it!
But there’s a third way, and that’s by combining it with a more “generic” location word:
- Thereon!
Some of you were probably now like “Uh… why is a Lord of the Rings character name here as an example?”
Oh yes… the epic saga of Thereon and Hereon.
But seriously, these combinations are not very common in English, especially not for actual 3D space.
But in German, they’re so common, they’re almost annoying. And there are mainly three words that play a role there. The first one is da, the German brother of there, which is a generic pointer to a location.
And then we have the two words hin and her, which don’t really have 1:1 English counterparts. They’re basically are generic representations of direction.
Because unlike English, for German it’s really important to make this explicit in language.
- hin – “to there” (a destination)
- her – “to here” (a destination)
- da – “there/here” (a steady location)
Technically, there’s also hier, which is here, but for our context today that one is not all that important. There is a hier-version, but it’s REALLY rare so we’re kind of ignoring that.
And now we can combine these with prepositions to create a word that expresses a concept about the 3D space by itself.
Let’s do it with auf (on)
- hinauf – “up to there”
- herauf – “up to here”
- darauf – “up (to) there” (focus on being up there)
- (hierauf – “up to here”)
And let’s note note that the “r” in herauf is a “proper part” of her while the “r” in darunter is just a filler because it’s easier to say than “da-unter”. Doesn’t really matter, but I thought it’s interesting to know.
Anyway, these words technically express a location by themselves.
- Rapunzel, lass deine Haare [herunter].
- Rapunzel, let down (to me) your hair.
In this example, herunter answers the question “to where”.
And now comes the crucial part – these words “feel” like prefixes to German speakers. I mean, hin and her are prefixes, the preposition itself is also a prefix and German likes prefixes anyways. You can’t see it in the example above, but you can see it when you put it in past tense.
- Rapunzel hat ihre Haare heruntergelassen.
- Rapunzel let down her hair.
Note that you can absolutely find examples like this where people spell it as two words… like herunter gelassen. That’s because they’re not sure what to do. But generally, they’re CONSIDERED prefixes. You see… the whole concept of separable prefixes in itself is kind of just a big convention. Like “This feels like a unit, let’s write it as one.”
Cool.
So we’ve learned that we can combine hin, her and da with prepositions to create words for location and direction that can answer “Where (to)?” by themselves. Same as words like up, down or forward.
Here they are all three:
- Lass die Haare herunter. (let them down to here)
- Lass die Haare hinunter. (let them down to there)
- Lass die Haare darunter. (leave them under there)
And in a sentence, with a verb, they “feel” like prefixes. Which essentially means they ARE prefixes.
Now, so far, this was the “technical” side of things.
But there’s another part of this story and that’s the side of spoken German reality.
How spoken German shaped the versions
First of, the words got of course washed out and shortened so that they’re JUST enough to be recognized. her- got shortened to r-, dar- got shortened to dr- and hin- got shortened to n-.
- heraufgehen
- daraufgehen
- hinaufgehen
Now you might be like “Wait… naufgehen??”
Yes, naufgehen also exists but ONLY in the dialect of the South, and possibly also Austria.
And brings us to the second difference between the theory and how things are looking in daily life:
People didn’t bother to really make a distinction between the hin-version and her-version.
In the first section we learned that hin expresses “toward there” and her expresses “toward here“. Which is true when they’re used by themselves. But in these combinations the lines have blurred. Like… people would use heruntergehen and hinuntergehen interchangeably, based on what came to mind first and without really caring about the here vs there.
And this blurring of lines is especially true for the shortened versions.
And eventually the r-version got out on top as kind of the default, while in the South, at least in some dialects, the (hi)n-version is the default.
- Lass uns nausgehe’.
(my attempt at Bavarian) - Lass uns rausgehen.
Some conservative-authoritarian grammar-Klugscheißer like Bastian Sick with his overbearing books are still trying to lecture We the People on how we’re ALL doing it wrong, but in reality… no one cares. That ship has sailed centuries ago.
People do know the difference between hin and her, it matters very much when the words are used by themselves.
But when it comes to these versions, it just doesn’t matter. Like… when a German is talking about someone going down the stairs, they don’t think like “Wait a second, from what perspective am I telling this, downstairs or upstairs?”.
Authors MAY do it, but in daily life… just no. The distinction is not a “thing” in the brain of a native speaker anymore.
And besides … in many contexts, you wouldn’t even be able to decide which to pick. Like… putting chili oil over the latte in my hand… is that “toward here” or “toward there“?
People use what they’re used to, and in standard German, that’s most often the r-version.
And that brings us to the last section for today and for this topic.
When to use which version – A rough guide
We’ll now go over all the versions again and I’ll give you all the info about practical use that you’ll need.
r-version
Like I said, the r-version is the most common one and it makes sense to think of it as “the default” version.
NOT just a “shortened version”.
Also because r-versions are something that kids pick up VERY early. Like… at three years old, they can already use rausgehen correctly, and it’s not like they have to learn to distinguish it from ausgehen. I think they pick these up as separate concepts. And they DON’T learn herausgehen and hinausgehen until much later when they start reading or listening to audio books. So they kind of file these versions as variations of the r-version (unconsciously) and so should we.
Now, the r-version usually expresses a very literal, “local” interpretation of verb and prefix.
- reingehen – going inside
- rausgucken – look outside
- runterfallen – falling down
- runtergehen – to go downward
That can be very literal, as well as figurative-literal. Like… runtergehen can be about actually going down stairs, but it can also be about a price going down.
What’s crucial to understand here is that the r-version is ALWAYS directional. It feels like “from A to B”.
That’s why r-versions are primarily used with verbs that have a direction, too.
- raufbleiben
This doesn’t make sense, because “r” feels directional but bleiben is stationary. Same for raufstehen. Liegen is stationary, but rauf- implies “A to B”.
And this brings us to the second version
dr-version
For stationary contexts, the proper pick is the dr-version. Because it comes from “da” which by itself is stationary.
- draufbleiben
This makes sense and means “stay on (it)”.
Now, for the dr-version, there are a few caveats. First of all, dr-versions are often shortened by r-versions in spoken German. Or I should say replaced, that’s closer to the truth.
- Kannst du Kakaopulver raufmachen?
- Kannst du Kakaopulver draufmachen?
- Can you put chocolate powder on it?
Is it shortened or replaced? I don’t know. No one really knows. ESPECIALLY not Duden! Duden REALLY doesn’t know how to deal with these verbs.
But yeah, the example with the r-version just has more emphasis on the chocolate powder being put on (the motion), while draufmachen has a wee bit more of a sense of it being on it after the fact. It’s usually not a difference that matters though, so don’t sweat it!!
Just keep this in mind:
- r-version feels directional
- dr-version feels stationary
- runterlegen (from “not under” to “under”)
- drunterlegen (same thing, but the focus is on being under after)
Now, for some verbs, you’ll find that they’ll have both, an r-version and a dr-version, and that they have different meanings.
- raufgehen – to go upstairs
(doesn’t work with “d”) - draufgehen – to die, to be spent for (money)
(doesn’t work without “d”)
There is no real rule for this unfortunately because it’s entirely based on “What’s idiomatic.”.
Oh and speaking of idiomatic… the dr-versions of aus and ein are NOT regular. They’re draußen and drin and you cannot just switch those with raus or rein.
And I think draußen is not used as a prefix, but that’s … pure convention.
- Ich will noch draußen bleiben.
- Ich will heute drinbleiben.
And yes… the convention doesn’t make sense to me either.
Anyway, let’s get to the her-version.
her-version
The her-version is quite common in books and newspapers and some more formal, more figurative her-versions are also used in their full form in daily life. Like herausfinden in the sense of “finding out some knowledge”.
You can definitely shorten most of them to r-versions if you want to but you cannot extend every r-version into a her-version and assume it’s correct. Also because it can sound VERY stiff.
Still, you’ll be using a fair share of her-versions, because you need them for the verbs that CAN’T have an r-version.
- hervorkommen (“to come forth/out from”)
- herbeirufen (“to call over, to summon”)
- herabfallen (“to fall down”)
These are not as useful in daily life though, and they often sound a bit formal.
Cool.
So that’s three down, one to go and the last one is of course… the hin-version.
hin-version
The hin-version is kind of a non-factor in standard spoken German, except in some regional dialects where it might be more common.
It sounds very stiff and it’s definitely not something that comes out naturally, but rather something that people have to consciously go like “I want to use a hin-version now.”
What’s important to know for those of you who are B2 or C1 and who have to produce written German is that it’s sometimes the hin-version that is the “proper” version of an everyday r-version.
- Die Höhle sah unheimlich aus.
“Wollen wir da wirklich reingehen?” fragte Frodo. - Die Höhle sah unheimlich aus.
“Wollen wir da wirklich hineingehen?” fragte Frodo. - The cave looked eerie.
“Do you really want to go inside?” Frodo asked.
The first option does sound too colloquial for a written context like a fantasy novel, but the solution is NOT to use hereingehen but hineingehen. And why? Because the speaker is OUTSIDE of the cave and talking about “going there”, not “going here”.
Like I said… Germans do know the difference but they do not care in daily life.
And I think that’s actually it for today.
This was our look at the different versions of prefix verbs. I know that it probably was a bit overwhelming, all these versions and when you can replace which one with which one.
But don’t worry about that too much. Start with the r-version and understand the difference to a stationary dr-version. One is directional, the other one is steady.
And let the rest trickle in over time. That’s the order children pick this up in as well.
I tried multiple times to create a quiz for this lesson, but I always found my questions REALLY weird and confusing and I feel like they’d confuse you more than they would help.
I’ll probably give it another try, but no promises.
But of course, if you have any questions about any of this, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to clear it up.
I hope you liked it and see you next time!
further reading:
I love these nerdy breakdowns of grammar!
Maybe an obvious one, but do we apply the same separable prefix logic to all of these these r- forms (and the others hin-, her- etc.)? i.e. Ich gehe rauf.
Yes, these versions always separable :)
I was wondering if you could help me understand which of these word orders is more idiomatic:
„Wir tragen den Tisch in den Garten rüber.“ VS. „Wir tragen den Tisch rüber in den Garten.“
I see hinüber in both positions in novels and Chatty has told me that hinüber is more idiomatic when it is at the end of the sentence as a separable prefix, but that the opposite is true for rüber. Apparently rüber tends to come earlier in the sentence. Is that true?
Thank you for your amazing work :)
They’re both pretty much the same. Having “rüber” last is kind of the default, but “rüber in den Garten” is also super common in spoken German because there’s a trend to delay prepositional phrases. Also, you could see “in den Garten” as a closer specification of “rüber”.
This is utter nonsense :). “hinüber” is high register and I doubt you’ll ever hear it in spoken, though you will hear “nüber” in the South (it’s their r-version).
Ist das hin-version ofter in Suddeutschland verwendet, weil es da das n-version statt das r-version gibt?
Schwer zu sagen! Ja, die n-version ist dort häufiger, aber wie bei der r-version heißt das nicht, dass man die einfach immer zu “hin” verlängern kann.
Can you give examples of raufgehen and draufgehen?
You can find them side by side in my prefix verb dictionary, so I’ll just link that here :)
https://germanprefixes.com/raufgehen/
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! I am studying German right now and the teacher glossed over it saying “it’s so easy”, but I was soooo confused. I actually fully understand it now.. just have to practice it a lot xD
Ha, wow, that’s very dismissive of the teacher :). Glad I could help clear it up.
I’m confused about what you said here:
It sounds very stiff and it’s definitely not something that comes out naturally, but rather something that people have to consciously go like “I want to use a hin-version now.”
Because as you said in your “hin” article, it’s wrong to say “ich bin da gegangen” but rather “ich bin da hingegangen”. There has been a gap between my readout of this article and that one and during that time an idea about hin did form in my mind and it’s actually quite the opposite. I really do tend to think about the use of hin very often and I hear it pretty often as well. After learning of it’s existence, it was harder for me to make out when I shouldn’t use it (but that’s more so territory the other article covers). There are also some directional prefixes like entlang in entlanggehen and I would presume this covers the need for another directional prefix. Suffice it to say I think about it quite a bit.
The “hin” you’re mostly hearing in daily life and that you need to start using is a “generic” prefix.
You use it if you have NO other indication of direction.
However, a prefix like auf or unter is EXACTLY that… a vague, often obscure or abstract indication of directionality.
So there, you do NOT use “hin” anymore, becuase you already have something more specific.
And then, there’s the complex of adding hin,her or da(r)- to a prefix. This is where hin sounds stiff and forced.
– Ich stelle die Tasse da … NO indication of directionality… sounds wrong.
– Ich stelle die Tasse da hin. … generic indication of directionality… sounds awesome.
– Ich stelle die Tasse da ab … more specific indication of directionality… sounds great.
– Ich stelle die Tasse da auf den Tisch… very specific indication of directionality… sounds great.
Let me know if that helps!!
This does indeed help, thank you for making that distinction and for the quick answer!
“Ich stelle die Tasse da auf…” I really want to say darauf.
The grouping is “[da][auf den Tisch]”
The grouping is “[darauf][den Tisch]”. Now, you have an unconnected “den Tisch” in your sentence, which is why it makes NO sense.
Oh, so its like “da, auf den Tisch”? Like auf part is a clarification.
“da” is the generic location and “auf den Tisch” is a specification of that. The comma is not necessary, and it’s wrong if you mean a specific portion of the table (da auf den Tisch *pointing at the left side)
Is there no PDF of this?
Still in the works, forgot to finish it. I’ll put up a rough version real quick for now.
I think this is such a good article. The writing is a perfect mixture of facts/insight/humor that I think makes YDG indispensable for learners. I came here after having to describe scenes from a picture book. A boy climbing a ladders or stairs was often subject. The drawings however were often from a side-view. While the boy has vertical direction (auf / unter) he isn’t coming towards or away from you the narrator so hin or her don’t really even apply. DeepL and Langotalk both kept flip-flopping on hin and her version depending on the word order, use of klettern / steigen, and even if you used the boy’s name or just the pronoun. Super maddening! Lange rede kurzer Sinn – meine Deutschlehrerin moved me towards raus und runter. Your article describes that ‘problem’ of perspective very nicely. (PS – this and part 1 need to go in the Grammar section of YDG).
Thanks for the great feedback, and I’m really happy to hear that the mix of humor and facts was right :).
Interesting that DeepL and Langotalk (which is built on GPT3 as far as I know) are flip flopping. That kind of validates my point that there is a theoretical “logic” and then there’s how they’re used in practice. A rule based algorithm might be consistent here, but a “guess the next word based on what came before” probably has “hin” and “her” at 50% (I simplified this A LOT just now :D).
Whats funny is that if you live in Germany you just use these through osmosis. I use most of these all the time and dont think I was ever taught them, but the are just everywhere. And in my opinion, as a Native english speaker, things like raus rein, drinbleiben just kinda make sense. They are more simple to use.
Yeah, that’s the best way, but I feel like it doesn’t work for everyone. Like… some people have been living in Germany speaking German for years, but they still don’t have a feel for them.
I think there’s a crucial period early on in the “speaking” journey, and if you start coyping them then, you’re good for life :)
I wasn’t quiet sure where to put this but I think here seems a pretty good place to ask this question……
Thinking about why formaluations like “kommst du den Kindern…?” doesn’t require a “her”.
Is this because the Dativ indicates the direction already?
If so can I say stuff like “geh mal Ihnen” i.e. go to them and stuff like that and just assume that if its clear its dativ a “hin” or “her” isn’t necessary?
“kommst du den Kindern…?”
Not sure what that’s supposed to mean, to be honest. It sounds like an incomplete cutout from a sentence, it’s not a complete element.
yeah the …. indicated a complete sentence – sorry if that was unclear or unhelpful i assumed the whole sentence wasn’t necessary – but I’ll put the whole thing here.
Kommst du den Kindern noch gute Nacht sagen?, rief die Frau ihrem Mann zu, als sie um acht uhr aus dem Kinderzimmer kam.
It’s from my course book.
Ohhhhhhh, okay, now it makes sense. The location is the verb “gute Nacht sagen”.
It’s the same logic as the missing “zu” for “gehen”. You can find it here:
https://yourdailygerman.com/einkaufen-gehen-why-no-zu/
There is stuff like:
– Ich gehe Supermarkt.
Which is basically a parallel grammar coming from mainly Turkish immigrants. They don’t have prepositions in Turkish, so they tend to skip them and this has made its way into colloquial German, for younger urban people.
But I have never heard “Ich gehe ihm” for example.
Yeah, I’m kinda familar with that… Kiezdeutsch… but i think this is a different thing – the example was from my c1 Kursbuch. That said I flicked through the book and there is actually (finally) a section on colloquial german, but this is not part of the section…
Say you’re picking up your dog and taking then outside and want to say ‘wir gehen [ ]aus’ (to the dog).
I figure as you said this’d likely just be ‘raus’ but if one did want to ‘expand’ it, say for a test, would ‘hin’ be the appropriate prefix, due to the motion being away from the speaker?
“hinaus” sounds like something you’d write in a book.
The normal thing to say is “raus”, for sure.
Ok, thanks!
Ein Sprachübungsartikel für die übliche dr/r/hin/ver Verben wäre toll.
I have one from a few years ago here:
https://yourdailygerman.com/prefix-verbs-r-version/
But I could definitely make a new one. I’d focus it on what’s actually used in spoken German though. Otherwise it would get too messy!
Great article :) I want to express my gratitude for being a member of this blog. Thanks to generous customers, I received a scholarship for the membership. This means a lot to me, and I genuinely appreciate your help. Thanks again!
Willkommen :)!
Great post, very informative once more.
To the location/direction, there is one confusing verb for me – zurückbleiben. Like in metro in Munich ”bitte zurückbleiben..” Is it a mix of direction-location or am I missing something?
Interesting question!!
“zurück” does indeed usually sound like a direction, while “bleiben” is stationary and does NOT combine with “her” and “hin” or a normal r-version for that reason.
So yeah… we can think of it as kind of an outlier.
Overall, the stationary vibe of “bleiben” definitely dominated and I feel like “zurück” answers “where?” here, not “to where?”
Hope that helps.
Do you think “zurück” with its kind of directional vibe makes zurückbleiben sound more deliberate? Like, staying as actively not going (through the train doors)?
Hmmm, it makes sense now that you say it, but it’s not something I “felt” myself.
It does fit, though, also for verbs like “zurückhalten”.
Hi there, Emanuel. Have been reading your articles for some time now. Am impressed by the all the in-depth analysis, especially when it comes to vocab. If I may, what comprehensive grammar textbooks would you suggest for English-speakers, except for Martin Durrell-Hammer’s German grammar? Can’t read things like Duden’s Die Grammatik yet, the thing is pure gibberish to me. Thanks in advance
I’d love to help, but I have no idea. I never read a grammar book for German actually, except the Grammar Duden (I read parts). I can highly recommend it for sentence structure, but ONLY edition 7 and newer. They completely overhauled their approach, and the older versions SUCK.
My series on sentence structure is based on what’s in there, though I modified it a bit.
But yeah… no clue what book would be good. Hammers Grammar does get mentioned a lot though, so it seems to be good.
Informative and hard-to-find info, as usual Emanuel.
I do remember seeing sentences with duplicative use – things like “aus dem Fenster hinaus gucken” or “auf jmdn. heraufsehen”. I was always confused about when these are appropriate and what nuance they express.
These doublings are quite common and sometimes they’re a result of the verb-preposition combo
– Ich passe auf das Bier auf.
– Ich passe darauf auf.
This is a NECESSARY doubling.
– Ich gucke aus dem Fenster raus.
Here, the “raus” is redundant because “aus dem Fenster” already has the needed directionality. But Germans love to have a prefix at the end, so that’s why they often use one, even if not really needed.
You can find a bit more about that in my article about split-up da-words:
https://yourdailygerman.com/da-words-apart-spoken-german/
Pennsylvaanisch Deitsch is a bit fun here as there’re not just three prefixes but rather four.
There’s r-, n- (from hin, Pa Dutch is one of those dialects that uses hin a lot), and dr-, but also ‘h-‘ which I think comes from ‘hier’
Apparently in Early Modern German, hier could dialectally be just ‘hie’ similar to how da was once ‘dar’ but lost the R so thoroughly it’s not spelt (usually).
That’s the basis for my thinking it comes from hier.
Hier otherwise doesn’t occur whatsoever, ‘do’ (related to da) is used for all ‘here’ related things.
It mainly occurs in a relatively limited context though, only on prepositions or adverbs denoting the speaker’s location.
For example ‘hinn’ means inside (the speaker is inside) where as ‘drinn’ means inside (the speaker is not also inside)
If you’re inside and I’m outside then I could say ‘ich bin hauss un du bischt drinn’ and you could say ‘ich bin hinn un du bischt drauss’ and they’d both be true.
Similar with howwe/huff vs drowwe/druff, hunne vs drunne, hiwwe vs driwwe (hense the newspaper Hiwwe wie Driwwe)
Wow, this sounds even more particular and difficult than normal German :D
Thank you very much, now i am a member with your helping. All your posts are Gold
I think what i’ve learnt through these articles is each verb needs to be learned individually and treating this as a general rule where you can just add an r to the beginning of the word doesn’t always work.
Like, it would be weird to say to someone on a train “stiegen Sie hier raus” right? even though after thinking about this stuff it sort of would make sense.
Also i know you said there aren’t R-versions for ab but I did spot “hinab” reading a poem the other day, interesting word…
“raussteigen” is super literal. You can “raussteigen” out of a bathtub for instance. Or fume can “raussteigen” out of a volcano.
The main thing to understand is that the r-version is almost always super literal and about “space”.
And I think you should start making up “new” words with it.
Throwing trash out of a train window for instance… which verb would you use?
my first instinnct was rausschmeissen.. but then i figured maybe schmeissen isn’t so good so rauswerfen i guess??
“rauswerfen” is the default indeed, “rauschmeißen” sounds a bit more coarse. But yes… the raus is what matters here :). Aus would not work and be surprisingly hard to understand.
i’m thinking this might be another example of german distinguishing between abstract and concrete in a way english doesn’t (as far as i am aware) . Like using say “fand” or “gefunden” depending on what the context would be….
Kind of, yeah!
Really interesting. We may not use some of the terms but it’s good to know the why and wherefore.
I think 80% of German learners won’t ever need a hin-version, indeed :).
The main takeaway of all this really is to think of r-version as a thing and NOT think of it as “Just” a lesser her-version.
And that its meaning is usually super literal and about location.