Kenny同志 Posted February 2, 2015 at 11:31 AM Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 at 11:31 AM Do we have any German speakers here? Well, I need your help with a tag in a German-English dictionary. Unfortunately, I don't have the dictionary at hand or I might have figured out what it meant. Anyway, given the available information, am I right in saying that it refers to syllabification? Or rather it refers to separability of compound German verbs? Thanks in advance for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renzhe Posted February 2, 2015 at 01:16 PM Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 at 01:16 PM Most likely the latter. Many German verbs are formed by adding a prefix to an already existing verb. Sometimes you have to split such a verb up when conjugating it (e.g. to form the past tense), but not always. Example: setzen -- to put, to set gesetzt -- past participle (put, set) ich setze -- first person indicative present (I put, I set) umsetzen -- to implement (um + setzen) umgesetzt ich setze um but! übersetzen -- to translate (über + setzen) übersetzt ich übersetze Dictionaries point these things out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny同志 Posted February 2, 2015 at 01:55 PM Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 at 01:55 PM I see. Many thanks Renzhe. It seems German is a frighteningly difficult language! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renzhe Posted February 2, 2015 at 04:09 PM Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 at 04:09 PM It's one of the easiest languages I've learned, actually. Conjugations and declensions are a bit scary at first, but you quickly get the hang of them. The real difficulty for me are the grammatical genders, which are highly irregular. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wibr Posted February 2, 2015 at 04:36 PM Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 at 04:36 PM @renzhe übersetzen also means to cross a river with a ferry or something (less common usage), and in that case it would be: Ich setze über Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renzhe Posted February 2, 2015 at 05:25 PM Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 at 05:25 PM In that case, I'd use "rübersetzen" to make it clear, so it didn't cross my mind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny同志 Posted February 3, 2015 at 06:05 AM Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 at 06:05 AM Conjugations and declensions are a bit scary at first, but you quickly get the hang of them. That's good. Danke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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