Kenny同志 577 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 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 post Share on other sites
renzhe 1,681 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 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 post Share on other sites
Kenny同志 577 Posted February 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 I see. Many thanks Renzhe. It seems German is a frighteningly difficult language! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
renzhe 1,681 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 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 post Share on other sites
wibr 162 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 @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 post Share on other sites
renzhe 1,681 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 In that case, I'd use "rübersetzen" to make it clear, so it didn't cross my mind Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kenny同志 577 Posted February 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 Conjugations and declensions are a bit scary at first, but you quickly get the hang of them. That's good. Danke. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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