Learn about German prefixes
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| Chuck: This is Advanced Focus Lesson 5. |
| Judith: Willkommen! |
| Chuck: Welcome to another Advanced Focus Lesson. Here we improve our understanding of German vocabulary, by analyzing verb prefixes. |
| Judith: When you understand how a German word came to be, you’ll find it a lot easier to remember this word and to use it correctly. |
| Chuck: So, which prefix are we looking at today? |
| Judith: Today we shall look at the German prefix [ver-]. |
| Chuck: But wait, didn’t we have it last week? |
| Judith: No, last week we had [zer-]. |
| Chuck: Okay, great. Before we dive into the lesson, I want to remind our listeners about the free vocabulary trainer in the learning center. |
| Judith: Yes, you can practice your vocabulary right there in the learning center of GermanPod101.com. We’ve even added the words from the lessons already, so you don’t need to enter them yourself. |
| Chuck: For this lesson, you can find not just the words we mention here. But also another useful words that use the prefix [ver-]. |
| Judith: I hope you’ll use this tool to improve your German by leaps and bounds. But, let’s speak German now. |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: [Die Vorsilbe ver- spaltet sich nicht ab]. |
| Chuck: Unlike the other prefixes we’ve covered, this one does not split off. |
| Judith: [Meistens haben die Wörter mit “ver-” eine negative Bedeutung]. |
| Chuck: Most of the time, verbs with [ver-] will have a negative meaning. At least in comparison with the same verbs without [ver-]. |
| Judith: [Zum Beispiel “verkommen”]. |
| Chuck: “To become run down”. |
| Judith: [Oder “verschlafen”. “Verschlafen” bedeutet “zu lange schlafen”]. |
| Chuck: “To oversleep”. |
| Judith: [Genau. “Verlassen” ist ein anderes Beispiel]. |
| Chuck: “To abandon”. |
| Judith: [lassen] is to “let” and, [allein lassen] is “to leave”. |
| Chuck: [Allein lassen] can be either positive or negative. But, [verlassen] has a clear negative connotation. |
| Judith: As an adjective, [verlassen] means “deserted”. |
| Chuck: Can you think of another clear cut example? |
| Judith: Yeah. [Zum Beispiel “verachten”, “achten”] is “to respect and esteem someone”, where else [“verachten”] is to “stain”. |
| Chuck: [Sind alle Wörter mit “ver-” so]? |
| Judith: [Nein, nicht alle]. For some words, you also can’t tell what [ver-] adds to the word. For example, in [versprechen]. |
| Chuck: “To promise”. But, yes, this has nothing to do with speaking negatively. |
| Judith: And there are a couple of words that still appear to use the prefix [ver-] but don’t actually have a valid withstand underneath that. |
| Chuck: Really? I can’t think of any. But, what do you think of? |
| Judith: For example, I was thinking of [vergessen]. |
| Chuck: Oh, how could I forget that one? |
| Judith: Yes. [gessen] is not a German word at all. |
| Chuck: Yeah. I think this is something to remember about the other prefixes as well. There’s always the possibility that the word is a pretender. It looks like a prefix but it´s actually a part of the word stamp. |
| Judith: You learn something new every day! Every day that you listen to GermanPod101 that is. |
| Chuck: And then you have to make sure you don’t forget it again. Just review the PDF´s of past lessons occasionally, that’s a refresh of memory. |
| Judith: Okay. [Also bis nächstes Mal]! |
| Chuck: See you next time! |
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