The Latin language already knew the very practical trick of giving verbs a new, sometimes similar – sometimes completely different – meaning by using prefixes.
Many modern languages have copied this trick.
In German, however, an additional phenomenon has developed that causes difficulties in learning: Verbs with a prefix can be either separable or inseparable. And to make it even funnier: Two verbs that look exactly the same can be both separable and inseparable:
umfahren (1): „Der Fahrer umfährt das Hindernis.” – „The driver drives around the obstacle.“
umfahren (2): „Der Fahrer fährt das Hindernis um.“ – „The driver knocks the obstacle over.“
This makes a big difference for the obstacle, and possibly also for the driver.
At this point in a course, as a German trainer, you can hear indelicate curses in all kinds of languages. Juan from Mexico, for example, kept uttering “Joder!”.
For a long time I believed that only the German language produced this particular imposition, but then David from Port Elizabeth pointed out to me that something like this also exists in Afrikaans. Then it was obvious that Dutch and Flemish probably also have separable and non-separable verbs.
Do you know of any other languages for which this is true?
Of course, I don’t only want to point out problems here, but also offer a solution.
Perhaps this decision tree will help you – as it does many of our clients: