33 Separable Verbs

Separable verbs

 German, like English is full of verbs than consist of two parts, e.g.

• • • • • • We jumped up / Wir sprangen auf.

Here, ’up’ belongs together with ‘jump’ in English and ‘auf’ belongs together with ‘sprangen’ in German.

However, in German there are two important differences when it comes to such verbs:

In German, the second part of the verb (like ‘auf’ in the above example) is considered ‘separable’ or ‘detachable’ and is placed at the end of the sentence. You don’t see it in the above example because there are no other words in that sentence. But consider the following example:

• • Turn off your cell-phone! / schalten Sie Ihr Handy aus!

See how ‘off’ stays right next to turn’ in English, but ‘aus’ is at the end? 

In English, ‘off’ stays right after ‘turn’ regardless if it is an infinitive of not:

• • I forgot to turn off the lights. (Infinitive: to turn off)
  • She turned off the lights. (Not an infinitive)

But in German, in the infinitive, the separable part always comes before the main verb:

aufstehen (to get up) vs “Ich stehe auf”

mitbringen (to bring along) vs “Ich bringe meinen Laptop mit”