present: separable verbs

German Separable Verbs for Beginners

In German, you can create new words by adding a prefix to a basic verb. We call these separable verbs (trennbare Verben). The great news is that they follow the exact same conjugation rules as their simple base verbs! For example, the verb ankommen (to arrive) conjugates just like kommen (to come), and zumachen (to close) conjugates exactly like machen (to make/do).

Word Order in the Present Tense

Because this is an initial level lesson, we will focus on the present tense in main clauses. When you use a separable verb as the only verb in a standard sentence, the verb "separates." You conjugate the root of the verb and put it in its normal spot (position two), and you take the particle (the prefix) and kick it to the very end of the sentence.

Here are some examples of how this looks in action:

• ankommen (to arrive): Ich komme morgen um zwei Uhr an. (I arrive tomorrow at two o'clock.)
• ausgehen (to go out): Sie geht heute Abend aus. (She goes out tonight.)

Contrast: Using Two Verbs in the Present Tense

There is an important exception in the present tense: what happens when you use a separable verb together with another conjugated verb? This usually happens with modal verbs like "must," "can," or "want." In this situation, the helping verb takes position two, and the separable verb is pushed to the very end of the sentence. Because the separable verb is no longer conjugated, it stays in its full, inseparable infinitive form!

Compare these examples to the ones above:

• Ich muss morgen um zwei Uhr ankommen. (I must arrive tomorrow at two o'clock.)
• Sie will heute Abend ausgehen. (She wants to go out tonight.)

What's coming up in future lessons?

In future lessons, we will cover how these verbs behave in more advanced sentence structures. You will learn that the prefix stays attached in non-finite forms and past participles, where -ge- is usually inserted right in the middle (like angekommen or ausgegangen, unless the base verb doesn't use ge-, like einstudiert). We will also look at how the word zu is squeezed between the prefix and the verb for expanded infinitives (anzukommen), and how the prefix actually rejoins the conjugated verb at the very end of subordinate clauses (like Ich weiß, dass sie heute Abend ausgeht). Finally, we will explore some fun colloquial shortcuts used in spoken German, such as dropping the final -e (ich kauf), reducing -en endings to -n or -e, adding an -s to plural forms in Austria and Bavaria (ihr kommts), and sometimes dropping the -t in words like brauchen (er brauch).