A Foundation Course in Reading German, 2017a

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12/8/2017
Verbs with Prefixes
As you encounter verbs in German texts, they will of course usually be in a
conjugated form, rather than their infinitive form, which is the form you need in
order to find the verb in your dictionary. Now that you have learned about both
regular and irregular verbs, and furthermore those in two different tenses, you have
become quite dependent on the "irregular verb" or "strong verb" chart in your
dictionary. In particular, keep in mind that you will need to recognize the root verb
within a verb.
For example, when you encounter a verb form such as verbrachte, you won’t find
that in your dictionary. Instead, you must recognize that ver- is a prefix and that
-brachte is the part you can find in your irregular verb chart, which in turn will tell
you that it is the simple-past, 3rd-person, singular, form of the verb bringen. Then
you know to look for the infinitive form verbringen in your dictionary to find out
what it means.
The most common verbal prefixes are be-, ent-, and ver-.
Compound Nouns
As shown in the introduction, German has a propensity to form compound nouns
such as Unterseeboot (submarine) and Arbeitsmethode (work method). Not all
compound nouns are listed in dictionaries. Hence it is useful to understand how
such nouns are formed and how we might best translate them.
Often a compound noun has an s after the first component. This shows possession
as in Arbeitsmethode (method of work, or work method) and Entwicklungszentrum
(development center). The last component of a compound noun is usually the key
word with the preceding component(s) being modifiers (descriptors) of the last as in
Unterseeboot (undersea boat = submarine).
Sometimes the occurrence of consonants next to one another which would be
difficult to pronounce will indicate the dividing point between the components as in
Computerbauer (computer builder) and Teststrecke (testing ground), i.e., rb and
tst respectively.
The gender of compound nouns is always determined by the last component. Thus,
Teststrecke is die Teststrecke because Strecke is feminine.
Look at the following compounds and by using your dictionary and the guidelines
above determine their component parts and their meanings.