Separable verbs in the present tense
Today’s lesson is about Separable verbs in the present tense because it is very important to make a correct sentence.
What is a separable verb?
These are verbs which are made up of two parts: a prefix and the infinitive of
a verb.
For example: auf + stehen → aufstehen ‘to get up’.
Comparison with English
Separable verbs are comparable to English phrasal verbs, which consist of an infinitive plus an adverb or preposition: ‘to get up’, ‘to get on’ etc.
Important separable verbs
Separable verbs are quite frequent in German. Here are some of the most important ones:
| abfahren | to depart |
| abholen | to pick up |
| abwaschen | to do the washing up |
| anfangen | to start |
| ankommen | to arrive |
| anrufen | to phone |
| aufhören | to stop |
| aufräumen | to tidy up |
| aufstehen | to get up |
| ausgehen | to go out |
| einkaufen | to go shopping |
| einladen | to invite |
Prefixes go at the end
When a separable verb is in the present tense, the prefix is usually separated from the finite form of the verb and goes to the end of the sentence:
anrufen → Herr Nolte ruft seine Frau an.
Mr Nolte rings his wife.
aufstehen→ Bernhard steht um fünf Uhr morgens auf.
Bernhard gets up at five o’clock in the morning.
ausgehen→ Corinna geht jeden Tag aus.
Corinna goes out every day.
fernsehen→ Die Kinder sehen jeden Abend fern.
The children watch television every evening.
einkaufen→ Er kauft im Supermarkt ein.
He goes shopping in the supermarket.
stattfinden→ Das Meeting findet am Montag statt.
The meeting takes place on Monday.
Separable verbs in two clauses
When a sentence consists of two clauses, the split-off prefix goes to the end of the relevant clause. This may not necessarily be at the end of the sentence.
| clause 1 | clause 2 | English |
| Ich stehe auf | und dann frühstücke ich. | I get up and then I have breakfast. |
| Herr Carlsen sieht fern, | aber seine Kinder lesen. | Mr Carlsen is watching television, but his children are reading. |
If you have a sentence with several clauses which use separable verbs, then you have the split-off part at the end of each clause:
Dr Schuster schläft erst um vierundzwanzig Uhr ein, aber er steht schonum fünf Uhr auf.
Dr Schuster only goes to sleep at midnight, but he gets up at five o’clock.
How to find out whether a verb is separable
You can find out whether a verb is separable by checking in a good dictionary. After the main entry, it will say ‘sep.’ if it is separable.
Common separable prefixes
The most common separable prefixes are:
ab-, an-, auf-, aus-, ein-, mit-, nach-, vor-, zu-, zurück-
You will find examples of most of these prefixes used with a verb in the preceding pages.
More about separable verbs
As a beginner you will probably use separable verbs most often as explained above. However, separable verbs occur also in the imperative, in combination with modal verbs, and in the perfect and future tense.
If you cannot find a separable verb in a verb list or dictionary, look up the verbs without its prefix. So, for example, to find out the simple past tense form of abfahren, look up fahren in the verb list.
