2 recaps and I think I will need another one still! It’s actually good this happened. We’re now done with 60% of the course and nothing has felt challenging to the thought so far. This one at least introduced us to the reality that getting a hold of the vocabulary will not be easy.
Conceptually, a major part of this lesson was very similar to the last one, in that we took a verb and discussed other verbs that are derived from it. What’s even better about this one is that unlike machen, the derivatives of sehen actually make some sense. What was challenging was the fact that there has been an overload of new information in the last couple of lessons, and my brain, so used to rote learning, hasn’t been able to remember everything well. The narrator tells us to use active learning and our understanding of the basics well, and this is what I must do.
Verbs can split!
This was not explicitly taught in the lesson, but I got to know about it from Gemini as I was writing this summary. Gemini has been more and more helpful recently, and I must not abstain from using it!
Most of the derivative verbs we will discuss about are separable, which means that the prefix and the base verb can and will split if allowed to. A simple rule determines this:
A separable verb only splits when it is the main verb sitting in position #2. The moment a helper verb like werden (will), wollen (want), or können (can) takes over position #2, the separable verb loses its power, heals itself back into one whole word, and patiently waits at the very end line.
The many versions of sehen
German has a few base verbs and then a lot of new verbs that derive from it. We already saw this with machen — anmachen (to turn on) , sumachen (to close), and the like. Now, we look at the derivatives of sehen (to see)
The table can be seen here
More versions of machen
We saw another (weird) version of the base verb machen. apmachen means to remove, OR to agree on something. WTF!!! Example sentences:
When meaning “to remove something”
- I am taking it off -> ich mache es ab
- Did you take it off? -> Habe du es abgemacht?
When meaning “to agree on something”
- Are we agreeing on this? -> machen wir das ab?
- (common expression) Deal!/Agreed! -> abgemacht!
New verb: legen
This one means “to lay down/put down something”
Some derived verbs:
- to hang up (as in the phone) -> auflegen
- (weird) to display/to pay for someone on the promise of getting it back later -> auslegen
Common expressions
In German, how are you is expressed as “how goes it”. This can be translated to “wie geht es?” and even further compacted to “wie gehts?”