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I’m sure you have many questions right now.  What is a separable-prefix verb?  What’s with the pathetic attempt at incorporating Pig Latin into the title of this post?  Do I have another package of toilet paper left or should I take a trip to the store tonight?  I hope this blog post doesn’t leave too many of these things unaddressed.

We’re not going to get too specific about separable prefix verbs just yet…  I simply want to introduce the concept.  Check out the Pig Latin again in the title.  When speaking in this altered form of English, you mentally store the first part of the word and bring it back at the end.  Now imagine that the hyphens you see in the title are actually entire sentences!  And you need to bring back the first part of the word after saying all of it!  (This would take about 15.73 more IQ points to do than basic Pig Latin)   The German language has words that act like nutcases in this manner.   So if you….

1.  Are doing a word-for-word translation and have no clue why there is some small-lookin’ word stuck at the end of the sentence (oddly reminding you of a cheddar biscuit at Red Lobster that has fallen out of the basket away from the others)

or……

2.  Are wondering why the definition of the verb you looked up doesn’t completely match the rest of the sentence and have not yet noticed the small-lookin’ word at the end of the sentence

……

You’re probably dealing with a separable prefix verb!

Here’s how they work…. Take the verb ausbilden which means to educate, sort of like you’re training someone.  Well, it has two parts, the prefix aus- and then bilden.  So if I was training you to feed elephants, a possible sentence might look like this (a sentence that disregards German grammar only to give a visual demonstration of a separable-prefix verb that is…)  OK, sample sentence:  I am bilden you to feed elephants aus.  Yep, not kidding!  That is one word.  Imagine how this feels by trying it as if an English verb was a separable-prefix verb.  For example, if educate functioned like this…  The job of this blog post is to cate people about the existence of separable-prefix verbs edu.  Hope it succeeded!

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