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Coming from a different language group I have a really hard time using German compound verbs that describe motion. Whenever I want to express a notion that somebody is moving to a new location, I think about a basic verb, i.e. "gehen", "springen", "klettern" and the destination. As a result I come up with a sentence like:

Er geht auf den Berg.

Then, however, I look the sentence up and discover that the verb is missing the prefix "rauf", resulting in:

Er geht auf den Berg rauf.

I find it very unintuitive as I already know the direction (auf den Berg) so I regularly keep forgetting about the prefix at the end. Some other examples might include sentences like:

Er geht in den Keller runter.

Er klettert über den Zaun drüber (edited).

Er geht aus dem Haus raus.

The thought process responsible for my mistake results from thew fact that I feel that I already expressed the idea of going "into" or "onto", so expressing the direction one more time feels tautological.

Is it really necessary to include those prefixes in each of the aformentioned sentences and if I don't do it, would it sound really bad for native German speakers?

Pax
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4 Answers4

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No, it is not necessary

It does not sound bad or unusual if you use the short version. The longer version just puts more emphasis.

infinitezero
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    I would go so far as to say that the overuse of such additions is typical of spoken language and bad style in writing. I admit it is hard to pin down, where „overuse“ begins. There are cases where it is necessary: „sie fiel die Treppe runter“. – Ludi Jun 28 '19 at 19:46
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    I am Austrian, and I would even go so far that I would avoid "rauf" in written language at all. If, then "hinauf". – rexkogitans Jun 29 '19 at 07:47
  • @rexkogitans Well said indeed! I supposed it was about adding vs omitting „herunter/runter“. But of course „runter“ is always to be confined to spoken language/dialogue. What I meant is that in many cases either one is redundant and bad style (xxx setz dich auf den Stuhl darauf/herauf xxx), but in some cases one is necessary (sie fiel die Treppe hinunter/hinab(speaker upstairs) | herunter/herab (speaker downstairs) | runter (spoken language). – Ludi Jun 30 '19 at 20:02
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The sentences you wrote are unusual in that the more specific (e.g. in den Keller), precedes the more general (e.g. runter). The reverse is more natural and I think occurs more frequently:

Er geht runter in den Keller.
Geht doch mal raus an die frische Luft!
Wir wollen rauf auf den Gipfel.
Kommen Sie doch auch rein ins Wasser!

For this reason, leaving out the separable prefixes in your examples actually makes them sound better.

David Vogt
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    (Um zu üben habe ich mir erlaubt, auf Deutch fortzusetzen. Falls jemand Lust hätte, mich zu korrigieren, haltet euch nicht zurück.) Das ist das Problem beim Lernen von Fremdsprachen. Zunächst lernt man alle diese Regeln, die unbedingt befolgt werden mussen, nur um später herauszufinden, dass sie eigentlich gebrochen werden dürfen. Ich finde deine Sätze viel einfacher zu bilden, hätte ich sie jedoch vorher nie gleich formuliert, wissend, dass die vorsilben ganz hinten stehen mussen. Danke. – Pax Jun 28 '19 at 13:41
  • Die Lehrbücher legen immer großen Wert darauf, daß der Lerner sich an die Endstellung der Verben gewöhnt. Deshalb verzichten sie auf eine explizite Darstellung von "Ausklammerungen". Zu dem Thema finde ich die Frage und Antwort hier gar nicht schlecht. – David Vogt Jun 28 '19 at 16:14
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You will sound like a news anchor then.

Those tiny bits are not really neccessary to understand a clearly spoken sentence. However, as you may have found out already, German speakers mumble all the time and then, those words are a life saver. Consider someone telling you

Gehns heut nimmer ofn Berch!

because it's too late already to climb the mountain. You may have missed the message. That's why they will always say

Gehns heut nimmer ofn Berch nauf!

(Of course, they do this only because they want to drink a beer in the evening instead of browsing the wilderness for the remains of you.)

Janka
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  • Ich versuche, den Satz entzuschlüsseln. Also, wird schon schiefgehen: "nimmer" klingt ein wenig wie "nie mehr" und ich werde dabei bleiben. "Heut" heißt "heute", kein Zweifel. "Berch" – normalerweise hätte ich keine Ahnung, was das heißt, neulich habe ich jedoch verschiedene Deutsche Dialekte gehört und jetzt weiß ich, dass man in Deutschland viele unterschiedlische Sprachen spricht. Es kann also sein, dass "Berch" einfach "Berg" heißt. Anschließend "ofn" könnte "auf den" sein. Da bleibt uns noch "Gehns" und da mir fehlt das Subjekt, vermute ich, dass es "Gehen wir uns" heißen kann. Stimmt's? – Pax Jun 28 '19 at 14:06
  • Des is leider a ganz a blöds Beispiel, wei's bairisch is (oder san soll)... "Geht heute nicht mehr auf den Berg (hinauf)" wäre die hochdeutsche Übersetzung davon. "Nauf" ist demnach die Kurzform von "hinauf", analog zu "rauf" / "herauf". Beides bedeutet dasselbe. – YetiCGN Jun 28 '19 at 15:11
  • Gehns → Gehen Sie. Nimmer ist entweder nie mehr oder nicht mehr. – Janka Jun 28 '19 at 22:13
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    Warum kommt hier ein bayrisches Beispiel wenn nach Deutsch gefragt ist? – infinitezero Jun 28 '19 at 22:40
  • A dialect example adds unnecessary complexity to the answer. – Arminius Jun 29 '19 at 16:49
  • A dialect example is exactly what you will hear from German speakers. They aren't talking to you in Hochdeutsch. Maybe something near to Hochdeutsch. – Janka Jun 29 '19 at 16:56
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    I'm a German native speaker and even I have trouble understanding what some Bavarian villagers consider to be a form of German. I don't think it's necessary to confuse German learners with this ... unique way of talking. – infinitezero Jul 01 '19 at 00:57
  • I think it's very neccessary because of real-world examples. Not toy german. – Janka Jul 01 '19 at 00:58
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The thought process responsible for my mistake results from thew fact that I feel that I already expressed the idea of going "into" or "onto", so expressing the direction one more time feels tautological.

This is not quite tautological at all. In fact German has a way to not only show the ("absolute") direction of a movement but also the direction in respect of the speaker. Consider:

Er geht den Berg hinauf.
Er geht den Berg herauf.

Both basically say he goes up the mountain, as "hinauf" and "herauf" both mean "up(wards)". But in the first case the observer saying the sentence implies that he himself is looking at the person from the ground (or at the least from lower down the mountain) whereas the second implies that the observer is already on the mountain (peak or at the least above the other) himself. "her-" means in the direction of the observer, "hin-" is away from the observer. i.e.

Komm her!        Come here!
Da geht er hin.  There he goes (away).

Now "rauf" and "runter" are shortening phrases for "herauf" AND "hinauf" and "herunter/hinunter" respectively. (Yes, i understand. First you learn to differentiate and then you learn that what you learned is for naught.) Notice that they are legit and understandable but casual speak. In a(n overly) strict sense these forms are wrong. An analogous institute exists in English, i.e. "Nothings gonna change."

bakunin
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