Be-Prefix Verb Song

Herr Antrim
Feb 8, 2016
3 min read

This week's German song was a request from a YouTube user named "rmontarudo". He wanted to know a little more about the inseparable prefix "be-" and how it affects the meaning of the verb. You can listen to the song below, but it might require a bit of explaining, so I am going to use this blog post for that.

Each line in this song has its own specific reason for being in the video. Let's take it one verse at a time and talk about the exact reason each thing is there.

This one is probably the most obvious of the slides. It simply states that if you add "be-" to the beginning of the verb, it forces the verb to take a direct object. It also points out something that is a bit more subtle. Some verbs that would normally take a dative object can be changed to take an accusative one when you add "be-" to the beginning.

This one is actually two verses about the same verb set. The first verse simply points out that if you add "be-" to the beginning of the verb, it changes the meaning from "to find" to "to be found". This is a bit confusing as to how this could make the verb take an object, so I wrote a second verse for this verb set. This one shows two example sentences. The first one without the "be-" shows what most people are used to. The subject is "ich" and the direct object is "meine Schuhe". The second example uses "be-" and shows that the verb is now used as a reflexive. That means that both the subject and the object represent the same thing. Literally: "The shoes find themselves in the box."

This verb set is pretty common and confuses a lot of students. The first part of the first line is pretty obvious. It just tells you the definition of the verb "kommen". The second part is an example of "kommen" in action, which means "He is coming home." The last part of the verse defines the verb with "be-" at the front and gives an example that means "I receive that." This shows us a verb that didn't originally take an object, but now does, because of the "be-" at the beginning of it.

The last example in the song is the difference between "sprechen" (to speak) and "besprechen" (to discuss). When you use the verb "sprechen", you can only use it with a prepositional phrase or relative clause in order to show, what you are talking about. In the first half of the example it says "Ich spreche mit dem Chef" (I am talking with the boss). The second half shows us that "besprechen" takes a direct object. It says "wir besprechen das" (we are discussing that). The end of the verse goes back to the rules about the "be-" prefix. If there is a "be-" at the beginning of the verb, it will take an object, even if that object is a reflexive pronoun like it was in the first example.

I hope you found this song and explanation helpful. If you have any suggestions for other such songs about German grammar, you can leave a comment below and I will make a song for you.

What's next?

Next week I will be talking about Duolingo for Schools. The next song I plan to upload is "Alle Vögel sind schon da".