# German grammar--ge- prefix on past participle? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 25, 2026, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387 "2026-09-25T23:44:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/1 "2026-09-25T23:44:27Z")
Most German verbs add a ge- prefix to the past participle. Eg. machen, gemacht (make, made), but not all do, e.g. spazieren, spaziert (walk, walked). There are special rules for verbs that already have prefixes, but I will ignore them. My (alas late) colleague who escaped Germany at age 16 in 1939 told me he once spent a sleepless night figuring out which verbs omit the ge- prefix before he found the simple rule that seemed to be universal. He had certainly not learned it by age 16 and I wonder if it is actually known to German speakers, especially native speakers. Verbs that are accented on the first syllable (which is normal) take the ge- and others do not. This actually covers the distinction between separable and inseparable prefixes ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/2 "2026-09-26T00:44:48Z")
Accents and accenting aren’t really a thing in German language… (the concept is foreign to me as a native German speaker…) ---
**Author:** ![kk\_fusion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kk_fusion/32/15276_2.png) [@kk\_fusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kk_fusion)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/3 "2026-09-26T07:38:14Z")
It was news to me too when I first read it on a grammar blog a couple of years ago. It’s also called the _Posaunen-und-Trompeten-Regel_ (trombones and trumpets, since those are two quasi-native German verbs that have no prefix yet form their participle without _ge-_). It’s one of the things that drive foreign language learners nuts but comes naturally to native speakers without a need for formal rules. Another is _linking elements in compounds_. Why is there an _s_ between the last two parts of _Schadenfreiheitsrabatt_ but not the first two? ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/4 "2026-09-26T07:47:08Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > Accents and accenting aren’t really a thing in German language… (the concept is foreign to me as a native German speaker…) Say what? Yes, they are. It doesn’t mean diacritics like é or à, but stresses in the rhythm - you say spaZIEren, not SPAzieren, and that’s an accent. I as a German native could not have named the OP’s spoilered rule, at least not without thinking about it for a very long time. Fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/5 "2026-09-26T09:13:37Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I wonder if it is actually known to German speakers No, I never heard of that rule, and I would never have found out, no matter how long you would have given me to think about it. I apply it instinctively nonetheless. I am assuming it is correct, parsing several examples in my head that all respect it. What a nice surprise! ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/6 "2026-09-26T10:11:58Z")
Well, I’ll be. A nice simple rule. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/7 "2026-09-26T11:02:25Z")
Another German here who didn’t know the rule, but didn’t have to. There’s not much German grammar taught in school, just the basics, and definitely no such esoteric rules, because we have learned to apply them naturally without knowing them when learning the language growing up, so there’s no use. First time German students encounter such rules is when starting to learn foreign languages, mostly starting with English. But of course English has fewer rules of that kind, and I’m sure I also don’t know all of them. It’s different in French, my third language, which has a more complex grammar than English. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/8 "2026-09-26T11:36:36Z")
Wait, none of you native speakers can find a counterexample? This will definitely help my German studies. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/9 "2026-09-26T12:54:48Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Wait, none of you native speakers can find a counterexample? You will know that there are ten thousands of German verbs, but I just did a little mental check for a couple of verbs, and the rule works exceptionally well. it’s interesting how we intuitively apply such rules without knowing them. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/10 "2026-09-26T13:12:48Z")
Pretty amazing! Thanks for working through a few. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/11 "2026-09-26T13:59:37Z")
When I first started learning German, I was quite thrilled to learn about the rule for which verbs take _sein_ for the past participle. It’s used for verbs which indicate movement or a change of state. And I mentioned it to a Swiss coworker which was in her late 50s/ early 60s. She had no idea about the rule. Mentioned it to another Swiss coworker, this one in his 30s. Also no idea. So they either learned it, or had already forgotten it. The rule mentioned in the OP I only learned when I was studying for my C1 certificate. Due to COVID, I ended my German studies and haven’t gone back. Part of that course was going deeper into grammar, so we did a few weeks studying verbs with the same prefix, which are both separable and not separable. The pronunciation of these verbs follows the rule mentioned in the OP. > **[German Verbs that are Separable or Inseparable - Separable and Inseparable Verbs...](https://deutsch.lingolia.com/en/grammar/verbs/separable-verbs#a-german-verbs-that-are-separable)** > > Separable verbs (Trennbare Verben) and inseparable verbs (Untrennbare Verben) in German are verbs whose meaning is altered by the addition of a prefix. Prefixes that are separable are separated from their verb in the conjugated form e.g. anstehen –... ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/12 "2026-09-26T14:04:07Z")
> [@Die\_Capacitrix](#): > > When I first started learning German, I was quite thrilled to learn about the rule for which verbs take _sein_ for the past participle. It’s used for verbs which indicate movement or a change of state.And I mentioned it to a Swiss coworker which was in her late 50s/ early 60s. She had no idea about the rule. Mentioned it to another Swiss coworker, this one in his 30s. Also no idea. So they either learned it, or had already forgotten it. This rule I knew, but I only learned it a few years ago, until then I had applied it intuitively without ever thinking about it. But in some dialects the rule of distinction between movement and other contexts blurs, maybe that’s why your Swiss coworkers were perplexed. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/13 "2026-09-26T14:05:56Z")
In school I learned that masculine or neuter nouns ending in -el -en or -er took the same word as plural. I mentioned that to my Bavarian relatives once and they immediately began rattling off exceptions…I felt like an idiot. It turns out to be a good _general_ rule, but by no means universal. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/14 "2026-09-26T14:20:04Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > Say what? Yes, they are. It doesn’t mean diacritics like é or à, but stresses in the rhythm - you say spaZIEren, not SPAzieren, and that’s an accent. > > I as a German native could not have named the OP’s spoilered rule, at least not without thinking about it for a very long time. Fascinating. of course if you speak any language - you stress some silabus more than others (Betonung)…(otherwise you’d sound robotic like the first computer/AI-voices or Stephen Hawking (sp?) but there are no hard and widely known rules in german (at least top-of-mind) like you have in e.g. spanish: (making a spanish example up for dramatic effect) 3 silabus word are always stressed/accented at the 2nd silaba … if they are not, you MUST use an accent (´) … - pi-mien-ta (pepper) …accented at the default 2nd silabus, hence NO need for accent - án-gu-lo (angle) … accented at the 1st silabus, hence you NEED an accent - a-le-mán (german) … accented at the 3rd silabus, hence you NEED an accent Similar rules do not exist in german (or english) language - hence the concept of accenting (betonen) leading to ramification is IMO foreign to german language. … until the OP … 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/15 "2026-09-26T17:18:55Z")
Stress can, however, also completely change the meaning of words - like in my favorite example : “Den Fußgänger bitte umFAHRen, nicht UMfahren.“ (Please drive around, not over, the pedestrian.) ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/16 "2026-09-26T17:32:25Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > (making a spanish example up for dramatic effect) > > 3 silabus word are always stressed/accented at the 2nd silaba … if they are not, you MUST use an accent (´) … > > - pi-mien-ta (pepper) …accented at the default 2nd silabus, hence NO need for accent > - án-gu-lo (angle) … accented at the 1st silabus, hence you NEED an accent > - a-le-mán (german) … accented at the 3rd silabus, hence you NEED an accent Nitpick. Of course. Can’t avoid it. You count the syllables from the end of the word backwards, not from the beginning of the word. Your example only makes sense for words with three syllables, but words can be longer or shorter. Your examples are not the way you do it. The last syllable requires an accent (technically: a tilde) in Spanish only if the last letter is a vocal, n, or s. Thus _alemán_ is rightly accented, but _animal_ is not, though both are stressed on the last syllable (it is neither Ánimal nor aNÍmal). Those words stressed on the last syllable are called _palabras agudas_. If the second but last syllable is stressed, the inverse rules apply. Those words are called _palabras llanas o graves_ and are only accented (are written with a tilde on the vocal of that syllable) if they do **not** end in a vocal, an n, or an s. Pimienta (your example, and not a very good one, as _ie_ forms a **[diphthong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong)**, which complicates things unnecessarily) ends in _a_, a vocal, thus needs no accent. An accent need the following: Poliéster (a tilde/accent breaks the diphthong), Cóndor, Cónsul, Córner, Cráter, Revólver (and many more). The words with the stress on the third syllable from the end of the word are called _palabras esdrújulas_ (or _proparoxítonas_, if you are really a nerd), and they always need an accent (better: a tilde). The same applies to the words stressed before the third syllable from the end, which are called _**[sobreesdrújulas](https://www.significados.com/palabras-sobreesdrujulas/)**_. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/17 "2026-09-26T18:11:44Z")
The rule kind of works (but in a more complicated manner) for verbs that are not themselves stressed on the first syllable but are compounds of others that are. Take, for example _ansehen_ (to look at). It’s a compound of _sehen_ (to see) prefixed with _an-_, and that syllable takes the stress. Its past participle is _angesehen_, which uses ge- to form the past participle but inserts it between the prefix and the stem (which, on its own, also uses ge- to form the part participle). The only verb that I can think of off the top of my head to violate the rule is _benedeien_, an old-fashioned alternative to _segnen_ (to bless). It has the stress on the third syllable but takes _gebenedeit_ as a past participle. To my knowledge, however, there are only two instances where this word is actually used, but those are prominent ones - they both occur in the German version of the Hail Mary (blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb). ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/18 "2026-09-26T18:24:49Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > The only verb that I can think of off the top of my head to violate the rule is _benedeien_, an old-fashioned alternative to _segnen_ (to bless). It has the stress on the third syllable but takes _gebenedeit_ as a past participle. To my knowledge, however, there are only two instances where this word is actually used, but those are prominent ones - they both occur in the German version of the Hail Mary (blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb). That’s a very good catch! I wouldn’t have remembered it after last having attended a Catholic mass 41 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/19 "2026-09-26T18:25:11Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > The only verb that I can think of off the top of my head to violate the rule is _benedeien_, an old-fashioned alternative to _segnen_ (to bless). It has the stress on the third syllable but takes _gebenedeit_ as a past participle. To my knowledge, however, there are only two instances where this word is actually used, but those are prominent ones - they both occur in the German version of the Hail Mary (blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb). Same root as _benediction_, I would guess. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387/20 "2026-09-26T18:26:00Z")
Yes, both are direct loans from Latin _benedicere_ (literally, “to speak well”). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-grammar-ge-prefix-on-past-participle/1033387.md?page=2)