Verb prefixes and particles
What small part changes the verb's meaning?
Meaning
A small part added to a verb can change its meaning, such as where an action leads or whether it reaches an end. It can also create a new meaning that is not clear from the separate parts. Some languages attach these elements to verbs, some use separate words, and others have no comparable device. Unlike Particles that shape a whole message or highlight information, Verb prefixes and particles work with a verb to build its meaning.
How to spot it
Compare a verb with and without a small attached or nearby element, and check whether its direction, completion or overall meaning changes.
In your native language
English often combines a verb with a short word such as up, out or off; these combinations are called phrasal verbs. The short word may add a clear direction or create a meaning that cannot be guessed from the parts. With some phrasal verbs, a noun can go before or after the short word, but a pronoun such as it, used instead of that noun, must go before it.
The children ran out.
Out adds the direction: from inside to outside.
I looked up the word.
Look up means to find information in a dictionary or another source.
I looked it up.
With this phrasal verb, it must go between looked and up.
In your learning language
Spanish has verb prefixes such as des-, often expressing reversal or removal, and re-, often expressing repetition. These prefixes remain attached to the verb in every verb form. Their precise meaning must be learned with the verb, since the same prefix does not have an identical effect in every word.
Luis desató el nudo de la cuerda.
Luis untied the knot in the rope.
Des- reverses the action expressed by atar, meaning to tie.
La tienda reabrió el lunes.
The store reopened on Monday.
Re- expresses opening again.
Learners whose language has movable verb particles may incorrectly separate these prefixes from the verb. Learners whose language regularly uses verb prefixes to mark completion may expect Spanish prefixes to do the same job.