sich mit jmdm. über etw. (acc.) unterhalten ‘to have a conversation with sb. about
sth.’Er hat sich mit mir über das Wetter unterhalten.
He talked to me about the weather.also:Wir haben uns über das Wetter unterhalten.
We talked about the weather. See 18.2–3 (pp. 24–5) for prepositions with the accusative, 19.4–5 (pp. 27–8) for
prepositions with the dative.(b) Verbs with the reflexive pronoun in the dative (see 19 ) include:sich etw. (acc.) ein*bilden ‘to imagine wrongly’
Du hast dir diese Krankheit eingebildet.
You have imagined this illness.sich etw. (acc.) überlegen ‘to reflect on sth./think it over’Ich überlege mir dieses Angebot.
I am considering this offer.(c) Note also the impersonal reflexive:es handelt sich um etw. oder jmdn. ‘it concerns sb. or sth./it is a matter of sth.’Es handelt sich hier um ein dringendes Problem.
This is an urgent problem.See 42.3h (p. 115).
38 Prepositional verbs
See also 18.2–3 (pp. 24–5) and 19.4–5 (pp. 27–8).
38.1 A large number of verbs are linked idiomatically to a particular preposition, i.e. are
always used with the same preposition. For example, glauben an ‘believe in’, warten
auf ‘wait for’. Some verbs can be used with more than one preposition, with a change
in meaning (e.g. bestehen auf ‘to insist on’, bestehen aus ‘to consist of ’). German
prepositional verbs need to be learnt as a unit: verb + preposition + case. Some common
prepositional verbs are listed below according to the preposition they take and the case
governed by the preposition:
an (+ acc.)
glauben an ‘to believe in’
denken an ‘to think of/about’
erinnern an ‘to remind sb. of/about’
sich erinnern an ‘to remember’
(sich) gewöhnen an ‘to get used to’Wir haben an dich gedacht.
We were thinking of you.38
VERBS