hang/hängen

[pne]

You know how English has two different forms for the simple past and past participle of hang, one strong and one weak, depending on whether the meaning involves killing someone?

German also has a strong and a weak form for the preterite and past participle of hängen, but they're chosen according to whether the meaning is transitive (he hung the picture on the wall) or intransitive (the picture hung on the wall).

Never thought about that; I'd just have chosen the correct form for the correct meaning without realising that there are different forms with the same infinitive.

Comments

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"Never thought about that; I'd just have chosen the correct form for the correct meaning without realising that there are different forms with the same infinitive."

Oh, lucky you.
I always got those confused. My mum (almost?) always said "gehangen" as in "Ich habe die Wäsche aufgehangen" etc., so I didn't really learn the distinction as a child and I'm pretty sure at one point I was of the opinion that "gehängt" was just bad German. I only really learnt the difference later when reading books about German grammar.