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

[meeps-hitchie.livejournal.com]

I have to teach that kind of stuff... :p
But since it's private lessons mostly, I usually live on adapting to the customer and thinking very fast to find explanations for things I've never explained before.
Now that I've got some experience, however, some explanations I just repeat. Which is a lot less exciting than figuring things out in a matter of a few seconds.