When looking up a word in the dictionary, you will find three forms: infinitive, past tense and participle. There are 'weak' (no vowel changes, machen, machte gemacht) or a 'strong' verbs (gehen ging gegangen), You can recognize the difference with the participle. Weak verbs have a 't', strong verbs get a 'en' at the end of the verb. The 'en' you mention with the verb 'anrufen' is just the infinitive ending which every verb has in German.

Regarding separable and un-separable verbs: When the accent is on the first syllable (the prefix) as in anrufen ('a'nrufen), it is separable. When the accent is not on the prefix, it is not separable (e.g. verkaufen, the accent is on the 'au'). The verb 'ankaufen' is separable and the accent is on the first syllable 'a'.

There is no connection as far as I know between a verb being (not) separable or (ir)regular, but: the verb stem is important: rufen (irregular) and kaufen (regular) are as well irregular or regular when there is a prefix such as anrufen or verkaufen.

A look in the dictionary will tell you if a verb is irregular or not as the past tense and/or the participle will tell. You have to check both, sometimes you find verbs where only the past tense has a vowel change such as schlagen schlug geschlagen, sometimes both such as in gehen ging gegangen. But the as I said, the ending of the participle 'en' tells as well that it is an irregular verb. English comes to the rescue here, as many verbs have an irregular conjugations in English and German such as bring, read, go, speak become.

Jucimar writes:

<em>So, can i presume all trennbare verben (or most of them) are irregular and then use the -en at the end?</em>

The irregularity has nothing to do with being a separable verb. "Anrufen" is conjugated the same as "rufen", only with the addition of "an". The position of "an" changes depending on the type of clause and form of the verb, but this is the same as any predicate complement. In main clauses (that are not yes / no questions), the conjugated verb goes in the second position, while the participle goes at the end; the position of "an" never changes; we just move the verb around it ;) See Ann's examples. The only trick is knowing when to write the words without any spaces between them.

Yes, Phil is right. "Anrufen" is similar to "rufen" and follows the same pattern, except that of course it's a "Trennbares Verb" too.

Only the present tense is regular. The simple past is irregular (ich rief an). The past participle (which you’ve written correctly) is also irregular — take another look at what you’ve written :)

In High German, as in English, irregularities most often show up in the simple past and the past participles.

Vielen Dank Ann,

So, can i presume all trennbare verben (or most of them) are irregular and then use the -en at the end?