Questions & Answers about Der Kapitän kommt rauf.
Wait, I learned that hinauf and herauf mean 'up'. Why does this sentence use rauf?
rauf is the everyday, colloquial short form of both herauf (coming up towards the speaker) and hinauf (going up away from the speaker). In conversational German, speakers almost always drop the hin- or her- and just use the 'r-' forms like rauf, runter, rein, and raus.
Is rauf just a directional word here, or is it part of a separable verb?
It functions as a separable prefix here! The verb is actually raufkommen (to come up). Because this is a standard main clause, the conjugated part (kommt) takes the second position in the sentence, and the separable prefix (rauf) gets kicked to the very end.
Why can't I just say Der Kapitän kommt oben?
oben refers to a fixed location (being 'upstairs' or 'at the top'). Because the captain is moving from a lower place to a higher place, you need a word that shows direction. You could say nach oben, but using rauf is much more common and natural in spoken German.
How would I say 'The captain comes down' using this same conversational style?
You would use the opposite 'r-' word, which is runter (short for herunter or hinunter). The sentence would simply be: Der Kapitän kommt runter.
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