Breakdown of Der Alarm klingelt, komm schnell runter!
schnell
fast, quickly
kommen
to come
klingeln
to ring
runter
down
Questions & Answers about Der Alarm klingelt, komm schnell runter!
Where exactly does the word runter come from?
runter is the colloquial, shortened form of herunter or hinunter (down). In everyday spoken German, it is very common to drop the he- or hi- prefixes from directional words and just use the r- form.
Does runter tell us where the speaker is standing?
Yes! By saying komm (come), we know the speaker is at the bottom, telling the other person to come down to them. In formal German, you would use herunter for coming towards the speaker, but in everyday speech, runter is conveniently used for going both towards and away from the speaker.
Why is runter pushed to the very end of the sentence?
It acts as a separable prefix for the verb runterkommen (to come down). In main clauses and commands like this one, the conjugated part of the verb (komm) stays in its normal position, and the separable prefix is kicked to the very end.
Why is the verb form komm instead of kommst?
This is the informal command (imperative) for du (you). To give a command to one person informally, you take the present tense form (du kommst) and simply drop the -st ending and the word du.