bestehen aus, auf or in: when the preposition changes the meaning
CEFR B2 · part 1
edumaterial's parts within the level. The European framework does not subdivide them.
The passive in the past and with modals: wurde gebaut, muss gemacht werdenTaking the passive into the tenses that were missing. In the Präteritum only werden…Die Tür wird geöffnet or ist geöffnet: the action and the stateTelling apart two sentences that look alike and mean different things. Die Tür wird…Er sagte, er sei krank: the Konjunktiv I of the newspapersReporting what somebody else said without making it yours. German has a verb form just…Er muss krank sein: when the modal is not an order but a guessThe modals' second job, the one the dictionary does not mention. Er muss krank sein is…Der gestern von uns gekaufte Tisch: a whole clause wedged inside the articleReading —and taking apart— the construction that makes German technical prose look…dennoch, folglich, hingegen: the connectors of written GermanThe connectors that make a text read as if an adult wrote it: dennoch for concession…The rule, in three lines
The advanced tier of prepositional verbs: the ones with SEVERAL prepositions that mean something different with each. bestehen aus is to consist of, bestehen auf is to insist on, bestehen in is to lie in. halten von is to think of, halten für is to take for. And each preposition brings its own case, learnt glued to the verb.
The usual slip. Learning a verb with one preposition and using it that way forever, so half your sentences say something else. And the case slip underneath: bestehen auf takes the DATIVE even though auf is a two-way preposition —Ich bestehe auf meinem Recht— because there is no movement here at all.
Why it catches you out. English is famous for this —«look after», «look for», «look into»— so nobody needs convincing that a preposition can rewrite a verb. The hard part is extra: German adds a case on top, and «insist on» does not tell you whether to write meinem or meinen.