tragen trug getragen but beauftragen beauftragte beauftragt

Question

Could a native German speaker explain to me why the following verbs are irregular

tragen trug getragen
betragen betrug betragen
auftragen trug auf aufgetragen
beitragen trug bei beigetragen

but magically the following one

beauftragen beauftragte beauftragt

is regular?

Answer 1

I respectfully disagree. There is logic; the verb beauftragen is constructed from the noun Auftrag with the prefix be-, and the noun element Auftrag is not affected by the variation of the verb.

Similarly: beeinflussen from Einfluss, beinhalten from Inhalt, beanspruchen from Anspruch.

Answer 2

If you're looking for a logical answer, you're out of luck :)

But in general, it's like this: the younger a verb is, the more likely it will be a regular one - which is true for English, too, btw.

You usually can't tell whether a verb is going to be regular or irregular when looking at it for the very first time - you'll just have to memorise the lists, I'm afraid.

Answer 3

There are several examples for this phenomenon, e.g. schlagen vs veranschlagen, or even two declinations for the same verb (but with different meanings), e.g. hängen or schleifen. As already mentioned, there is no "logic" behind this.