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Coffee Break German Lesson 01 Study Notes

Coffee Break German: Lesson 01 - Notes

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LESSON NOTES HALLO, WIE GEHT’S? Welcome to this first lesson of Coffee Break German. In this lesson we’ll learn how to say “hello” and “goodbye”, and we’ll also learn how to ask “how are you?”, and answer this question.

INTRODUCING OUR PRESENTERS, THOMAS AND MARK “My name is Thomas. I’m from Bavaria in the south of Germany. I’m currently studying for a Masters in Geography and Natural Hazards in Innsbruck, Austria. I’m a native speaker of German - I speak German every day - and I’m delighted to be working with Radio Lingua on Coffee Break German. In each lesson I’ll be helping you build your vocabulary and master the basics of the German language.”

“I’m Mark and as the presenter of Coffee Break Spanish and Coffee Break French, my role until now has been teaching languages. However, for Coffee Break German I’m excited to take on the role of learner and I’m looking forward to learning along with our Coffee Break German: Lesson 01 - Notes

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listeners. I’ve been a teacher for many years and I’m fascinated by languages. In particular I like using my knowledge of one language to help me learn another and comparing vocabulary and grammar across the languages. I’ll be asking lots of questions about German and I hope that these questions help our listeners learn too!”

READY TO BEGIN? Thomas begins by asking the question:

bist du fertig? Are you ready? Like all languages, German has regional differences in pronunciation. Where Thomas pronounces fertig with a hard -g ending, in other parts of the German-speaking world, this final -g sounds more like ‘ch’ in the Scottish word “loch”. Don’t worry about these nuances of pronunciation just yet! No matter how you pronounce fertig you’ll be understood by any native speaker! In answer to this question, we can say “yes”, or “no”:

ja yes

nein no To say “yes, I am ready”, you can say, ja, ich bin fertig. We’ll cover this in more detail in the future.


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SAYING “HELLO” AND “GOODBYE” Let’s learn some greetings.

hallo hello

auf Wiedersehen goodbye You may be wondering why Wiedersehen has a capital letter. This is because it is a noun, meaning something like “the next seeing”. It can also mean “reunion”. All nouns in German must be written with an initial capital letter. There is another way to say “goodbye” which is used informally:

tschüss goodbye, bye Don’t worry about the initial combination of letters ‘tsch’ in this word. It may look daunting, but you can pronounce it simply as a strong ‘ch’ sound (as in English “church”). If you are going to be seeing someone the next day you can say;

bis morgen until tomorrow, see you tomorrow The word morgen means tomorrow, as in bis morgen. However when written with a capital letter in the noun form it means “morning”:


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guten Morgen good morning We’ll learn more greetings for different times of the day in the next lesson.

ASKING “HOW ARE YOU?” AND REPLYING To ask the question “how are you?” you can say:

wie geht’s? how are you? This literally means “how is it going?” Let’s look at some possible answers for the question wie geht’s?

gut good, well To be more polite, you can add the word for “thank you”:

danke thank you Here is a sample conversation: Mark:

Wie geht’s?

Thomas: Gut, danke.

If you want to use the more developed answer, “I am (feeling) well”, you can use the following construction:


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mir geht’s gut I’m well Please note that this is not a literal word-for-word translation of “I am well”. Mir geht’s gut literally means “to me it is going well”, answering the question, “how is it going?” Here are some further possible answers for the question wie geht’s?

mir geht’s sehr gut I’m (feeling) very well

mir geht’s schlecht I’m feeling bad

mir geht’s nicht so gut I’m not (feeling) so good

mir geht’s wunderbar I’m feeling great

mir geht’s ausgezeichnet I’m feeling fantastic, extraordinary

INTRODUCING JULIA, OUR “CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT” “I’m really excited to be involved in Coffee Break German and I’m sure it’s going to be a huge success. Learning a language is not just about learning the language itself: so much of a language is influenced by the cultures which surround it, and that’s why I’m


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here as your Cultural Correspondent. In each episode of Coffee Break German, I’m going to be bringing you some cultural information, a little report on a particular aspect of culture associated with a part of the German-speaking world. I really hope that you enjoy these little cultural tidbits each week. Like Thomas I’m a native German speaker, but from quite a different part of the country. I come from Potsdam in the eastern part of the country, just southwest of Berlin. I studied in Leipzig and now I live and work in the wonderful city of Berlin. I’ll be telling you more about Berlin in future episodes, and indeed about many other parts of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and other places where German is spoken as well. Ich bin sehr froh - I’m really pleased - to be working on Coffee Break German now. That’s all from me this week, just a little introduction. Through my weekly reports you’ll get to know me a bit better, but more importantly, you’ll get to know the cultures of the German-speaking areas better too. Danke, und bis bald!”

ich bin sehr froh I’m very happy

bis bald see you soon, (literally “until soon”)

INTRODUCING KIRSTEN, OUR “GRAMMAR GURU” “My name is Kirsten and I’m going to be your German Grammar Guru for the course. I love grammar! I’m a bit of a grammar geek Coffee Break German: Lesson 01 - Notes

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to be honest, and as the Grammar Guru, it’s my job to help you understand the patterns of the language, just as Mark and Thomas have explained. By learning the patterns you’ll begin to understand how the language works and you’ll have a really strong foundation to build upon as you move forward with the course. Like Mark, I come from Scotland, but I’ve been studying German for many years. I have an honours degree in German and I’ve spent a lot of time living and working in Germany. In my working life I use German every single day, and I have many friends from various parts of the German-speaking world. I love all things German: the music, the literature, the beautiful villages, towns and cities I’ve travelled to, from the Baltic coast to the Alps, and of course the people. They’re so friendly and welcoming! I’m not a native speaker of German, but as someone who has learned German from scratch, I understand the difficulties for learners, and so I hope I can help you overcome these difficulties, just as my own teachers did for me when I first started. I’m delighted to be part of the Coffee Break German team and I’m looking forward to bringing you my weekly Grammar Guru segments.”

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER Let’s put eveything we’ve learned together in a conversation. You should try practising this conversation and substituting the other words you’ve learned in today’s lesson.


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Mark:

Hallo, Thomas.

Thomas: Hallo, Mark. Wie geht’s? Mark:

Mir geht’s gut, danke. Wie geht’s?

Thomas: Mir geht’s ausgezeichnet! Mark:

Tschüss.

Thomas: Auf Wiedersehen.

Translation: Mark:

Hello, Thomas.

Thomas: Hello, Mark. How are you? Mark:

I’m well, thanks. How are you?

Thomas: I’m feeling fantastic! Mark:

Bye.

Thomas: Goodbye.

Ready for more? Turn the page to continue with the bonus materials for this lesson.


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BONUS MATERIALS In each edition of Coffee Break German we cover the basic language you need to communicate. As part of the study pack we provide some additional vocabulary to help you increase your range of expression. This section of bonus materials provides additional content to help you master the words and phrases contained in the lesson. ✤

Start with the Bonus audio lesson, our “review podcast”

✤

Review the Core Vocabulary and learn the Bonus Vocabulary

CORE VOCABULARY bist du fertig? are you ready?

ja yes

nein no

hallo hello

bis morgen until tomorrow, see you tomorrow

guten Morgen good morning


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wie geht’s? how are you? / how is it going?

gut good, well

danke thank you

mir geht’s gut I am well (literally “to me it’s going well”)

mir geht’s sehr gut I am very well

mir geht’s schlecht I am feeling bad, I’m not feeling well

mir geht’s nicht so gut I am not feeling so good

mir geht’s wunderbar I am feeling great

mir geht’s ausgezeichnet I am feeling fantastic

BONUS VOCABULARY wie läuft’s? how’s it going? (informal)


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super great

großartig wonderful, tremendous Note the letter ‘ß’ which called Eszett (sz) or scharfes S (sharp s). The letter is pronounced as an ‘s’ and sounds exactly the same as ‘ss’ in tschüss. Note that in Switzerland and in Liechtenstein, ‘ß’ is always written as ‘ss’.

es geht so it’s going so-so - neither good nor bad

mir geht’s schrecklich I’m feeling awful, dreadful

alles klar everything’s good

alles klar? is everything good? Alles klar literally means “all clear”.


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LESSON NOTES GUTEN TAG, WIE HEISSEN SIE? In this second lesson of our course we’ll learn to greet people at different times of the day. We will also learn how to ask the question “What is your name?” and give suitable answers.

INTRODUCTION Thomas and Mark began the lesson with a short conversation which used some of the phrases covered in the last lesson: Thomas: Hallo Mark. Wie geht’s dir heute? Mark:

Mir geht’s gut, danke. Wie geht’s?

Thomas: Mir geht’s auch gut, danke.

There are a few points we can pick up from this conversation.

heute today When Thomas asks Mark wie geht’s dir heute? he is asking, “how are you today?”


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auch also, too, as well Thomas said, mir geht’s auch gut, meaning “I’m also feeling well”. If you wanted to say “I’m also feeling bad” you could say mir geht’s auch schlecht.

LASS UNS ANFANGEN! This is the phrase Thomas uses at the beginning of the lesson which means, “let’s go”, or “let’s get started”.

anfangen to start, to begin

lass uns... let us...

REVIEW CONVERSATION To help consolidate the words and phrases covered in the previous lesson, Mark and Thomas begin with a conversation. The conversation contains a few new elements of vocabulary. Study the conversation below and review the accompanying vocabulary. Thomas: Guten Morgen, Mark. Mark:

Guten Morgen, Thomas. Wie geht’s?

Thomas: Sehr gut, danke. Wie geht es dir? Mark:

Mir geht’s schlecht.


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Thomas: Das ist schade. Mark:

Auf Wiedersehen.

Thomas: Tschüss.

wie geht es dir? how are you? This is the full version of this phrase: in wie geht’s, the two words geht es are shortened to geht’s. Note also the use of the word dir which literally means “to you”. Compare mir geht’s gut, meaning “to me it goes well”. Mir means “to me”, and dir means “to you” (informal). So wie geht es dir? literally means “how is it going to you?”

das ist schade that is a shame Thomas explained that wie geht’s dir is an informal way of asking “how are you?” Just as in French, Spanish and many other languages, there is an informal and formal form of “you”. Where French has “tu” and “vous” and Spanish has “tú” and “usted”, German has “du” and “Sie”. We’ll learn more about these forms in the next lesson. For now, focus on the formal version of wie geht es dir?:

wie geht es Ihnen? how are you? (formal) Remember, this literally means “how is it going to you (formal)?” So the word Ihnen means “to you (formal)”.

GREETINGS FOR DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE DAY We’ve already learned the phrase for “good morning”, guten Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes

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Morgen. Some other greetings are presented below:

guten Tag good day / good afternoon Guten Tag literally means “good day”, but it’s generally used for the time between Morgen and Abend (“evening” - see below).

guten Abend good evening

gute Nacht good night You will notice that guten Morgen, guten Tag, and guten Abend all use the word guten to mean “good”, but gute Nacht has a different form of the word for “good”. This is explained further by Kirsten, our Grammar Guru.

GRAMMAR GURU Grammar is what holds the words and phrases of a language together. While Thomas teaches you the words and phrases in German, I’ll be here to explain why all the words and phrases have been put together that way, breaking it down and giving you little hints and tips along the way so that you can start making your own sentences in German. We’ve seen four greetings, one for each time of day: guten Morgen, guten Tag, guten Abend and gute Nacht. You will


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already have noticed that gute Nacht is the odd one out here, because it’s the only one where we say gute and not guten. The word gut is an adjective, Morgen and adjectives in German, just like in French, Spanish, guten Tag and many other languages, change their ending, Abend depending on the word they are describing. You’re gute Nacht probably thinking that the word Nacht is somehow different from Morgen, Tag, and Abend - and you’d be right! These four words are nouns, and nouns in German, again, just like in French and Spanish, have grammatical gender. Nacht has a different gender from the other three, and that is why we have guten Morgen, guten Tag and guten Abend, but gute Nacht. We will explain this in more detail in a future lesson, but you may be interested to know that Morgen, Tag and Abend are all masculine nouns, and Nacht is feminine. You may well have lots of questions, and that’s a good thing! By asking questions when learning a language, you understand the language in more depth. However we’ll be coming back to the topic of grammatical gender and indeed adjectives later in the series, so we’ll leave things there for just now. Lots of little steps will eventually take you far! I hope I’ve helped solve one little mystery about these greetings.

INTRODUCING YOURSELF AND ASKING OTHER PEOPLE “WHAT IS YOUR NAME?” To ask someone “what is your name” in the formal form, use:


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wie heißen Sie? what is your name? (formal) You will recognise wie from the question wie geht’s? It literally means “how”, so the question wie heißen Sie literally means “how are you called?” Note also the ß in the word heißen. This was explained in the bonus vocabulary section of lesson 1. To answer the question wie heißen Sie, you can used the following expression:

ich heiße ... I am called ... An alternative way to give your name is by using the literal translation of “my name is...”:

mein Name ist ... my name is... Note that since Name is a noun (just like Morgen, Abend, Nacht, etc.) it begins with a capital letter.

CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT In today’s report I’m going to be looking at where German is actually spoken. Do have a look at the map overleaf to help you understand where I’m talking about! German is of course the official language of


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Germany, Switzerland and Austria, but it’s also an official language in Belgium, along with French and Flemish; in Luxembourg, where it shares its official status with French and Luxembourgish; and in the tiny principality of Liechtenstein on the border between Austria and Switzerland. So, as a German learner, you’ll be glad to know that the language you’re learning is spoken in many parts of Europe, but that’s not all! Did you know

German-speaking countries in Europe. Shown in red (clockwise): Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Arrows from north to south point to Belgium, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.


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that there over five million speakers of German living in the US? There are also huge communities of German-speakers in Brazil and Argentina. German is the third most-taught language in the English-speaking world, after French and Spanish, and as a native English speaker you’re going to find that it’s quite easy to learn German, because historically English and German belong to the same language family. In fact, hundreds of years ago, people speaking older forms of German and English could probably understand each other, and many words between the two languages are similar. We’ve already heard examples of this in our lessons.

UNTIL THE NEXT TIME... The final phrase introduced in this lesson was “until the next time”:

bis zum nächsten Mal until the next time / see you next time We will see further examples of the word bis in the bonus vocabulary section.

ONE MORE THING... Did you happen to notice the title of this lesson? On the first page we listed the title as:

GUTEN TAG, WIE HEISSEN SIE? Good day. What is your name?


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The key point to notice here is that the graphic design of these lesson notes uses capitals for headings. However, we have seen in the content of the lesson that the word heißen is written with the Eszett, ß. It is important to know that when writing in upper case it is normal to use “SS” for “ß”. Indeed, in Switzerland, “ss” is always used instead of ß. Well done if you spotted this use of “ss” in the title!



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✤


CORE VOCABULARY lass uns anfangen let’s get started, let’s begin

wie geht es dir? how are you? (informal)

wie geht es Ihnen? how are you (formal)

heute today

guten Morgen good morning

guten Tag good day; good afternoon


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guten Abend good evening

gute Nacht good night

wie heißen Sie? what is your name?

ich heiße ... I’m called ...

mein Name ist ... my name is ...

bis zum nächsten Mal until the next time

BONUS VOCABULARY einen schönen Abend (have) a nice evening

bis nächste Woche until next week / see you next week

bis später until later / see you later

bis bald see you soon


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schlaf gut sleep well. Note that schlaf gut is the informal version which you would use to a family member, for example.


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LESSON NOTES ICH KOMME AUS DEUTSCHLAND. UND SIE? In this lesson of Coffee Break German we will learn to talk about where we come from, and ask other people where they come from. We’ll cover the names for a number of countries, and learn greetings used in different parts of the German-speaking world.

INTRODUCTION Following a brief review of the question wie heißen Sie? Thomas and Mark began the lesson with a short conversation: Mark:

Bist du fertig?

Thomas: Ja... Mark:

Dann lass uns anfangen!

We have encountered the phrases bist du fertig? (are you ready?) and lass uns anfangen (let’s begin) before. The additional word to consider here is dann:

dann then, so


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dann lass uns anfangen then let’s begin / so let’s begin

SIE AND DU In lesson 2 we learned the question wie heißen Sie? meaning “what is your name?” This is the formal version of this sentence: as we learned last time there are two forms for “you” in German, just as there are in many other languages. Our Grammar Guru Kirsten will tell us more about this later in the lesson. For now, let’s consider the informal way of asking the question, “what is your name?”:

wie heißt du? what is your name? (informal) Note that heißen becomes heißt when using the informal form. We will study this pattern later.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? If you are asked a question in German, you can direct the same question back to the person who asked you the question by using the phrase:

und Sie? and you? (formal) Here is an example of this phrase in a conversation: Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes

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Mark:

Wie heißen Sie?

Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas. Und Sie? Mark:

Ich heiße Mark.

Of course, if you are using the informal form, you can replace the Sie with du:

und du? and you? (informal) Mark:

Wie heißt du?

Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas. Und du? Mark:

Ich heiße Mark.

TALKING ABOUT WHERE YOU’RE FROM Using the formal form, to ask someone “where do you come from?” or “where are you from?” you use the following phrase:

woher kommen Sie? where do you come from? The word wo means “where”, and woher means “where from” or “from where”, so the sentence literally means “where from come you?” To answer the question, Thomas says:


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ich komme aus Deutschland I come from Germany Since Mark is from Scotland, he has to say:

ich komme aus Schottland I come from Scotland Thomas and Mark have a role-play conversation in which they meet each other in a business context and introduce themselves. This conversation uses a number of phrases we have covered so far in our lessons. Mark:

Guten Tag.

Thomas: Guten Tag. Wie heißen Sie? Mark:

Ich heiße Mark. Und Sie?

Thomas: Mein Name ist Thomas. Woher kommen Sie? Mark:

Ich komme aus Schottland. Woher kommen Sie?

Thomas: Ich komme aus Deutschland. Mark:

Sehr gut. Auf Wiedersehen.

Thomas: Danke, tschüss.

Another phrase which could be useful in this context is the German for “it’s nice to meet you” or “pleased to meet you”:

es freut mich it’s nice to meet you Note that you can shorten this expression to freut mich. It literally means “it’s a joy to me”. Es freut mich is already a shortened form of this longer phrase: Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes

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es freut mich Sie kennenzulernen it’s a pleasure to get to know you We can add this phrase to another sample conversation: Thomas: Guten Morgen. Mark:

Guten Morgen. Wie geht’s?

Thomas: Gut, danke. Wie geht’s Ihnen? Mark:

Mir geht’s ausgezeichnet. Woher kommen Sie?

Thomas: Ich komme aus Deutschland. Und Sie? Mark:

Ich komme aus Schottland. Ich heiße Mark. Wie heißen Sie?

Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas. Mark:

Es freut mich.

Thomas: Es freut mich auch.

Note the word auch used by Thomas in this conversation:

es freut mich auch I’m also pleased to meet you The word auch can be used with a subject pronoun (e.g. ich, du, Sie, etc.):

ich auch me too

du auch you too (informal)

Sie auch you too (formal) Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes

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Note in particular with ich auch, the literal translation is “I too”, rather than “me too”. It’s important to note little nuances of this to avoid mistranslating in the future. Note also the word order in this sentence:

ich komme auch aus Schottland I also come from Scotland

mir geht’s auch gut I’m also well / things are also good for me

ICH KOMME AUS ... Listed below are some other countries within the context of the phrase “I come from...”:

ich komme aus England I come from England

ich komme aus Irland I come from Ireland

ich komme aus Wales I come from Wales

ich komme aus Amerika I come from “America”

ich komme aus den U.S.A. I come from the U.S.A.


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Note that since you’re talking about “the United States” you need the definite article den here. We’ll explain more about definite articles in future lessons. The actual translation of “the United States” is die Vereinigte Staaten. It’s probably easier to stick to ich komme aus den U.S.A. for now!

ich komme aus Kanada I come from Canada

ich komme aus Autralien I come from Australia

ich komme aus Österreich I come from Austria

ich komme aus der Schweiz I come from Switzerland

CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT “Hello from me, Julia, your Cultural Correspondent. Last time I told you about the different parts of the world where German is spoken. It’s also important to know that even within Germany itself there are different cultures. There are some things which are associated with the country as a whole, but you’ll find that there are other aspects, whether that be food or architecture, or traditions which are very different from one place to another. Historically Germany was like a patchwork of different kingdoms, so if I explain to you that, for example, we have sixteen different


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school systems in the different federal states of our country, I think you’ll understand what I mean! The other big difference is the accent and dialects used. I’m sure you know by now that Thomas is from the south and he pronounces some words a bit differently from me. That’s ok, I understand him perfectly, but I thought it would be nice to teach you some greetings you’ll come across in the different parts of the German-speaking world. Let’s start in the north: near the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts, you’ll hear moin or moin, moin, meaning Morgen, or “good morning”, but you can use this at other times of the day too. In the south of Germany and throughout Austria you’ll often hear servus, a greeting both for saying “hello” and “goodbye”.

Greetings in different parts of the German-speaking world: Moin in the north, Servus or Grüß Gott in the south and in Austria, and Grüezi in Switzerland.

Another southern German and Austria expression for “hello” is Grüß Gott. This literally means, “greet God”, which might sound a bit strange, but these areas are traditionally Catholic, so it


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makes sense. In fact, I guarantee that you’ll hear Grüß Gott when you walk into a shop anywhere in Austria! One last greeting, this time from Switzerland, is Grüezi, and like Grüß Gott, it’s only used when you meet someone, not when you’re saying your goodbyes. So you’re now fully equipped to greet native German speakers anywhere you go.”

GRAMMAR GURU “Today we’ve introduced you to the two forms of the word “you” in German. As Thomas explained, du is the informal form, and it’s used for talking to someone you know. Sie is the formal form, and that’s used for talking to someone you don’t know. If you’re a school pupil, for example, you’d use this when talking to your teacher. If you’ve ever studied French, it’s the same idea as “tu” and “vous”, and it’s like “tú” and “usted” in Spanish. Although we only use one form of “you” in English nowadays, we actually used to have two: we used “thou” for informal situations, and “you” for formal ones. In fact this usage still exists in parts of the English-speaking world today. Anyway, two forms for “you”: du and Sie. So far, so good! But we’ve also learned that these different forms cause changes to the verbs which follow them. We learned du heißt, but Sie heißen, so you can see that the verb has a different ending after each one. We can see the same endings if we use those formal and informal forms with the other verb you’ve learned today, kommen, which means “to come”. We had the formal question woher kommen


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Sie? and then the informal version of that sentence would be woher kommst du? Does that make sense? So that you can see these changes more clearly, let’s consider these verbs side by side: informal first, followed by formal. INFORMAL

FORMAL

du heißt

Sie heißen

du kommst

Sie kommen

I’ll be explaining exactly how to make these changes later in the course. For now, try to focus on the pattern of the formal Sie heißen changing to du heißt for the informal form; and Sie kommen becoming du kommst. Hopefully this makes sense, and you’ll learn more about verbs in future lessons.”



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✤


CORE VOCABULARY grüß Gott greeting in the south of Germany and Austria, literally meaning “greet God”

wie heißt du? what is your name? (informal)

und Sie? and you? what about you? (formal)

und du? and you? what about you? (informal)

woher kommen Sie? where do you come from? (formal)


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woher kommst du? where do you come from (informal)

ich komme aus... I come from

Deutschland Germany

Schottland Scotland

England England

Irland Ireland

Wales Wales

Amerika America

ich komme aus den U.S.A. I come from the USA

Australien Australia

Österreich Austria


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der Schweiz Switzerland

ich komme aus der Schweiz I come from Switzerland

es freut mich I’m pleased to meet you (shortened form)

es freut mich Sie kennenzulernen I’m pleased to meet you (full phrase)

Sie auch? you too? (formal)

du auch? you too? (informal)

ich auch me too

BONUS VOCABULARY Japan Japan

Südafrika South Africa


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China China

Italien Italy

Frankreich France

Spanien Spain

Niederlande the Netherlands

Belgien Belgium

Norwegen Norway

Dänemark Denmark

Indien India

Schweden Sweden


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LESSON NOTES ICH KOMME AUS ÖSTERREICH ABER JETZT WOHNE ICH IN MÜNCHEN This lesson will help you take what you learned in the previous lesson that bit further. You will learn to say where you live and you’ll also learn to deal with word order changes in German when you introduce a word like jetzt, meaning “now”. We will also cover the Karneval traditions in the German-speaking area.

INTRODUCTION The introductory conversation between Thomas and Mark used a new word:

heute today Mark:

Hallo, Thomas. Wie geht’s dir heute?

Thomas: Mir geht es sehr gut heute.

We then used this word in the question was lernen wir heute?

was lernen wir heute? what are we learning today?


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Thomas also introduced a new expression in response to “let’s begin”, lass uns anfangen:

los geht’s let’s go

REVIEW The lesson began with some review of previously learned content:

woher kommen Sie? where are you from? (formal)

mir geht’s auch gut I am also well

ich heiße Thomas und ich komme aus Deutschland my name is Thomas and I come from Germany

MAKING A SENTENCE NEGATIVE So far we have studied the question woher kommen Sie? but it is also possible to use kommen Sie with specific countries to form another question:

kommen Sie aus Deutschland do you come from Germany? This question results in a “yes” or “no” answer:

ja, ich komme aus Deutschland yes, I come from Germany Coffee Break German: Lesson 04 - Notes

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nein, ich komme nicht aus Deutschland no, I don’t come from Germany We have already seen the word nicht in the expression mir geht’s nicht so gut. The word nicht comes after the verb to make the sentence negative. Consider the following examples:

ich komme nicht aus der Schweiz I don’t come from Switzerland

mein Name ist nicht Thomas my name is not Thomas

Sie heißen nicht Jana You are not called Jana

ASKING “WHERE ARE YOU FROM” IN THE INFORMAL FORM We know woher kommen Sie? (where are you from) using the formal form. The informal version of this is:

woher kommst du? where are you from? (informal) We can also use kommst du... to ask a specific question:

kommst du aus Berlin? do you come from Berlin? (informal)


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ICH, DU AND SIE VERB FORMS So far we have seen the verbs heißen and kommen in the ich (I), du (you informal) and Sie (you formal) forms. Have a look at the table below and note the patterns of the verbs as they change depending on the “person” they are talking about:

ICH

DU

SIE

ich heiße

du heißt

Sie heißen

ich komme

du kommst

Sie kommen

Based on the table above, note that the ich form ends in -e, the du form ends in an -st sound, and the Sie form ends in -en. It is also important to note at this stage that this -en form is the form we find in the dictionary - the “infinitive” form of the verb. When we introduce verbs in this course we will always give this infinitive form, for example in vocabulary lists. We will cover the infinitive in more detail later. The patterns above are predictable, so when we introduce a new verb, wohnen, meaning “to live”, we can already guess what happens to the verb for ich and du. The table below gives the three forms of wohnen: “I live”, “you live (informal)” and “you live (formal)”:

ICH

DU

SIE

ich wohne

du wohnst

Sie wohnen

As we learn more verbs, you will find that these patterns are very


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regular and you can easily predict how the words change, depending on who they are referring to. Thomas gives some examples of wohnen using different cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is important to note that very often cities have different pronunciations or completely different names in the other language. The examples mentioned in the lesson were Munich, which is München in German; Vienna, which is Wien; and Geneva, which is Genf.

I COME FROM GERMANY, BUT NOW I LIVE IN AUSTRIA Consider the following sentence carefully:

ich komme aus Deutschland, aber jetzt wohne ich in Österreich I come from Germany, but now I live in Austria.

jetzt now

aber but Did you notice something strange with the word order in the second part of that sentence? After aber jetzt the subject pronoun ich (“I”) and the verb wohne (“live”) change position. For more information about why this happens, we turn to our Grammar Guru.


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GRAMMAR GURU Word order in German is not always the same as it is in English. I’m going to try to explain why that is, and give you a rule so that you can make up your own sentences with perfect German grammar. Let’s split our example into two simple sentences: Sentence 1: Ich komme aus Deutschland. Sentence 2: Jetzt wohne ich in Österreich. In the first sentence the word order is the same as in English: the word komme (“come”) comes after the subject pronoun ich (“I”), so “I come” is ich komme. In the second sentence, however, you’ll notice that the verb and pronoun come in a different order: wohne ich, literally “live I”. This is because in a simple sentence in German the verb always comes in what we call “second position”.

2ND POSITION Ich

komme

aus Deutschland.

Jetzt

wohne

ich in Österreich.

So no matter what comes first, if it’s a pronoun like ich or an adverb like jetzt, the verb will take the second position in the sentence. Now this does not necessarily mean that the verb is the second word in the sentence. We could, for example, change the sentence around and say aus Deutschland komme ich, stressing the fact that it’s Germany you come from, as opposed to Austria or Switzerland, etc. Coffee Break German: Lesson 04 - Notes

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2ND POSITION Aus Deutschland

komme

ich.

Here, position 1 is taken up by a phrase with two words which means that the verb, although it’s still in second position, is actually the third word in the sentence. That is why the second position is also called the second idea or second concept. This may all sound a bit complicated, but don’t worry about it! We’ll hear lots of examples of this as we move through our German lessons, and the more often you hear examples of these patterns, the more firmly they’ll become stuck in your mind! Before you know it, you’ll be rattling them off without even thinking about them!

FURTHER PRACTICE Mark and Thomas gave some further examples of this construction:

ich komme aus Irland, aber jetzt wohne ich in London I come from Ireland, but now I live in London

ich komme aus Österreich, aber jetzt wohne ich in Frankfurt I come from Austria, but now I live in Frankfurt

ich komme aus Kanada, aber jetzt wohne ich in Frankreich I come from Canada, but now I live in France Coffee Break German: Lesson 04 - Notes

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ich komme aus Spanien, aber jetzt wohne ich in Schottland I come from Spain, but now I live in Scotland

ich komme aus den U.S.A., aber jetzt wohne ich in der Schweiz I come from the USA, but now I live in Switzerland This final example was quite difficult because we have to think about aus den U.S.A. and aus der Schweiz.

das war schwer that was difficult

CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT “Hallo Mark, Servus, Thomas und Moin moin to all our Coffee Break German listeners! It’s Julia here, your Cultural Correspondent, and today we’re going to be talking about a festival which is celebrated by many German speakers. If you are by chance planning a trip to Cologne in February, then don’t be shocked by strange costumes, women taking scissors to men’s ties, and children running around in the streets when they ought to be in school! It’s Karneval time, celebrated in many parts of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Of course, carnivals exist throughout the world: think of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or the Rio Carnival, but there are some different traditions in this part of the world. Coffee Break German: Lesson 04 - Notes

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Maybe the most famous Karneval in Germany is the one in Cologne, or Köln as we say in German. The Karneval lasts a number of days and the high point is on Rosenmontag when everyone parades through the streets in fancy dress, watching the magnificent floats which often feature daring caricatures, poking fun at political figures. Last time we mentioned greetings in different parts of Germany. There’s only one greeting you need to know which will put a smile on any inhabitant of Cologne at this time. If you say - or shout Kölle Alaaf, meaning “long live Cologne”, then you are guaranteed at the very least a smile. If you’re at Karneval then you may well get to taste one of the most traditional foods eaten at this time - the famous Berliner. Yes, that’s the same one mentioned by Kennedy back in 1963!

The famous Berliner, available in many flavours - including Senf - at Karneval time.


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These doughnuts, traditionally filled with plum jam, are eaten all year round. However, at Karneval time you get them with every possible filling you can imagine. There’s even a little “in-joke” among locals, so be careful you don’t end up with the doughnut filled with Senf - mustard! On that note, zurück zu Thomas und Mark ins Studio. Tschüss!

DAS REICHT FÜR HEUTE In the final part of the lesson, Thomas explained how to say “that’s all for today”:

das reicht für heute that’s all for today



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✤


CORE VOCABULARY heute today

was lernen wir heute? what are we learning today?

los geht’s let’s go

woher kommst du? where do you come from? (informal)

wohnen to live

ich wohne in ... I live in ...


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du wohnst you live (informal)

Sie wohnen you live (formal)

München Munich

Wien Vienna

Zürich Zurich

Genf Geneva

aber but

jetzt now

ich komme aus Österreich, aber jetzt wohne ich in Deutschland I come from Austria but now I live in Germany

Frankreich France

Spanien Spain Coffee Break German: Lesson 04 - Notes

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schwer difficult, heavy

das war schwer that was difficult

das reicht für heute that’s all for today

BONUS VOCABULARY hier here

sind Sie von hier? are you from here? (formal)

bist du von hier? are you from here? (informal)

ich bin von hier I am from here

ich bin nicht von hier I am not from here

ich wohne in einem Dorf I live in a village

ich wohne in einer Stadt Coffee Break German: Lesson 04 - Notes

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I live in a town

... namens X ... which is called X

ich wohne in einer Stadt, namens Schönstadt I live in a town which is called Schönstadt.


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LESSON NOTES DAS IST MEINE SCHWESTER. SIE HEISST JULIA. By the end of this lesson you will be able to introduce members of your family to your new-found German-speaking friends. You will also understand gender in German and know the three definite articles.

INTRODUCTION In their introductory conversation, Thomas and Mark introduced a new concept. Consider the following conversation: Thomas: Also, Mark, wie geht’s dir heute? Mark:

Mir geht’s ausgezeichnet.

Mark continued this conversation by asking the question to Thomas, using the expression “and you”: und dir? However, Thomas explained that this is not correct. Since the question wie geht’s dir? literally means “how is it going to you?” it is necessary to respond by saying, “and to you?” rather than just “and you?”:

und dir? and (to) you? - in response to wie geht’s dir? The correct conversation then followed:


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Thomas: Wie geht’s dir, Mark? Mark:

Mir geht’s ausgezeichnet. Und dir?

Thomas: Mir geht’s auch gut, danke.

also well, so The word also is a “false friend”, a word which looks like an English word but means something else. It was used in the opening to the lesson: Thomas: Bist du fertig? Mark:

Ja. Also, los geht’s!

Thomas: Los geht’s!

REVIEW The lesson began with some review of previously learned content. Last time we covered two main verbs: wohnen (“to live”) and kommen (“to come”).

ich komme aus Deutschland I come from Germany

ich wohne in Schottland I live in Scotland We also reviewed the idea covered in the previous lesson of “I come from Scotland, but now I live in Germany”. Remember that when a sentence or phrase begins with jetzt (now), the verb and the subject have to change places: Coffee Break German: Lesson 05 - Notes

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ich wohne in Deutschland I live in Germany

jetzt wohne ich in Deutschland Now I live in Germany. (“Now live I in Germany”) The review sentences used were as follows:

ich komme aus Paris, aber jetzt wohne ich in Tokyo I come from Paris but now I live in Tokyo

ich komme aus Schweden, aber jetzt wohne ich in der Schweiz I come from Sweden but now I live in Switzerland

hier here

ich komme aus den U.S.A., aber jetzt wohne ich hier in Schottland I come from the USA but now I live here in Scotland

INTRODUCING MEMBERS OF YOUR FAMILY Study this list of words for four common family members and use the audio recording to make sure your pronunciation is correct. Pay particular attention to -u- sounds! Note also the capital letters for German nouns.

die Mutter (f) the mother


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die Schwester (f) the sister

der Vater (m) the father

der Bruder (m) the brother You will notice that there are different words for “the”, depending on whether these words are masculine or feminine. Father and brother are masculine (m) and mother and sister are feminine (f). We refer to this concept as “gender”. If we are to introduce members of our family, we need to know how to say “my...”:

meine Mutter my mother

meine Schwester my sister

mein Vater my father

mein Bruder my brother To introduce a member of your family to someone, you use the expression das ist...:


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das ist mein Bruder this is my brother

das ist mein Vater this is my father

das ist meine Mutter this is my mother

das ist meine Schwester this is my sister Note that das ist... does not change, so it is used both to introduce males and females.

Vater mein Bruder

das ist meine

Mutter Schwester

The table above may help you to see the construction of this sentence, where mein is used for the masculine words, Vater and Bruder, and meine is used for feminine words Mutter and Schwester.

SAYING WHAT SOMEONE ELSE IS CALLED We have already learned the verb heißen, meaning “to be called”. So far we have seen ich heiße, “I am called...”, du heißt, “you are called” (informal), and Sie heißen, “you are called” (formal).


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We can now add the following expressions to this:

er heißt ... he is called...

sie heißt she is called ... Note the difference between the words sie meaning “she”, and Sie (with an initial capital letter), meaning “you” (formal). Equally you can use mein Vater or meine Mutter instead of er or sie:

mein Vater heißt Hans my father is called Hans

meine Mutter heißt Nicole my mother is called Nicole Mark gave the following example, introducing members of his family:

Meine Mutter heißt Nicole, mein Vater heißt Hans, meine Schwester heißt Julia, und mein Bruder heißt Thomas. My mother is called Nicole, my father is called Hans, my sister is called Julia and my brother is called Thomas.

TALKING ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN The words for “son” and “daughter” fall into the same patterns as those for “father” and “mother”, etc.


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der Sohn (m) the son

mein Sohn heißt Markus my son is called Markus

die Tochter (f) the daughter

meine Tochter heißt Janina my daughter is called Janina There is also a word for “child”:

das Kind (n) the child The word Kind falls into a category of nouns in German which are neither feminine nor masculine: these words are “neuter”, and as you can see, the word for “the” changes again: das Kind.

GRAMMAR GURU Today’s grammar topic is the gender of nouns in German. We briefly mentioned this in lesson 2, and if you’ve learned any other languages, like Spanish or French for example, you may be familiar with the idea of grammatical gender and how it causes changes to words like articles and adjectives. In German, like in French and Coffee Break German: Lesson 05 - Notes

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Spanish, we have masculine and feminine. However, German also has a third gender, called “neuter”. We’ve already had some examples of these: der Sohn (m) - the son die Tochter (f) - the daughter das Kind (n) - the child You can hear that the word for “the” changes, depending on the gender of the noun. The technical term for the word for “the” is the definite article. The masculine definite article therefore is der; die is the feminine definite article and das is the neuter definite article: der Sohn, die Tochter and das Kind. However it’s not just people who have grammatical gender in German: things do too! Unfortunately it’s not always as easy to remember the gender for objects as it is for people, so we’d suggest that every time you learn a noun in German, it’s best to learn the definite article along with the word. As you work through the course, you’ll begin to pick up tips for working out the gender of a noun, but for now try to learn the gender of the word when you’re learning it. Let’s consider some more examples: der Computer (m) - the computer die Bank (f) - the bank das Haus (n) - the house You’ll notice from the recordings that these words sound very similar to their English counterparts, but often words can be written differently in German, like Haus - “house”. It’s also worth remembering that nouns in German are always written with capital letters. To recap, here is a table listing the definite article in the three genders:


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GENDER

DEFINITE ARTICLE

EXAMPLES

masculine

der

der Sohn der Computer

feminine

die

die Schwester die Bank

neuter

das

das Kind das Haus

PLEASED TO MEET YOU... Thomas reminded Mark about the phrase es freut mich, meaning “pleased to meet you”. The full version of this phrase has a formal and informal form:

es freut mich Sie kennenzulernen I’m pleased to meet you (formal)

es freut mich dich kennenzulernen I’m pleased to meet you (informal)

COMING UP NEXT TIME In the final section of the lesson while talking about the next lesson, Thomas asked Mark a question:

Mark, was lernen wir nächstes Mal? Mark, what are we learning next time? You will already be familiar with the phrase bis zum nächsten Mal. Coffee Break German: Lesson 05 - Notes

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For the time being don’t worry about why nächsten becomes nächstes in this sentence, but we will explain this in a future lesson! Mark explained that the next lesson will focus on numbers and prices, and Thomas commented:

das klingt gut that sounds good

CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT In this lesson our Cultural Correspondent feature is included in the bonus audio lesson. However, we’ve included the transcript in our notes: Hallo Mark, hallo Thomas, und hallo an alle unsere Coffee Break German Zuhörer! It’s Julia here, your Cultural Correspondent, and since you’ve been learning to talk about your family, I thought today that we would talk about family life in Germany. You’ll understand that it’s hard to say what a ‘typical’ German family looks like. Although most people might have two children, every family is different and it’s impossible to generalise. One thing which I think you may find interesting is about the options German parents have when their baby is born, as this might be something that’s different from the situation in your country. Since 2007 we have had a new law in Germany which makes it possible for both parents to get paid parental leave. The government wants to encourage both parents to take the time to bond with their child, so if only the mum stays at home she is paid Coffee Break German: Lesson 05 - Notes

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about 70% of her salary for twelve months maximum. If, on the other hand, both parents decide to share the time with their baby, they get fourteen months paid altogether. It’s up to them how they divide the months between them. Mostly the mums stay at home for twelve, and the dads stay at home for the other two months. It’s called Elternzeit - that means something like “parent time”, or parental leave. German parents can take Elternzeit for three years altogether, but only the first twelve (or fourteen) months will be paid. Still, this means that even though they are not paid for the rest of the three years, their employers can’t fire them, and have to keep their positions for them for when they return. Once mum or dad decides to return to work, they enroll their child either in a Kindergarten, or they take their child to a so-called Tagesmutter which is a kind of nanny or child-minder who looks after up to five children in their own home. Tagesmutter literally means “day mother”. This is quite a common concept used by many parents in Germany, because often there are not enough spaces available at Kindergarten. From the age of three, most children change to Kindergarten, and they start school at the age of six. If they’re ready to begin earlier they can start at the age of five.

hallo an alle unsere CBG Zuhörer hello to all our CBG listeners

Elternzeit (f) “parent time”, parental leave

Kindergarten (m) nursery school, kindergarten


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Tagesmutter (f) child-minder, nanny

DAS REICHT FÜR HEUTE Ready for more? Turn the page to continue with the bonus materials for this lesson.


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CORE VOCABULARY und dir? and you? (in response to wie geht’s dir?)

hier here

die Mutter (f) the mother

die Schwester (f) the sister

der Vater (m) the father

der Bruder (m) the brother

mein (m) my (for masculine words)

meine (f) my (for feminine words)

das ist mein Bruder this is my brother

das ist meine Schwester that is my sister


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er heißt ... he is called ...

sie heißt ... she is called ...

mein Vater heißt ... my father is called ...

meine Mutter heißt ... my mother is called ...

der Sohn the son

die Tochter the daughter

das Kind the child

es freut mich Sie kennenzulernen it’s nice to meet you (formal)

es freut mich dich kennenzulernen it’s nice to meet you (informal)

was lernen wir nächstes Mal? what are we learning next time?

das klingt gut that sounds good


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BONUS VOCABULARY der Onkel (m) the uncle

die Tante (f) the aunt

der Großvater (m) the grandfather

der Opa (m) the grandfather

die Großmutter (f) the grandmother

die Oma (f) the grandmother

der Cousin (m) the (male) cousin

die Cousine (f) the (female) cousin

der Freund (m) the (male) friend

die Freundin (f) the (female) friend Coffee Break German: Lesson 05 - Notes

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der Partner (m) the (male) partner

die Partnerin (f) the (female) partner

sie heißen ... they are called ...


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season1 chptr1-5

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