Learn how to express satisfaction
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Beginner series, Season 2, Lesson #29. Checkpoint Charlie, Traffic Light Men, and Fake Souvenirs—More Cool Reasons to Visit Germany! Hello and welcome back to germanpod101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn German. I am in the studio with |
| Judith: Hello everyone. Judith here. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you will learn how to express satisfaction in German. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at a German souvenir shop. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Caroline and Martin, the two American tourists. The speakers are friends. Therefore they will be speaking informal German. |
| Judith: Listeners, I have a question. |
| Chuck: A question? |
| Judith: Yep. I want to know when was the last time you commented. |
| Chuck: Yes good question. |
| Judith: Stop by germanpod101.com, leave us a comment or just say hi. |
| Chuck: All right. You heard Judith. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Martin: Ha! Guck mal, ich habe ein Geschenk für meine Mutter gefunden, ein schönes Buch mit Bildern von Berlin. Darüber wird sie sich freuen. |
| Caroline: Nicht schlecht! |
| Martin: Und hier habe ich genug Postkarten von Berlin für alle meine Freunde und Bekannte! Ich mag sie, und du? |
| Caroline: Ich auch; sie sind schön. Ich sollte auch ein paar Postkarten an meine Freunde schreiben. |
| Martin: Genau. Die kriegen sicher nicht jeden Tag Post aus Europa. |
| Martin: Ich bin zufrieden mit meinen Einkäufen. Sollen wir gehen? |
| Judith: Now it’s slowly. |
| Martin: Ha! Guck mal, ich habe ein Geschenk für meine Mutter gefunden, ein schönes Buch mit Bildern von Berlin. Darüber wird sie sich freuen. |
| Caroline: Nicht schlecht! |
| Martin: Und hier habe ich genug Postkarten von Berlin für alle meine Freunde und Bekannte! Ich mag sie, und du? |
| Caroline: Ich auch; sie sind schön. Ich sollte auch ein paar Postkarten an meine Freunde schreiben. |
| Martin: Genau. Die kriegen sicher nicht jeden Tag Post aus Europa. |
| Martin: Ich bin zufrieden mit meinen Einkäufen. Sollen wir gehen? |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Martin: Ha! Guck mal, ich habe ein Geschenk für meine Mutter gefunden, ein schönes Buch mit Bildern von Berlin. Darüber wird sie sich freuen. |
| Martin: Ha! Look, I have found a present for my mother, a nice book with pictures of Berlin. She will be happy about that. |
| Caroline: Nicht schlecht! |
| Caroline: Not bad! |
| Martin: Und hier habe ich genug Postkarten von Berlin für alle meine Freunde und Bekannte! Ich mag sie, und du? |
| Martin: And here I have enough postcards of Berlin for all my friends and acquaintances! I like them, and you? |
| Caroline: Ich auch; sie sind schön. Ich sollte auch ein paar Postkarten an meine Freunde schreiben. |
| Caroline: Me too; they are nice. I should also write a few postcards to my friends. |
| Martin: Genau. Die kriegen sicher nicht jeden Tag Post aus Europa. |
| Martin: Exactly. They probably don't get mail from Europe every day. |
| Martin: Ich bin zufrieden mit meinen Einkäufen. Sollen wir gehen? |
| Martin: I am satisfied with my purchases. Shall we go? |
| CULTURAL SECTION |
| Judith: Okay how about we talk about souvenirs. I don’t think we ever did that yet on germanpod101. |
| Chuck: And I guess the studio in Berlin is a good place to do it. |
| Judith: Yeah let’s talk about Berlin souvenirs. Of course, you can get the typical ones like postcards, mugs, snowballs, wallets, bags, T-Shirts, pens and key chains and all of them featured like the city name or the city symbols, photos of the city. |
| Chuck: Among the less expected souvenirs, you can find pieces of the wall or at least pieces that say they’ve come from the original Berlin wall. |
| Judith: Their authenticity can be doubted as enough such pieces have been sold to make up the Berlin wall five times over. However if you choose to suspend disbelief, they make for a nice souvenir. |
| Chuck: Or a nice gift for a family member who doesn’t know that either. He’d also get your passport stamped as the GDR would have or get a stamp from a transit point like Checkpoint Charlie where you can also have your photo taken with actors dressed in American and Soviet uniforms or even I believe I saw someone dressed in the Storm Cooper outfit. |
| Judith: Another pretty unique souvenir are the items featuring the Ampelmännchen. |
| Chuck: What’s that Ampelmännchen? |
| Judith: The East German traffic light men whose design is much different from the one in use in the rest of Germany. |
| Chuck: Oh yeah. I remember now. The reunified Germany wanting to replace the East German traffic light so that the traffic lights would look all the same across Germany but that wasn’t really a reason to do so and actually the East German design is better or it might be biased living a bit into the Eastern region but any way, there was a wave of protest against the replacement and now some artists designed lots of items featuring these traffic light men. They are very popular among tourists. |
| Judith: They are cute. |
| Chuck: And if you go down the street, you will usually see someone maybe an Asian perhaps taking a picture of one across the street. |
| Judith: Taking a picture of the traffic light yeah. |
| Chuck: Exactly. They can’t complain. I took a picture of a traffic light in Taiwan too. So let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: First word [Geschenk] |
| Chuck: Present or gift. |
| Judith: [Geschenk, Geschenk] This word is neuter and the plural is [Geschenke] Next [Mutter] |
| Chuck: Mother. |
| Judith: [Mutter, Mutter] The word is feminine and the plural is [Mütter] Next [Bild] |
| Chuck: Picture. |
| Judith: [Bild, Bild, das Bild] It’s neuter and the plural is [Bilder]. Next [Darüber] |
| Chuck: About that. |
| Judith: [Darüber, darüber] Next [Schlecht] |
| Chuck: Bad. |
| Judith: [Schlecht, schlecht] Next [Genug] |
| Chuck: Enough. |
| Judith: [Genug, genug] Next [Postkarte] |
| Chuck: Postcard. |
| Judith: [Postkarte, Postkarte] This word is feminine and the plural is [Postkarten]. Next [Bekannter] |
| Chuck: Acquaintance. |
| Judith: [Bekannter, Bekannter] This word is masculine and the plural is the same as with all er words. Next [Paar] |
| Chuck: Pair, couple or a few. |
| Judith: [Paar, Paar] Next [Sicher] |
| Chuck: Sure, safe, secure or surely. |
| Judith: [Sicher, sicher] Next [Post] |
| Chuck: Mail or post office. |
| Judith: [Post, Post] This word is feminine [Die Post] and there is no pleural. Next [Zufrieden] |
| Chuck: Content or satisfied. |
| Judith: [Zufrieden, zufrieden] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first word we look at is [Darüber] |
| Chuck: About that. |
| Judith: This is a combination of [Da] meaning that and [Über] about with an [R] inserted for easier pronunciation [Darüber]. |
| Chuck: Is there any other words we should look at? |
| Judith: Yes [Einkäufe] |
| Chuck: Purchases. |
| Judith: This is the plural of [Einkauf] which is the noun based on [Einkaufen] |
| Chuck: To buy. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The grammar focus of this lesson are common conditional verbs. We may not know the conditional tense yet but we have encountered quite a few verbs in their conditional form. |
| Judith: First there was [Möchte] |
| Chuck: Would like. |
| Judith: Which is the conditional of [Mögen] |
| Chuck: To like |
| Judith: Who can get by without saying [Ich möchte] or [Möchten Sie] |
| Chuck: Next most useful is [Könnte] could which is the conditional of [Können] can, to be able to. |
| Judith: This one is most commonly found in polite suggestions such as [Könnten Sie mir helfen?] |
| Chuck: Could you help me? |
| Judith: However you can also use it to say things like [Ich könnte das tun.] |
| Chuck: I can do that. Then in this lesson, we have seen [Sollte] should which is the conditional of [Sollen] shall. |
| Judith: For example, we say [Das solltest du nicht tun.] |
| Chuck: You shouldn’t do that. |
| Judith: There is also [Müsste] |
| Chuck: Would have to. |
| Judith: The conditional of [Müssen] |
| Chuck: Must. You can use this to voice speculations. |
| Judith: Like [Er müsste jeden moment kommen] |
| Chuck: As in he should be here any minute. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Well that just about does it for today. Before we go, we want to tell you about a way to drastically improve your pronunciation. |
| Judith: The voice recording tool |
| Chuck: Yes the voice recording tool in the premium learning center. |
| Judith: Record your voice with a click of a button. |
| Chuck: And play it back just as easily. |
| Judith: So you record your voice and then you listen to it. |
| Chuck: Compare it to native speakers. |
| Judith: And adjust your pronunciation. |
| Chuck: This will help you improve your pronunciation fast. Of course, you should also listen to our accent improvement series if you seriously intend to work on your accent which I hope you do. So hope to see you there. |
| Judith: [Bis dann]. |
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