Learn the German irregular verb that means "to want" or "shall"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Absolute Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 18 – “The Best Way to Make Plans in German!” Hello and welcome to GermanPod101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn German. |
| Judith: I’m Judith and thanks again for being here with us for this Absolute Beginner, Season 1 Lesson. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to set up a date with someone. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place on the phone. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Joe and Anke. |
| Judith: The speakers are friends therefore they will be speaking informal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Anke: Löwen, guten Tag. |
| Joe: Ähm. Hier ist Joe Cardigan. Ist Anke da? |
| Anke: Ja. Ich bin am Telefon! |
| Joe: Oh! Du klingst so anders... |
| Anke: Haha, echt? |
| Joe: Ja, wirklich! |
| Anke: Rufst du aus dem Hotel an? |
| Joe: Ja, ich habe ein Telefon auf dem Zimmer. |
| Anke: Oh, super. Wie findest du Berlin bis jetzt? |
| Joe: Oh, ich finde Berlin wirklich toll. |
| Anke: Schön! |
| Joe: …. Anke, hast du heute schon etwas vor? Ich will später zum Potsdamer Platz gehen. Willst du mitkommen? |
| Anke: Hmm. Heute habe ich keine Zeit, weil mein Bruder mich besuchen will. Aber morgen! Wollen wir am Ku'damm einen Kaffee trinken? |
| Joe: Oh, ja. Das klingt super. |
| Anke: Gut. Ich komme um zehn Uhr in dein Hotel und dann fahren wir zum Ku'damm. Okay? |
| Joe: Ja, okay. Mein Hotel heißt „Hotel Berlin“ und ist in der Bundesallee. |
| Anke: Ah, ich kenne das Hotel. |
| Joe: Gut, dann bis später! |
| Anke: Nein! Nicht später! Morgen erst! |
| Joe: Oh, ja natürlich! Also, bis morgen! |
| Anke: Ja, bis morgen! |
| Anke: Löwen, good day. |
| Joe: Ehm, this is Joe Cardigan. Is Anke there? |
| Anke: Yes. I am on the phone! |
| Joe: Oh! You sound so different... |
| Anke: Haha, for real? |
| Joe: Yes, really! |
| Anke: Are you calling from the hotel? |
| Joe: Yes, I have a phone in the room. |
| Anke: Oh, great. How do you like Berlin up till now? |
| Joe: Oh, I find Berlin really great. |
| Anke: Nice! |
| Joe: ... Anke, do you have any plans for today? I want to go to Potsdamer Platz later. Do you want to come along? |
| Anke: Hmm. Today I don't have time, because my brother wants to visit me. But tomorrow! Shall we have a coffee on the Ku'damm? |
| Joe: Oh, yes. That sounds great. |
| Anke: Good. I'll come to your hotel at 10am and then we'll drive to the Ku'damm. Okay? |
| Joe: Yes, okay. My hotel is called "Hotel Berlin" and it's in Bundesallee. |
| Anke: Ah, I know the hotel. |
| Joe: Good, then see you later today! |
| Anke: No! Not later today! Only tomorrow! |
| Joe: Oh, yes, of course! So, see you tomorrow! |
| Anke: Yes, see you tomorrow! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: So, what is this [Ku´damm, Postdamer Platz] and I think some of listeners might be confused now. |
| Chuck: Yeah. Well, I think I will confuse them more if I tell them that [Ku´damm] is short for [Kurfürstendamm]. |
| Judith: Yes, we’ll get to that. Let’s say all of them are Berlin sights and obviously they’re not that really famous one like Reichstag, the parliament building and [Brandenburger Gate]. Those are the sights that everybody would know, but [Ku´damm] and [Potsdamer Platz] are the kind of things that Berlin people would know or even Germans would know. |
| Chuck: You mean Berliners. |
| Judith: Yes. But, first there is [Unter den Linden] Do you know [Unter den Linden]? |
| Chuck: Of course. It’s Berlin’s most famous boulevard. |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: And there’s a lot of important government buildings and well, expensive shops that I can’t really afford to go to, are located. |
| Judith: Yes. And expensive restaurants. [Unter den Linden] stretches out from the [Brandenburger Tor] so if you want to visit it, it’s very easy. |
| Chuck: [Potsdamer Platz] features the Sony Center, it’s a glittering entertainment district with stunning post-barn architecture. It’s also with lots of lights and fountains and metal and – yeah, it’s pretty cool. There’s also where you can watch Hollywood movies in the original English. |
| Judith: Yes. Berlin’s only cinema that choses to show the original. Well, the only cinema that only shows originals. |
| Chuck: Yes, there’s also quite a lot of art cinemas or indie cinemas around. But this is the only that shows exclusively in English and feels quite like an American theatre as well. |
| Judith: Yeah, you can even get that salted popcorn and all the awful stuff. |
| Chuck: Yummy! And nachos and cheese even. And then there’s [Alexanderplatz] with the TV tower. |
| Judith: Yes, [Alexanderplatz] |
| Chuck: Maybe because it’s the tallest part of Berlin. |
| Judith: No, because the [Alexanderplatz] is the busiest! It’s a busy square in Berlin and also it’s where a lot of the public transportation meets and of course everyone has heard of it also because of the book and movie and everything. |
| Chuck: You can mostly think of it sort of like, let’s say, Time Square in New York but not quite as many lights. |
| Judith: Yeah, it’s a more traditional look, it’s not that glamorous. Okay, another thing that you absolutely need to see if you come in to Berlin is “Checkpoint Charlie”. “Checkpoint Charlie” was the most well-known place where you can cross from the American part of Berlin into the Soviet one or [vise versa] of course. And, today the checkpoint still exists but only as tourist attraction with actors as soldiers. That still looks kind of cool. |
| Chuck: Oh wait! Don’t forget about [Kaiser-Wilhelm] Memorial Church. |
| Judith: Yes. [Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche] |
| Chuck: See, you can’t even say it. |
| Judith: I can say it! [Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche] At first - |
| Chuck: At your second try. |
| Judith: No, I first mistranslated it back, but this is the German. Anyway, this church also looks really stunning, but it was half destroyed in the war and it still looks stunning so it’s definitively worth seeing. |
| Chuck: And then there’s [Ku´damm] short for [Kurfürstendamm]. Ha, see? I can even pronounce that! Berlin’s most famous shopping street. Stretching out west from [Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church]. |
| Judith: Yes! |
| Chuck: What would be a good place to see in there? |
| Judith: Oh, it’s just shopping, you know. You walk past, you look at the shops and good. |
| Chuck: But are there any famous gigantic department stores among that area? |
| Judith: I know what you’re thinking of, but it’s not exactly on [Ku´damm] it’s a bit off to the side, the [KaDeWe] it’s a store that has all kinds of foreign goods that are otherwise hard to get in Germany, so if you’re homesick for root beer or vegemite, they would definitively have it, if you can pay the price. |
| Chuck: Of course you pick the gourmet floor, don’t you? But there are also many important clothing stores and everything pretty much. Or gourmet or whatever areas. |
| Judith: And designer stuff. |
| Chuck: Yeah, exactly. |
| Judith: Everything is foreign and expensive. |
| Chuck: Yep. Great place to spend your money. |
| Judith: Yeah. Originally [KaDeWe] was the kind of place to make the Eastern Germans jealous, because you know, West Berlin was an island than Eastern Germany and [KaDeWe] was the only place in Western Germany where you could get all the stuff, but it just served to point out to the Eastern Germany that there’s so much things that they can’t buy. |
| Chuck: Yeah, so you can just imagine this eight story high huge department store. |
| Judith: Yeah, and one floor is already as big as a Walmart. |
| Chuck: Well, not quite that big but it’s getting there. So, anyway, we’ll finish this add for [KaDeWe] and take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word is? |
| Judith: [klingen] |
| Chuck: “To sound”. |
| Judith: [klingen, klingen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [anders] |
| Chuck: “Different.” |
| Judith: [anders, anders] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [echt] |
| Chuck: “Authentic, real” or “really”. |
| Judith: [echt, echt] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [toll] |
| Chuck: “Great”. |
| Judith: [toll, toll] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [etwas] |
| Chuck: “Something”. |
| Judith: [etwas, etwas] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [vorhaben] |
| Chuck: “To plan, to have in mind” or “to intend”. |
| Judith: [vorhaben, vorhaben] and this is a verb that splits off, so you say [Er hat vor] and so on. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [wollen] |
| Chuck: “To want”. |
| Judith: [wollen, wollen] we will talk about this later, but for now, note that [Ich will] sounds rather arrogant and Germans tend to say [Ich möchte] instead. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [später] |
| Chuck: “Later today”. |
| Judith: [später, später] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Zeit] |
| Chuck: “Time”. |
| Judith: [Zeit, die Zeit] and the plural is [Zeiten] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [trinken] |
| Chuck: “To drink”. |
| Judith: [trinken, trinken] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [zehn] |
| Chuck: “Ten”. |
| Judith: [zehn, zehn] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [kennen] |
| Chuck: “To know somebody”. |
| Judith: [kennen, kennen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [erst] |
| Chuck: “First” or “only then”. |
| Judith: [erst, erst] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first word is [finden] |
| Chuck: “To find”. |
| Judith: In this dialogue, it’s used in the sense of “to like” as in the phrase [Wie findest du Berlin] |
| Chuck: “How do you find Berlin?” |
| Judith: “How do you like Berlin?” |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: And another thing I want to draw your attention to is [mit] |
| Chuck: “With”. |
| Judith: Yes. You’ll find [mit] in the meaning of “with” as preposition, but it can also be used as a separable verb prefix and then it should be translated as “along”. For example [mitkommen], “to come along”, [Ich will mitkommen] |
| Chuck: “I want to come along.” |
| Judith: [Willst du mitessen] |
| Chuck: “Do you want to eat with us?” |
| Judith: And [Nimm deinen Pass mit] |
| Chuck: “Take your passport along!” |
| Judith: So, it is a verb prefix but it is separable. That’s why it’s separated in this lesson [nimm] the verb is [mit], “take along”. Okay, another thing we had [wollen wir] in this dialogue, literally “Do we want?” but in this dialogue we had it in the sense of “Shall we?” as in [Wollen wir uns treffen], “Shall we meet?” |
| Chuck: And actually, that brings us in the focus of this lesson. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is the irregular verb [wollen] |
| Judith: Yes, it’s irregular in German and the forms are [Ich will] |
| Chuck: “I want”. |
| Judith: [Du willst] |
| Chuck: “You want”. |
| Judith: [Er will] |
| Chuck: “He wants”. |
| Judith: [Wir wollen] |
| Chuck: “We want”. |
| Judith: [Ihr wollt] |
| Chuck: “You all want”. |
| Judith: [Sie wollen] |
| Chuck: “They want”. So it uses the stamp [will] for singular and [wollen] for plural, changing the vowel, but not like one of those vowel changing verbs that we encountered before. Because this only changes the vowel for the second and third person singular. |
| Judith: Yeah, but in this case [will] is for all singular forms and [wollen] is for all plural forms. Also note that the first person singular does not end in “e” as you might be used to, it’s not [ich wille] it’s [Ich will] and the third person singular does not end in “t”, it goes [Er will] not [Er willt] so this verb is really weird. It does have the other endings that you’re used to though, like [Du willst, Wir wollen, Ihr wollt, sie wollen] just the first person and third person are weird. |
| Chuck: Could you go over these forms once more? |
| Judith: Yes, I can say them all over again. [Ich will, Du willst, Er will, Wir wollen, Ihr wollt, Sie wollen] |
| Chuck: Well that just about does it for today. Remember, you can leave us a comment on this lesson. |
Outro |
| Judith: Yeah! So if you have a question or some feedback, please just leave us a comment. |
| Chuck: In fact it’s very easy to do! I don’t know why everyone doesn’t leave us a comment. Well, I guess that our page we get really full but that a great comment to have. Make that happen! |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: Just stop by GermanPod101.com. |
| Judith: Click on “comments”. |
| Chuck: Enter your comment and name. |
| Judith: And that’s it! |
| Chuck: And get all your friends who listen to it do it too! No excuses! We’re looking forward to hear from all of you! |
| Judith: Yes, all of you! |
| Chuck: So, see you next week! |
| Judith: [Also bis nächste Woche] |
| -- |
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