Learn about colloquial German
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Absolute Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 25 – “German Practice Makes German Perfect”. 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 these Absolute Beginner, Season 1 Lesson. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk to friends when you’re invited to their home. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at [Anke]’s home in Berlin. |
| 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: Hallo Joe! Schön, dass du da bist! |
| Joe: Hallo Anke! Danke für die Einladung! |
| Anke: Kein Ding! |
| Joe: Bin ich zu früh? |
| Anke: Ach, nur zehn Minuten, kein Problem… |
| Joe: Gut! |
| Anke: Willst du was trinken? |
| Joe: Ja, was hast du denn? |
| Anke: Wasser, Apfelsaft oder willst du vielleicht ein Bier... |
| Joe: Hmm, jetzt schon Bier?… Nee, ich glaub', ich nehm' erst mal 'n Wasser. |
| Anke: Gut….hier bitte. |
| Joe: Danke… Du, wer spielt heute noch mal? |
| Anke: Deutschland gegen Australien. |
| Joe: Oh, ja natürlich. 'n gutes Spiel. Und wann? |
| Anke: Um 18 Uhr. |
| Joe: Ah, ja, stimmt. |
| Anke: Wie viele Tore es wohl gibt… Was meinst du? |
| Joe: Hmm, ich sage zwei für Deutschland und eins für Australien. Und du? |
| Anke: Hmm, zwei zu eins? Ich glaub', das is 'n guter Tipp. |
| Joe: Anke, kann ich jetzt ein Bier haben? |
| Anke: Ja, klar! … |
| Joe: Danke……Man, Anke, dein Fernseher ist ja irre! So groß! |
| Anke: Haha, ja, der ist neu! Cool oder? |
| Joe: Ja, echt cool! So einen will ich auch haben! |
| Anke: Hmm, wo bleiben nur meine Freunde? Gleich geht's doch los! |
| Joe: Haha, gut so … dann gibt's mehr Bier und Chips für mich! |
| Anke: Haha! |
| Anke: Hi Joe! Nice that you're here! |
| Joe: Hi Anke! Thanks for the invitation! |
| Anke: That was nothing! |
| Joe: Am I too early? |
| Anke: Ah, just ten minutes, no problem… |
| Joe: Good! |
| Anke: Do you want something to drink? |
| Joe: Yeah, what do you have? |
| Anke: Water, Apple Spritzer, or maybe you want a beer... |
| Joe: Hmm, really a beer now?… Nah, I believe I'll just first take water. |
| Anke: Good….here it is. |
| Joe: Thanks… hey, who's playing today again? |
| Anke: Germany against Australia. |
| Joe: Oh yes, of course. A good game. And when? |
| Anke: At 6pm. |
| Joe: Ah yes, right. |
| Anke: How many goals will there be... what do you think? |
| Joe: Hmm, I say two for Germany and one for Australia. And you? |
| Anke: Hmm, two to one? I believe that's a good guess. |
| Joe: Anke, can I have a beer now? |
| Anke: Yes, of course! … |
| Joe: Thanks……Man, Anke, your TV is insane! It’s so big! |
| Anke: Haha, yes, it's new! Cool, eh? |
| Joe: Yeah, really cool! I want to have one of those too! |
| Anke: Hmm, what's keeping my friends? It's about to start! |
| Joe: Haha, good that way … then there's more beer and chips for me! |
| Anke: Haha! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Alright! So, what about going out, like meeting people to watch the World Cup or anything? |
| Chuck: Oh, because of the climate traditionally, Germans are less likely to go out than people in, say, Latin American countries. |
| Judith: You mean to go outside, because I think they’re just as likely to leave the apartments. It’s just people don’t generally sit in cafes or restaurants in the evenings or at night. In the summer, you can sit outside in cafes or restaurants in the afternoon, but evenings are still very rare to see it. |
| Chuck: Most appointments are still for going inside somewhere, like someone’s house or to a club or to the movies. |
| Judith: Into a pub. It’s hardly ever for being outside, and especially, there are no appointments for just going around and seeing what’s happening. Appointments usually must have a purpose. |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word is? |
| Judith: [Einladung] |
| Chuck: “Invitation” |
| Judith: [Einladung, die Einladung] and the plural is [Einladungen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Ding] |
| Chuck: “Thing” |
| Judith: [Ding, das Ding] and the plural is [Dinge]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [früh] |
| Chuck: “Early” |
| Judith: [früh, früh] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Apfel] |
| Chuck: “Apple” |
| Judith: [Apfel, der Apfel] and the plural is [Äpfel] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Saft] |
| Chuck: “Juice” |
| Judith: [Saft, der Saft] and the plural is [Säfte]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Bier] |
| Chuck: “Beer”. |
| Judith: [Bier, das Bier] and the plural is [Biere]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [gegen] |
| Chuck: “Against” |
| Judith: [gegen, gegen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Tor] |
| Chuck: “Goal” |
| Judith: [Tor, das Tor] and the plural is [Tore] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Tipp] |
| Chuck: “Tip, pointer, lead” or “guess”. |
| Judith: [Tipp, der Tipp] and the plural is [Tipps.] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Fernseher] |
| Chuck: “TV” as in the machine. |
| Judith: [Fernseher, der Fernseher] and the plural is the same. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [irre] |
| Chuck: “Crazy, mad” or “great”. |
| Judith: [irre, irre] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [mehr] |
| Chuck: “More” |
| Judith: [mehr, mehr] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Chips] |
| Chuck: “Chips” in American-English or “crisps” in British-English. |
| Judith: [Chips, Chips] |
| 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 phrase is [kein Ding]. |
| Chuck: “Not a big issue.” |
| Judith: [Kein Ding] Next, [nochmal]. |
| Chuck: “Once again” or here it means “Say it again please”. |
| Judith: Yes, the context was who will be playing the game, so at some point, Joe knew and he’s asking [Anke] to say it again to remind him. That is [Wer spielt heute nochmal] who is playing again but they’re not playing against the first game. Just that he needs a reminder. Then, we shall talk about [zwei zu eins]. |
| Chuck: “Two to one” as in “a score”. |
| Judith: Yes. [zu] is the word that you put between scores in German. [zwei zu eins] or [eins zu null] and so on. |
| Chuck: Oh, is there a shorter way to say like [zwei zu zwei]? |
| Judith: [unentschieden]. Okay, and finally there’s [so ein]. |
| Chuck: “That kind of thing”, “Such a” |
| Judith: Yes, like [so einen Fernseher möchte ich auch] “I want that kind of TV.” |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is colloquial German. |
| Judith: Today, I want us to look at cases where spoken German and written German don’t match up. |
| Chuck: Quite apart from any dialects or sociolects, there are some things that can be noticed across Germany and across all generations. |
| Judith: For example, the final “e” of verb forms is almost always dropped if the verb stem is short. People will say [ich denk]. They won’t say [ich denke], [ich nehm] and not [ich nehme], [ich habe] and not [ich hab] and so on. |
| Chuck: In fact, I heard [ich hab] so many times that I forgot that you’re supposed to write it [ich habe]. |
| Judith: Yeah, you have to write [ich habe] or at most you can write [hab] with an apostrophe, but it’s not actually acceptable to write [ich hab] except in song lyrics or transcriptions of speech. |
| Chuck: I guess informal emails would work or chats. |
| Judith: In chats, you can write [Ich hab]. In formal emails, you should write [Ich habe]. |
| Chuck: Well, in informal emails. |
| Judith: Yeah, that’s possible. |
| Chuck: Like with friends, like we’re having an email. |
| Judith: We also use the apostrophe when the “e” of “es” is missing, in phrases like [wie geht´s]. This is an abbreviation actually of [wie geht es], but we always make it just an apostrophe “s”. For example, [Ich weiß nicht, ob´s ich schaffe]. [es] is just so much shorter than [Ich weiß nicht, ob ich es schaffe]. It sounds very bad and that is why “es” is often shortened. |
| Chuck: [ein, einer] are similarly shortened to just [n] and [ne] and [etwas] is shortened to [was]. |
| Judith: Yes. [Willst du was trinken? Ja, n´ Bier] |
| Chuck: Also the final “t” in second-person singular forms like [hast, wirst, nimmst] and so on is often replaced by just the longer “s” sound. |
| Judith: Yeah like - |
| Chuck: How would that be sounded? |
| Judith: To pronounce, yeah, [has, will´s, was, nimm´s]. |
| Chuck: The final “t” in [nicht] is also dropped in many parts of Germany. |
| Judith: Yeah, but other parts just have a different pronunciation for it, like [nischt, nisch, nesch] and when staying in Germany, you should probably just adapt to whatever is most common in your area. |
| Chuck: Ha, you forgot the area I used to live in, where they used to say [net]. |
| Judith: Okay, I missed this one. There’s possibly even other versions. There’re so many dialects in Germany. |
| Chuck: [das geht doch net] |
| Judith: Actually I think you lived at the border between [net] and [nischt]. |
| Chuck: No, everyone said [net] down in [Heilbronn], so all of you moving to [Heilbronn], now you know how to say [nicht] in that city. These are really the most conservative things one can say about colloquial German. So, you should probably adapt them and start to sound more natural this way. |
| Judith: Alright. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today! Some of our listeners already know about the most powerful tool in GermanPod101.com |
| Judith: Line by line audio. |
| Chuck: The perfect tool for rapidly improving listening comprehension. |
| Judith: By listening to lines of the conversations again and again. |
| Chuck: Listen until every word and syllable becomes clear. |
| Judith: Listen to the dialogue in bite-size sentences. |
| Chuck: Understand it all! |
| Judith: Try the line by line audio at GermanPod101.com |
| Chuck: So, see you next week! |
| Judith: [Also bis nächste Woche] |
| -- |
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