Learn how to use the subway in Germany
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Upper Beginner Season 1, Lesson #11 Taking the Subway to Munich, Germany. |
| Judith: Hi my name is Judith and I am joined here by Chuck. |
| Chuck: Hello everyone and welcome back to germanpod101.com. |
| Judith: What are we learning today? |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you learn how to use the subway in Germany. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place in the city center of Munich. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Joe and a random passerby. |
| Judith: The speakers are strangers. Therefore they will be speaking formal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Joe: Entschuldigung… |
| Frau: Ja? |
| Joe: Können Sie mir vielleicht helfen? Ich möchte gerne zum Rathaus… |
| Frau: Ja, natürlich…Zuerst müssen Sie zur Haltestelle Tivolistr. gehen und dort steigen Sie in die Tram Nummer 17 ein. |
| Joe: Oh und wo ist die Haltestelle? |
| Frau: Die Haltestelle ist gleich dort vorne an der großen Kreuzung auf der linken Seite…. |
| Joe: Ah, okay. |
| Frau: Also, nehmen Sie die 17 Richtung Amalienburgstr. und fahren Sie bis zum Isartor… |
| Joe: Die 17 in Richtung Isartor.. |
| Frau: Nein, die 17 BIS zum Isartor. Dort steigen Sie aus und gehen zur U-Bahn. |
| Joe: Ah okay. Ich fahre bis zum Isartor und steige dort in die U-Bahn um. |
| Frau: Genau. Am Isartor nehmen Sie eine U-Bahn und fahren eine Station bis zum Marienplatz. Dort ist das Rathaus. |
| Joe: Und welche U-Bahn nehme ich? |
| Frau: Das ist egal, Hauptsache der nächste Halt ist Marienplatz. Das können Sie an der Anzeigetafel sehen…. |
| Joe: Ach so. Gut, also ich steige dort vorne in die Tram 17 ein, fahre bis zum Isartor und steige dort um. Dann fahre ich eine Station mit der U-Bahn bis Marienplatz und dort ist das Rathaus… |
| Frau: Ja, genau! |
| Joe: Super, danke! |
| Frau: Keine Ursache! |
| Joe: Excuse me... |
| Woman: Yes? |
| Joe: Could you help me out? I'd like to go to the city hall. |
| Woman: Of course. First you have to go to the stop called "Tivolistraße", and there you get on the number 17 Tram. |
| Joe: Oh, and where is the stop? |
| Woman: It's just in front of us at that large intersection, on the left side. |
| Joe: Ah, okay. |
| Woman: So, take the number 17 in the direction of Amalienburgstraße and travel up to the Isartor stop. |
| Joe: The 17 in the direction of Isartor... |
| Woman: No, the 17 UP TO the Isartor stop, and then change to the subway. |
| Joe: Ah, okay. I go to Isartor, and then I change to the subway. |
| Woman: Exactly. At Isartor you take a subway one station to Marienplatz. That's where the city hall is. |
| Joe: And which subway do I take? |
| Woman: It doesn't matter which one. The important thing is that the next stop is Marienplatz. You'll see it on the display panel. |
| Joe: Ahh. Good, so I get on Tram 17 over there, then travel to Isartor and transfer. Then I travel one station on the subway to Marienplatz, and that's where the city hall is. |
| Woman: Yes, precisely! |
| Joe: Great, thanks! |
| Woman: No problem! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Okay I think we covered traveling by long distance trains and we covered traveling by bus. How about we cover traveling by subway? |
| Chuck: Sounds good. That’s how we get to the studio after all. Isn’t it? |
| Judith: Yeah. |
| Chuck: Well I guess technically it was Light Rail.. |
| Judith: Yeah. |
| Chuck: But it works the same way as a subway. |
| Judith: Yeah to take one of these, you first have to figure out where the tickets are. This is confusing because it’s different in different cities. In Berlin, the ticket machines for the subway are on the track itself while the ticket machines for the tram, the M-Lines are inside the cars themselves. |
| Chuck: Yeah and notice that you have to stamp your tickets before getting in. Well that’s in Berlin. In Hamburg, you have to stamp them inside. |
| Judith: Yes inside the M-Trains, you also stamp them because you cannot have your ticket before you get in. Oh well, so in the one case, you have to buy and stamp your ticket before getting on and in the other case, you can only buy tickets when you are already in motion. Well you could also buy a subway or bus ticket and then hop on to the M-Line, I mean the tram with that because the same tickets are valid for all public transport within the city. |
| Chuck: Of course to avoid having any of these problems, if you are staying for a week, then just buy a week ticket. You just have to stamp it once and then it’s valid for the whole week and you don’t have to worry about it anymore. |
| Judith: That’s expensive though well… |
| Chuck: It depends on how much you are going to be traveling on the subway. |
| Judith: If you are relying on being able to buy a ticket from a machine, then you should make sure that you have enough Euros in change. Machines are intelligent enough to give you correct change if you pay too much but there is no person or machine that will break up bills for you if you only have bills. |
| Chuck: And likely if you put a €20 bill in the machine for a 2 euro ticket, you are going to be getting back a bunch of two euro coins. |
| Judith: Yes. It only gives back coins. You have to be lucky and find a machine that takes bills or find a machine that accepts your credit card or bank card. So this is something to take into account. |
| Chuck: And I just want to repeat, don’t forget to stamp your ticket because… |
| Judith: Yeah there should be a little machine which should be mounted on a pole near the ticket machine. |
| Chuck: It will either be on the track or it will be inside the tram depending on what city you are in Germany. |
| Judith: Near the ticket machine in any case. And it’s important to stamp it because without the stamp, it’s not valid. It would be impossible to distinguish between a ticket that you bought for now as opposed to a ticket that you intend to use later that week. |
| Chuck: Note there is no gate to enter where you put your ticket in. You just get on the train and sometimes they will check tickets usually towards the beginning of the month but they could check any time of course. |
| Judith: Yeah. German subways operate on an honor based system. It doesn’t work like in London where you have to always go through those gates. It’s really annoying. So here you can just go to the track or hop on, hop off whatever. You don’t need to get your ticket out for every time you do that. |
| Chuck: I think the main advantage of that is that you can easily transfer from say subway to a bus. There is no hassle at all. |
| Judith: Mmmhmm. Well if you get on a bus then a lot of cities want to see your ticket. You want to show it to the bus driver, get in at the front, show it to the bus driver and get on. |
| Chuck: Yeah it’s usually less of a hassle the other direction from a bus to a tram. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word is |
| Judith: Rathaus. |
| Chuck: Town hall or a city administration. |
| Judith: Rathaus. Rathaus. Das Rathaus and the plural is Rathäuser. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Zuerst. |
| Chuck: First or firstly. |
| Judith: Zuerst. Zuerst. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Haltestelle. |
| Chuck: Stop as in for buses or Light Rail. |
| Judith: Haltestelle. Haltestelle. Die Haltestelle and the plural is Haltestellen. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Tram. |
| Chuck: Light Rail or streetcar. |
| Judith: Tram. Tram. Die Tram and the plural is Trams. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Nummer. |
| Chuck: Number. |
| Judith: Nummer. Nummer. Die Nummer and plural is Nummern. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Kreuzung. |
| Chuck: Intersection. |
| Judith: Kreuzung. Kreuzung. Die Kreuzung and the plural is Kreuzungen. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Aussteigen. |
| Chuck: To get out. |
| Judith: Aussteigen. Aussteigen. And the aus splits off. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: U-Bahn. |
| Chuck: Subway. |
| Judith: U-Bahn. U-Bahn. Die U-Bahn and the plural is U-Bahnen. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Station. |
| Chuck: Stop or station. |
| Judith: Station. Station. Die Station and the plural is Stationen. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Egal. |
| Chuck: Doesn’t matter. |
| Judith: Egal. Egal. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Hauptsache. |
| Chuck: Main thing. |
| Judith: Hauptsache. Hauptsache. Die Hauptsache and the plural is Hauptsachen. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Halt. |
| Chuck: Stop. |
| Judith: Halt. Halt. Der Halt and the plural is Halte. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Ursache. |
| Chuck: Cause or reason. |
| Judith: Ursache. Ursache. Die Ursache and the plural is Ursachen. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: First we should have a closer look at the word vielleicht. |
| Chuck: Maybe. |
| Judith: Yeah normally this means perhaps but in the phrase Können Sie mir vielleicht helfen? it’s used to make the phrase more polite. |
| Chuck: Could you maybe help? |
| Judith: Yeah. It’s indicating that you understand if they can’t help. Without the vielleicht in that phrase, I might add bitte or I might swap the können for könnten. |
| Chuck: I would say a really, really useful time for this request would be saying Können Sie vielleicht Englisch sprechen? |
| Judith: Yeah you can say Können Sie vielleicht Englisch sprechen? indicating it’s okay if they can’t speak English, they are not making a fool of themselves. Könnten Sie vielleicht Englisch sprechen or Können Sie bitte Englisch sprechen? Any of those make the request more polite. Okay another word that we should look at is gleich. |
| Chuck: So far we’ve seen this is used as immediately or really soon. |
| Judith: However in the phrase Die Haltestelle ist gleich dort vorne, gleich means right like right there and one more phrase to look at Keine Ursache. |
| Chuck: It’s common to reply when someone is thanking you. |
| Judith: Yeah you could say bitte but if you say Keine Ursache that means it was no big deal. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is Dative after prepositions. In the first lessons of the series, we already looked at different forms that personal pronouns can take depending on whether they are the subject, the direct object or the indirect object of the sentence. You probably already noticed there is not just the personal pronouns that change. Noun phrases especially the articles also change. |
| Judith: So far we said that the accusative case is for direct objects and the dative case is for indirect objects. In the sentence Ich gebe ihm ein Geschenk. |
| Chuck: I give a present to him. |
| Judith: Ihm or to him is the indirect object because it comes after to. While ein Geschenk is the direct object. |
| Chuck: The dative is also used after many prepositions though and that’s something we should look at today. First you need to know the articles that show you that something is dative. Feminine words, the dative article is der. So it’s almost like feminine words are pretending to be masculine here. For masculine and also neuter words, the dative article is dem. Could you give me some example of that? |
| Judith: Sure Ich möchte gerne zum Rathaus where zum is actually zu dem it’s a combination. Ich möchte gerne zum Rathaus. |
| Chuck: I’d like to go to city hall. |
| Judith: Or Bis zum Isartor. |
| Chuck: Up to the Isar gate. |
| Judith: Bis zum Marienplatz. |
| Chuck: Up to the Marienplatz. |
| Judith: Zur Haltestelle Tivolistraße and zur is zu der. |
| Chuck: To the stop Tivolistraße. |
| Judith: Zur U-Bahn. |
| Chuck: To the subway. |
| Judith: An der großen Kreuzung. |
| Chuck: At the big intersection. |
| Judith: Notice it’s die Kreuzung. So now we say An der Kreuzung for dative. An der großen Kreuzung. An der Anzeigetafel. |
| Chuck: On the screen. |
| Judith: Am Isartor and am is an dem. Am Isartor. |
| Chuck: At the Isar gate. |
| Judith: Auf der linken Seite. |
| Chuck: On the left side. |
| Judith: Careful. In die Tram and In die U-Bahn are not dative they are accusative. Otherwise it would have to be In der Tram and In der U-Bahn. It is actually possible to say both but with a vastly different meaning. In der Tram means |
| Chuck: In the tram. |
| Judith: No surprise there. In die Tram |
| Chuck: Into the tram. |
| Judith: Wow. This is the difference between dative and accusative in German. We only have the word in, we don’t have a special word for into but into is shown by using in with an accusative rather than the dative that everyone expects. So in der Tram is in the tram and in die Tram is into the tram. Similarly In der U-Bahn |
| Chuck: In the subway. |
| Judith: In die U-Bahn. |
| Chuck: Into the subway. In German, the entire difference between in and into is the case that follows. I think this is confusing you a bit. So we will investigate this more later. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. |
| Judith: Ready to test what you just learned. |
| Chuck: Make this lesson’s vocabulary stick by using lesson specific flashcards. |
| Judith: There is a reason everyone uses flashcards. |
| Chuck: They work. |
| Judith: They really do help memorization. |
| Chuck: You can get the flashcards for this lesson at |
| Judith: Germanpod101.com. |
| Chuck: Okay see you next week. |
| Judith: Also, bis nächste Woche. |
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