Learn about German reflexive verbs and German bathrooms
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Season 4, Lesson 4 – “Get Yourself Ready For German!” |
| Judith: Hi! My name is Judith and I’m joined here by Chuck. |
| Chuck: Hello everyone and welcome back to GermanPod101.com. |
| Judith: What are we learning today? |
| Chuck: In this lesson you’ll learn how to talk about everyday actions. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place on the phone. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Joe and Anke. Joe has just arrived in Berlin. |
| Judith: The speakers are friends therefore they will be speaking informal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| J: Joe Cardigan. |
| A: Hallo Joe! Wie geht's? |
| J: Gut, danke. Und selbst? |
| A: Auch gut. Bist du jetzt in deinem Hotel? |
| J: Ja. Ich bin gerade beim Auspacken. |
| A: Ich kann es kaum erwarten, dich zu sehen. Hast du Lust, heute mit mir zu Abend zu essen? |
| J: Heute? Ja, wieso nicht. Gehen wir in ein Restaurant oder kochst du etwas? |
| A: Ich habe heute keine Lust, etwas zu kochen. Außerdem ist heute ein besonderer Tag. Lass uns in ein Restaurant gehen. |
| J: Okay. |
| A: Ich kann dich in etwa einer halben Stunde in deinem Hotel abholen. |
| J: In einer halben Stunde?? Das ist zu bald. Ich muss erst fertig auspacken.... |
| A: Das dauert doch keine halbe Stunde! |
| J: Und dann möchte ich mich erst duschen, mir die Zähne putzen und mir etwas anderes anziehen. Nach einem langen Flug fühle ich mich immer so dreckig. |
| A: Das verstehe ich. Also, wann sollen wir uns treffen? |
| J: Komm in einer Stunde, dann bin ich auf jeden Fall fertig. |
| J: Joe Cardigan. |
| A: Hello Joe! How's it going? |
| J: Good, thanks. And yourself? |
| A: Also good. Are you in your hotel now? |
| J: Yes. I'm currently unpacking. |
| A: I can hardly wait to see you. Would you like to eat dinner with me this evening? |
| J: Today? Yes, why not. Are we going to a restaurant or are you cooking? |
| A: Today, I don't want to cook something. Besides, today is a special day. Let's go to to a restaurant. |
| J: Okay. |
| A: I can pick you up at the hotel in about a half hour. |
| J: In a half hour?? That's too soon. I have to finish unpacking first... |
| A: That doesn't take a half hour! |
| J: And then I'd like to have a shower, brush my teeth, and put something else on. After a long flight I always feel so dirty. |
| A: I understand. So, when should we meet? |
| J: Come in an hour, then I'll be ready for sure. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: So, he’s getting ready. How about we talk a bit about the differences in German bathrooms and washing up, things like that? |
| Chuck: Alright, sounds good. |
| Judith: One thing that you might notice is that many Germans turn off the water while showering. It’s good for the environment. |
| Chuck: I also noticed that in some German homes they have hot water turned down for showering only at certain times of the day. So they might have to turn on the hot water for you if you want to shower the time they don’t normally shower. Also, you’ll notice on the toilets there’s often a button to have it stop flushing. |
| Judith: All of these are for environmental reasons. There are also some differences that have nothing to do with environment, for example in German homes you’re typically able to hold the shower head and to move it around. |
| Chuck: You notice that pretty much everyone uses liquid shower gel, even men. Oh and, that means it would be quite hard to find bar soaps sometimes. |
| Judith: The light switches are often outside the bathroom, not inside. |
| Chuck: The washing machine is usually in the bathroom or in the basement. There’s a shared space for hanging up clothes in big apartment buildings and you don’t see driers used that often. |
| Judith: No, because drying machines are not very good for your clothes. |
| Chuck: This and they use a lot of electricity. |
| Judith: Laundromats are lot less common. |
| Chuck: But saunas are more popular. |
| Judith: So you know what you’re going to do? You spend a lot less time at a Laundromat and you use the time to get a sauna. |
| Chuck: Sounds good. But now I think we’re going to take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word we shall see is? |
| Judith: [selbst]. |
| Chuck: “Oneself, myself, yourself” or “even”. |
| Judith: [selbst, selbst]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [packen, packen]. |
| Chuck: “To pack”. |
| Judith: [packen]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [kaum]. |
| Chuck: “Hardly”. |
| Judith: [kaum, kaum]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Lust]. |
| Chuck: “Passion” or “inclination”. |
| Judith: [Lust, die Lust]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [ausserdem]. |
| Chuck: “Besides”. |
| Judith: [ausserdem, ausserdem]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Stunde]. |
| Chuck: “Hour”. |
| Judith: [Stunde, die Stunde] and the plural is [Stunden]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [abholen]. |
| Chuck: “To pick up”. |
| Judith: [abholen, abholen] and the [ab] splits off. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [fertig]. |
| Chuck: “Completed” or “ready”. |
| Judith: [fertig, fertig]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [duschen]. |
| Chuck: “To shower”. |
| Judith: [duschen, duschen]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Zahn]. |
| Chuck: “Tooth”. |
| Judith: [Zahn, der Zahn] and the plural is [die Zähne]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [putzen]. |
| Chuck: “To brush”. |
| Judith: [putzen, putzen]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [sich anziehen]. |
| Chuck: “To get dressed”. |
| Judith: [sich anziehen, sich anziehen] and [an] splits off. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [sich fühlen]. |
| Chuck: “To feel” as in a certain way. |
| Judith: [sich fühlen, sich fühlen]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [dreckig]. |
| Chuck: “Filthy” or “dirty”. |
| Judith: [dreckig, dreckig]. |
| 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 we’ll look at is [und selbst], this is a very colloquial way of asking [Und du?]. [Selbst] normally means “oneself” when you want to indicate “he did that himself”, “they did that themselves” or that like. Next thing is that from [packen] we derive [auspacken]. |
| Chuck: “To unpack”. |
| Judith: The prefix [aus] is suitable because things end up being outside your suitcase. There’s also [einpacken] |
| Chuck: “To pack up”. |
| Judith: This is for packing stuff into your container. The next phrase is [Lust haben]. |
| Chuck: “To be in the mood”. |
| Judith: It’s a said expression. Similarly [keine Lust haben] is “not to be in the mood”. Then, there is [zu Abend essen] |
| Chuck: “To have dinner”. |
| Judith: Similarly you could say [zu Mittag essen]. |
| Chuck: “To have lunch”. |
| Judith: But [zu Morgen essen] doesn’t work. You have to say [frühstücken]. |
| Chuck: To be sure you use [frühstücken] without [zu]. |
| Judith: [Fertig] can be translated as “ready”, but it always implies being done with something. You can’t say [Ich bin fertig] if you just being relaxing and you can’t say [Ich bin fertig] if you’ve just been relaxing and you’re ready to go out now. For that we’d use the word [bereit]. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is reflexive verbs. Reflexive verbs are verbs that refer back to the subject. In English you can recognize such a verb because it’s used with a pronoun ending in “self” or “selves”. For example “I dry myself off”. In German? |
| Judith: [Ich trockne mich ab]. |
| Chuck: You probably recognize the [mich] as the accusative of [Ich], in German there are no special pronouns for these reflexive verbs that just use the accusative special pronouns, except that the third person singular and plural is always [sich]. |
| Judith: So, it is [Er wäscht sich]. |
| Chuck: “He washes himself”. |
| Judith: Rather than [Er wäscht ihn] would mean he washes some other male person or maybe the [ihn] can also reference an object that’s grammatically masculine in German. |
| Chuck: A lot of verbs are reflexive or not as the above case demonstrates. You could wash yourself, which would be reflexive, but you could also wash your car which would not be reflexive. |
| Judith: A special case is when you’re washing something that is a part of you, for example your face. [Das Gesicht] then, the verb is still considered reflexive, but on the other hand you need an accusative object to indicate what you’re washing. |
| Chuck: And that’s a problem because German sentences must not have two accusative objects at the same time. You, to indicate that’s being reflexive and your face. So, what happens is that the pronoun would be dative instead then, but still [sich] if it’s third person. |
| Judith: You’d say [ich wasche mir das Gesicht]. |
| Chuck: Translates quite funnily to “I wash myself the face”. |
| Judith: This is the only quirky part about reflexive verbs in German, but you’ll get used to it quickly as you’d hear it more often. In today’s lesson, we saw the reflexive verb [sich duschen]. |
| Chuck: “To shower”. |
| Judith: [sich anziehen]. |
| Chuck: “To dress”. |
| Judith: [sich fühlen]. |
| Chuck: “To feel”. |
| Judith: [sich treffen]. |
| Chuck: “To meet”. |
| Judith: And [sich die Zäne putzen]. |
| Chuck: “To brush one’s teeth”. |
| Judith: These verbs are not translated reflexively in English, but the [sich] in the German dictionary entry tells you that you have to use them as a reflexive pronoun in German. There’re a lot of German verbs that are reflexive when English ones are not. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today! |
| Judith: Listeners! Can you understand German TV shows, movies or songs? |
| Chuck: How about friends and loved ones? Conversations in German? |
| Judith: If you want to know what’s going on, we have a tool to help! |
| Chuck: Line by line audio. |
| Judith: Listen to the listen conversations line by line and learn to understand natural German fast. |
| Chuck: It’s simple, really! |
| Judith: With a click of a button, listen to each line of the conversation. |
| Chuck: Listen again and again until your ears are natural German. |
| Judith: Rapidly understand natural German with this powerful tool. |
| Chuck: Find this feature on lesson’s page in the premium member resources at GermanPod101.com. So, see you next week! |
| Judith: [Also bis nächste Woche]! |
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