Learn about the must-see sights in Germany, past participles, and the perfect tense
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Season 4, Lesson 13 – “How Many of The German Sights Have You Already Seen?” Hello and welcome back to GermanPod101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn German. I’m joined in the studio by? |
| Judith: Hello everyone, [Judith] here. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to get to know new people at a conference. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place in front of the lecture hall where opening speeches are being held. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Joe and Christina, the young German woman. |
| Judith: The speakers don’t know each other yet, therefore they will be speaking formal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Christina: Sie wollen zur Eröffnung? |
| Joe: Ja. |
| Christina: Da brauchen Sie nicht hingehen. Ich komme gerade von da und die Reden sind sehr langweilig. |
| Joe: Danke, das habe ich mir schon gedacht. Ich habe mich einfach gerade angemeldet und jetzt habe ich nichts anderes zu tun, bis die Workshops und Fachvorträge anfangen. |
| Christina: Ich habe auch nichts zu tun, aber die Reden sind mir trotzdem zu langweilig. Wieso unterhalten wir uns nicht einfach? Ich bin übrigens Christina Baumeister. |
| Joe: Angenehm, Sie kennen zu lernen. Ich heiße Joe Cardigan. Hier ist meine Visitenkarte. |
| Christina: Danke. Ahh, Sie kommen aus Washington? |
| Joe: Na ja, ich wohne in Washington, aber ich habe einen kanadischen Pass. |
| Christina: Und wie lange sind Sie jetzt schon in Berlin? |
| Joe: Erst seit gestern. |
| Christina: Oh. Sie sind nur für die Konferenz hier? |
| Joe: Ja, dieses Mal habe ich nicht viel Zeit, Berlin zu besuchen. Aber ich war letztes Jahr schon in Berlin. Letztes Jahr habe ich viel von Berlin gesehen. |
| Christina: Was denn? |
| Joe: Na, ich habe alle bekannten Sehenswürdigkeiten besichtigt und ich habe auch ein bisschen davon mitgekriegt, wie Deutsche leben. Zum Beispiel haben mich Deutsche eingeladen, mit ihnen zusammen Fußball zu gucken! |
| Christina: Ja, Fußball ist ein sehr beliebter Sport in Deutschland, aber ich habe mir noch nie gerne Fußballspiele angeguckt. |
| Joe: Warum nicht? |
| Christina: Ich interessiere mich einfach nicht dafür. Haben Sie auch andere Teile von Deutschland gesehen? |
| Joe: Ja, ich habe auch einen Zug nach München genommen, aber leider habe ich die anderen Städte zeitlich nicht mehr geschafft. Vielleicht ein anderes Mal. |
| Christina: You want to go to the opening ceremony? |
| Joe: Yes. |
| Christina: You don't need to go. I just came from there and the speeches are really boring. |
| Joe: Thanks, that's what I thought. I just signed in and now I have nothing else to do until the workshops and technical lectures start. |
| Christina: I also have nothing to do, but the speeches are still too boring for me. Why don't we just talk? I'm Christina Baumeister, by the way. |
| Joe: Pleased to meet you. I'm Joe Cardigan. Here's my business card. |
| Christina: Thanks. Ahh, you come from Washington? |
| Joe: Well, yes, I live in Washington, but I have a Canadian passport. |
| Christina: And how long have you been in Berlin? |
| Joe: Just since yesterday. |
| Christina: Oh, you're just here for the conference? |
| Joe: Yes, this time I don't have much time to see Berlin. But last year I was already in Berlin. Last year I saw a lot of Berlin. |
| Christina: Like what? |
| Joe: Well, I saw all of the well-known attractions and I learned a bit about how Germans live. For example, Germans invited me to watch soccer together with them! |
| Christina: Yes, soccer is a very popular sport in Germany, but I never really enjoyed watching soccer games. |
| Joe: Why not? |
| Christina: I'm just not interested in it. Have you also seen other parts of Germany? |
| Joe: Yes, I also took a train to Munich, but unfortunately I wasn't able to go to other cities due to time constraints. Maybe another time. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Okay, so Joe has basically only seen Berlin and Munich. What do you think? What are some places that people should see in Germany, I mean, Berlin obviously if you’re into history. Berlin is a must see. But for history, you could also go to, let’s say, left side of the [Roman ruins] and look at some Roman ruins. |
| Chuck: And Germany is also home to the Neanderthal Valley where you can learn about the Neanderthal men. |
| Judith: Yeah, that’s in the [Ruhrgebiet], near Dusseldorf and there’re also medieval castles, especially in the South-West. |
| Chuck: In the Southern part of Germany is the only place where you can find high mountains. |
| Judith: Yes, the Alps. I mean, in the middle of Germany there’re a few mountains, but not so high and if you go to the South-Western part of Germany, it’s a great place for hiking at the Black Forest. |
| Chuck: Or note that Germany is almost very flat, it’s excellent for cycling and people who like the beach can also come to North, Germany even has some islands, something a few foreigners know. |
| Judith: Yes. Frankfurt has the most modern architecture and its home for the German stock exchange. I mean from the picture of the city, it looks the most American out of all German cities. |
| Chuck: Yeah, some people joke [Frankfurt], so the Frankfurt [am Manhatten, Frankfurtam Main]. |
| Judith: Yeah, but if you want to see some traditional German kind of housing and architecture, then you should go to, say [Dresden] or [Cologne, Heidelberg, Nuremberg, Munich] all of these places are great places to see beautiful old architecture. |
| Chuck: And doesn’t matter where you’re visiting Germany, you can also drink great beer. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word we shall see is? |
| Judith: [Seminar] |
| Chuck: “Workshop” or “seminar”. |
| Judith: [Seminar, das Seminar] and the plural is [Seminare]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Fach] |
| Chuck: “Subject” or “filled expertise”. |
| Judith: [Fach, das Fach] and the plural is [Fächer]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [sich unterhalten] |
| Chuck: “Have a conversation” or “entertain each other”. |
| Judith: [sich unterhalten, sich unterhalten] and this is a vowel changing verb so [Er unterhält sich]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [übrigens] |
| Chuck: “By the way”. |
| Judith: [übrigens, übrigens] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Visitenkarte] |
| Chuck: “Business card”. |
| Judith: [Visitenkarte, die Visitenkarte] and the plural is [Visitenkarten] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [kanadisch] |
| Chuck: “Canadian”. |
| Judith: [kanadisch, kanadisch] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Gestern] |
| Chuck: “Yesterday”. |
| Judith: [Gestern, gestern] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Jahr] |
| Chuck: “Year”. |
| Judith: [Jahr, das Jahr] and the plural is [Jahre]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [mitkriegen] |
| Chuck: “To get a share of” or “to pick up on something”. |
| Judith: [mitkriegen] and the [mit] splits off. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [einladen] |
| Chuck: “To invite”. |
| Judith: [einladen, einladen] this is also a vowel changing verb so [Er lädt ein]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [beliebt] |
| Chuck: “Popular”. |
| Judith: [beliebt, beliebt] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [sich interessieren] |
| Chuck: “To be interested” or “to interest”. |
| Judith: [sich interessieren, sich interessieren] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [zeitlich] |
| Chuck: “Chronological, temporal” or [unintelligible 00:04:56] |
| Judith: [zeitlich, zeitlich] |
| 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 [Die reden sind mir zu langweilig] |
| Chuck: “I find the speeches too boring.” |
| Judith: Literally “They’re took boring to me”, similarly you could say [Es ist mir zu einfach]. |
| Chuck: “It’s too easy for me.” |
| Judith: Next, the [Fach] in the compound nouns means “technical” or “professional”. Relating to one field of knowledge, for example [Fachwörter]. |
| Chuck: “Technical vocabulary”. |
| Judith: [Fachvortrag] |
| Chuck: “Lecture for professionals”. |
| Judith: And [Facharbeiter]. |
| Chuck: “Skilled worker”. |
| Judith: Then, another note about the verb [sich interessieren] |
| Chuck: “To be interested”. |
| Judith: In German it requires the preposition [für], so [Ich interessiere mich für etwas]. |
| Chuck: Literally “I’m interested for something”. |
| Judith: This is where we had to use [dafür] in the phrase, [Ich interessiere mich nicht dafür]. |
| Chuck: “I’m not interested in that.” |
| Judith: Finally, [Es zeitlich nicht schaffen]. |
| Chuck: Literally “Not accomplished something chronologically.” |
| Judith: It’s a German way of saying “not to have enough time”, it sounds really weird in English but in German it’s okay to say. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is the past participle and perfect tense. Let’s continue our study of the German past participle. |
| Judith: In Lesson 8, we already learned that the past participle is typically formed by adding “ge” before the third person singular, that is the “he, she, it” present tense form of a verb. For example [sagen] becomes [gesagt]. |
| Chuck: However, there’s one large group of verbs for which this isn’t true; the vowel changing verbs. Whenever there would be a vowel change for this particular form, the participle is formed based on the infinitive instead. |
| Judith: For example [sehen] normally it would be [Er sieht], so instead of that we get [gesehen]. |
| Chuck: “Seen”. |
| Judith: And [geben] you know it would normally be [Er gibt] instead we get [gegeben]. |
| Chuck: “Given”. Keep in mind that when you have a verb with a prefix, it would always behave in the same way as the base verb. Could you give us some examples with that as well, [Judith]? |
| Judith: Of course, so [ansehen] you know it’s [Er sieht an], but [angesehen]. |
| Chuck: “Looked at”. |
| Judith: [vergeben, Er vergibt, vergeben] |
| Chuck: “Forgiven”. |
| Judith: [ankommen, angekommen] |
| Chuck: “Arrived”. |
| Judith: [bekommen, bekommen] remember that when you have a non-splitting prefix, then then “ge” is just lost. Past participles are not just used on their own. They’re also necessarily for various tenses. |
| Chuck: In today’s dialogue, we already saw them used with the auxiliary verb [haben] to form the perfect tense. |
| Judith: This time it works just like in English, for example [Ich habe gearbeitet]. |
| Chuck: “I have worked.” |
| Judith: [Haben Sie München gesehen?] |
| Chuck: “Have you seen Munich?” |
| Judith: [Er hat hier gewohnt]. |
| Chuck: “He has lived here.” |
| Judith: And so on. |
Outro |
| Chuck: This is an incredibly useful tense, be sure to practice it. I know I have practiced it. That just about does it for today! |
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| Judith: Get these easy instructions at GermanPod101.com/german-phrases. |
| Chuck: So, see you next time! |
| Judith: [Also bis nächstes Mal!] |
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