Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to tonight’s round of German Questions Extraordinaire!
Does that sound like a quiz show you would watch? It would certainly help out your German!
Perhaps you’ve realized that every time you have a German conversation, you’re kind of on a quiz show yourself. Conversations tend to be built around questions and answers—especially the kinds of conversations that you’re likely to have as a foreign student of German.
Therefore, practicing the following German questions and answers for beginners will provide you with the tools you need to sail through opening conversations like they’re nothing.
In a typical German conversation, questions and answers like the ones we’ll introduce today will come up all the time. Try them out now and see how you like them!
- → Before continuing, we recommend that you check out our vocabulary lists on the Top 10 Lines You Need for Introducing Yourself and the Top 15 Questions You Should Know for Conversations.
Table of Contents
- Contestant Number One
- You and Your Home
- Whose Language is it Anyway?
- Language Follow-Ups
- Travel Time
- Compare a Few Places
- All Eyes on Food
- What Do You Do?
- What’s Going On?
- The Price is Right
- Conclusion
1. Contestant Number One
- Wie heißen Sie?
“What’s your name?”
We begin the show today with the verb heißen, meaning “to be called.” As you can see, the pronoun here is the formal Sie, as opposed to the informal du. In general, younger people and people commenting online use du with one another (there’s even a verb for that: duzen), while one would use Sie with older people and in very formal situations.
To answer the question, simply use the same verb:
- Ich heiße Martin.
“My name is Martin.”
There’s actually another way to form this sentence that’s perhaps a little less common, but still familiar amongst native German-speakers. This one is a near-carbon copy of the English question:
- Wie ist ihr Name?
“What is your name?”
- Mein Name ist Gloria.
“My name is Gloria.”
The only difference compared to the English version is that German uses wie, meaning “how,” here instead of was, or “what.”
2. You and Your Home
Log on to any online language chat room and introduce yourself as a German-learner; people will absolutely ask you where you’re from. It’ll happen in Germany, too!
- Woher kommen Sie?
“Where do you come from?”
The first word here, woher, is an interesting quirk of German grammar. It means “from where” because wo is the “where” part and her is a particle meaning “to here.” So literally, you’re saying “From where to here do you come?”
To answer, we’ll need a preposition:
- Ich komme aus Ungarn.
“I come from Hungary.”
Aus simply means “out,” so literally, you’re expressing coming “out of a place.” There’s no need to use the her particle because it’s already been established by the context and the preposition.
3. Whose Language is it Anyway?
Let’s bring ourselves back to the basics for a moment. Here’s a German question you probably heard in movies long before you actually started studying the language.
- Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
“Do you speak German?”
Germans traveling abroad sometimes seem to have a sixth sense about who can speak German. You may end up getting this question even if you’re not in Germany!
There are a couple of good answers, depending on your comfort level.
- Ja, ein bisschen.
“Yes, a little.”
- Ja, wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?
“Yeah, what can I do for you?”
- Natürlich!
“Of course!”
If you find yourself lost for words in German-speaking lands, it’s a good idea to learn the names of other languages you can handle, just in case.
- Sprechen Sie Japanisch?
“Do you speak Japanese?”
- Können Sie Englisch?
“Can you speak English?”
There’s another German quirk right there: it’s acceptable to say “I can English” without specifying the verb “to speak.” Don’t try that with other skills, though. That sentence structure is reserved only for languages!
4. Language Follow-Ups
Once you’ve established that you’re not from Germany and are, in fact, capable of speaking the German language, people tend to get curious. After all, they’ve probably met at least one foreigner with pretty flawed German, and you, on the other hand, are doing quite well.
- Wie lange lernen Sie schon Deutsch?
“How long have you been learning German?”
German doesn’t have a tense that corresponds to “have been doing” in English. Instead, Germans simply use the present tense. The answer works the same way:
- Ich lerne Deutsch seit vier Jahren.
“I’ve been learning German for four years.”
The use of seit, meaning “since,” instead of für, meaning “for,” causes confusion in both German and English. Look carefully for people making this mistake in English-language internet comments, and you’ll probably find a couple of Germans!
The use of schon, or “already,” is optional here, but it can be readily adopted into the answer as well:
- Schon elf Jahre.
“Eleven years already.”
5. Travel Time
Let’s assume that you’re learning German at home in a country far away from Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. If you happen to come across a native speaker and strike up a conversation, you may get tossed this question:
- Waren Sie schon mal in Deutschland?
“Have you ever been to Germany?”
Here, we’re substituting waren, or “were,” as the past tense instead of the English “have you ever been.” It’s possible to say that in German, of course:
- Sind Sie schon mal in Deutschland gewesen?
“Have you ever been to Germany?”
However, this is rather stilted and definitely a mark of older speech or writing.
Also note the use of mal. This literally means “time” or “occurrence,” as in “one time, two times…” Here, it doesn’t really have a word-for-word translation; instead, it simply lends the flavor of “ever been.” You can think of schon mal as a set phrase in that regard.
- Ich war 2015 in Berlin.
“I went to Berlin in 2015.”
- Ja, dreimal insgesamt.
“Yeah, three times in total.”
Here, mal has its traditional meaning as part of dreimal, or “three times.”
6. Compare a Few Places
Germans are educated folks, and they tend to be quite open to traveling and new perspectives. Just go on YouTube and look for kultur shock (culture shock) to find a bunch of different vloggers talking about their experiences abroad.
It’s not uncommon for a German conversation to include a genuinely interested question about what things are like in your country.
- Und wie ist es in Amerika?
“And what is it like in America?”
- Gibt es so etwas in Mexiko?
“Do they have this in Mexico?”
You can, of course, give as simple or as complicated of an answer as you want. In fact, some of the most high-level German exams ask you specifically to compare things in your home country to those in Germany.
So you have virtually unlimited options for description here. Let’s keep it basic with these sample answers:
- Nein, so was haben wir gar nicht!
“No, we don’t have that kind of thing at all!”
- Ja, aber es ist bei uns anders.
“Yes, but it’s different with us.”
Again, we can see some differences in the way that English and German use prepositions. It’s bei uns, meaning “by us,” instead of mit uns, or “with us.”
7. All Eyes on Food
Germans probably wouldn’t say that they’re particularly proud of German food, but it’s a common-enough conversation topic that it’s good to practice. Here are some good questions in German you can try out.
- Was mögen Sie an deutsches Essen?
“What do you like about German food?”
- Mögen Sie deutsches Essen?
“Do you like German food?”
This is a situation where telling a bit of a white lie doesn’t hurt (assuming you’re not a fan of the food, of course).
- Ja, alles schmeckt sehr gut!
“Yes, everything tastes very good!”
- Ich esse gern Weißwurst.
“I like eating white sausage.”
Here we’ve got the great particle gern, which can’t really be translated on its own, but instead is used after a verb to express enjoyment of that action.
8. What Do You Do?
Everybody’s got to do something to bring home the bacon. How about you?
- Was machen Sie beruflich?
“What do you do for your job?”
If you haven’t already brushed up on the names for jobs and careers in German, definitely check out our vocab list.
People aren’t going to need a complicated description of what you do, especially if you’re in a niche field like insurance or SEO marketing.
Instead, stick to a general field:
- Ich schreibe Werbungen.
“I write advertisements.”
- Ich bin Krankenschwester.
“I’m a nurse.”
Remember, when you talk about job titles in German, you don’t need to use an article the way you would in English.
9. What’s Going On?
To be frank, an introduction question like this is much more of a set phrase than an actual inquiry into your well-being.
- Wie geht es Ihnen?
“How’s it going?”
The easy answer is Gut or Sehr gut, but your answer could also be the opening to any one of several classic conversation topics.
- Nicht so gut bei diesem Wetter!
“Not so well in this weather!”
10. The Price is Right
Germany isn’t really a country known for street markets or haggling, but a phrase for asking the cost of something is one worth knowing.
- Wie viel kostet es?
“How much does it cost?”
Even if you’re not haggling, you can still get use out of this phrase in cafes and restaurants that might not have all of the prices posted.
- Es kostet zwei Euro.
“It costs two euros.”
Just as we’re wrapping up here, we get a nice sentence that perfectly maps onto English. The only thing to note is that wie viel, or “how much,” is sometimes written as one word: wieviel. But with the new spelling reforms of the 21st century, using two words is considered correct.
11. Conclusion
Congratulations! You’ve won a ticket to German fluency!
These common German questions and answers represent just the smallest beginning of the wide expanse of German conversations available to you.
For more excellent resources to take you from the beginning all the way through advanced German levels, try out GermanPod101! Listening to real-life situations in podcasts and following along with the transcripts and vocab lists will help you pick up the German language smoothly and painlessly.
Check it out now, and watch your questions about German disappear into thin air!
Before you go, why not try practicing these questions and answers in German straight away? Answer one or more of the questions in this article in German. We look forward to hearing from you!
