Learn about vowel-changing verbs
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina: Hello and Welcome back to GermanPod101.com. This is Absolute Beginner Season 3, Lesson 12: “An Amazing German Vowel-changing verb”. I’m Gina. |
| Frank: Hello, everyone, Frank here. |
| Gina: In this lesson, you’ll learn about vowel-changing verbs in German. |
| Frank: This conversation takes place at the language school. |
| Gina: It’s between Kate and Frank, a fellow student. |
| Frank: Since the speakers are both students and around the same age, they’ll be using informal German. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Frank: Hallo! Mein Name ist Frank. Bist du auch neu hier? |
| Kate: Ja. Ich bin auch neu. Ich heiße Kate. Woher kommst du, Frank? |
| Frank: Ich komme aus Österreich. Und du? |
| Kate: England. Sprichst du auch Englisch? |
| Frank: Wenig. Ich lerne hier seit fünf Jahren Spanisch. Hast du ein deutsches Handy? |
| Kate: Ja. |
| Frank: Was ist deine Handynummer? |
| Kate: 0173/48506229. |
| Frank: Danke. Meine ist 0151/36148297. |
| Gina: Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Frank: Hallo! Mein Name ist Frank. Bist du auch neu hier? |
| Kate: Ja. Ich bin auch neu. Ich heiße Kate. Woher kommst du, Frank? |
| Frank: Ich komme aus Österreich. Und du? |
| Kate: England. Sprichst du auch Englisch? |
| Frank: Wenig. Ich lerne hier seit fünf Jahren Spanisch. Hast du ein deutsches Handy? |
| Kate: Ja. |
| Frank: Was ist deine Handynummer? |
| Kate: 0173/48506229. |
| Frank: Danke. Meine ist 0151/36148297. |
| Gina: Now, let's hear it with English translation. |
| Frank: Hallo! Mein Name ist Frank. Bist du auch neu hier? |
| Gina: Hello! My name is Frank. Are you also new here? |
| Kate: Ja. Ich bin auch neu. Ich heiße Kate. Woher kommst du, Frank? |
| Gina: Yes. I'm new. My name is Kate. Where are you from, Frank? |
| Frank: Ich komme aus Österreich. Und du? |
| Gina: I'm from Austria. And you? |
| Kate: England. Sprichst du auch Englisch? |
| Gina: England. Do you also speak English? |
| Frank: Wenig. Ich lerne hier seit fünf Jahren Spanisch. Hast du ein deutsches Handy? |
| Gina: Just a little! I've been learning Spanish for five years. Do you have a German mobile? |
| Kate: Ja. |
| Gina: Yes. |
| Frank: Was ist deine Handynummer? |
| Gina: What is your mobile phone number? |
| Kate: 0173/48506229. |
| Gina: 0173/48506229. |
| Frank: Danke. Meine ist 0151/36148297. |
| Gina: Thanks. Mine is 0151/36148297. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Frank: Denglisch is what we call English words that German is adopting right now. We heard one in the dialog, handy. |
| Gina: It means “cell phone” or “mobile phone” |
| Frank: Another example is the word “meeting”; this word is tricky because people argue about the gender and what plural it should take. |
| Gina: Very often, they’ll just use the English plural, minus the rules that Germans can’t remember. |
| Frank: Yes. For example, “hobby” becomes “hobbys”. |
| Gina: but with “-y, s” instead of "-i, e, s." |
| Frank: Yes. It’s frustrating. However, there are also some words that have familiar endings for which there already is a rule in German. So they'll just follow that rule. For example, the plural of investor is Investoren. |
| Gina: There’s a lot of fake English in German too. Everybody will tell you that these words are English. But you may have never heard them before, at least not with that meaning. |
| Frank: Yeah, things like Handy. |
| Gina: Again, “cell phone” or “mobile phone” |
| Frank: Or call shop. |
| Gina: A place to make cheap calls to other countries. |
| Frank: Or beamer. |
| Gina: “Projector”. Okay, enough about Denglisch! Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Gina: The first word we shall see is... |
| Frank: neu [natural native speed] |
| Gina: new |
| Frank: neu [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: neu [natural native speed] |
| Frank: geben [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to give |
| Frank: geben [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: geben [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Englisch [natural native speed] |
| Gina: English language |
| Frank: Englisch [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Englisch [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Spanisch [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Spanish |
| Frank: Spanisch [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Spanisch [natural native speed] |
| Frank: woher [natural native speed] |
| Gina: from where |
| Frank: woher [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: woher [natural native speed] |
| Frank: schon [natural native speed] |
| Gina : already |
| Frank: schon [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank : schon [natural native speed] |
| Frank: sprechen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to speak |
| Frank: sprechen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: sprechen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Österreich [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Austria |
| Frank: Österreich [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Österreich [natural native speed] |
| Frank: dein [natural native speed] |
| Gina: your (informal) |
| Frank: dein [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: dein [natural native speed] |
| Frank: wenig [natural native speed] |
| Gina: little |
| Frank: wenig [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: wenig [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. What’s the first word? |
| Frank: Handynummer |
| Gina: “Cellphone number”. This can be separated into two words. |
| Frank: Handynummer is a compound noun consisting of the word Handy, which means “mobile phone”, and Nummer, the German word for “number”. |
| Gina: Which means that it’s two nouns stuck together. |
| Frank: Yes, well German is definitely a language of compound nouns! And they are notorious for it! |
| Gina: It’s true! So whenever there are two nouns next to each other that form one unit of meaning, in German we write them down as one word without a space. |
| Frank: Correct. Okay, now we should talk about zwei |
| Gina: which means “two”. |
| Frank: Zwei is also pronounced zwo when you’re giving out phone numbers. This is to make it easier to distinguish between zwei and drei. However, it’s not mandatory to pronounce zwo so long as you say it clearly. |
| Gina: Alright, on to the last word. |
| Frank: Englisch |
| Gina: “English” That’s easy! But beware, it’s not to be confused with an adjective in German. |
| Frank: In this case, Englisch, much like Spanisch in the dialogue, is a noun and refers to the language that is spoken as opposed to the people. |
| Gina: Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina: In this lesson, you’ll learn about vowel-changing verbs. |
| Frank: You've seen the verb essen before, meaning “to eat”. |
| Gina: This verb is not quite regular. And it’s actually part of a group of verbs called vowel-changing verbs. |
| Frank: Right, the thing these verbs all have in common is that they change their stem vowel at some point. |
| Gina: Yes, and they always change their stem vowel for the second and third person singular. |
| Frank: The du, er, sie, and es forms. |
| Gina: Let’s go through the forms for some of the vowel-changing verbs you've encountered so far. |
| Frank: Let’s start with the verb essen. |
| Gina: “to eat” |
| Frank: ich esse |
| Gina: “I eat”, or “I'm eating” |
| Frank: du isst |
| Gina: “you eat”, or “you're eating” Can you hear the difference here, listeners? |
| Frank: er isst, sie isst, es isst |
| Gina: “he eats” or “he's eating”, “she eats” or “she's eating”, and “it eats” or “it's eating”, respectively |
| Frank: One more time, repeat after me listeners - er isst, (pause) sie isst, (pause) es isst (pause) |
| Gina: Now let’s try the verb “to give” |
| Frank: geben |
| Gina: So “I give” is |
| Frank: ich gebe, ich gebe (slow) |
| Gina: What about “you give”? |
| Frank: du gibst |
| Gina: One more time? |
| Frank: du gibst |
| Gina: Now let’s move on to the third person singular… |
| Frank: er gibt |
| Gina: “he gives” |
| Frank: Sie gibt |
| Gina: “she gives” |
| Frank: Es gibt |
| Gina: “It gives” |
| Frank: Let’s just remind our listeners that es gibt is used a lot because it’s equivalent to “there is”. |
| Gina: One more time, listeners. |
| Frank: es gibt. |
| Gina: How about “we give”? |
| Frank: wir geben |
| Gina: And next up is… |
| Frank: ihr gebt |
| Gina: meaning “you give”. The plural version. |
| Frank: Sie geben |
| Gina: Meaning “they give”. |
| Frank: Shall we do one more, Gina? How about sprechen, “to speak”? |
| Gina: Okay, let’s go through them! |
| Frank: ich spreche |
| Gina: “I speak”. |
| Frank: du sprichst |
| Gina: “you speak” |
| Frank: er spricht. |
| Gina: “he speaks” |
| Frank: sie spricht |
| Gina: “She speaks” |
| Frank: es spricht. |
| Gina: “it speaks” |
| Frank: wir sprechen |
| Gina: “we speak”. |
| Frank: Ihr sprecht |
| Gina: “you speak”, in plural form. |
| Frank: sie sprechen |
| Gina: "They speak" |
| Frank: Sie sprechen, the conjugation for the polite form “you” and the third person plural form for “you”. |
| Gina: Same conjugation, but due to the pronoun difference, the capital “S” for the polite form of “you” versus the non-capitalized version for the third person plural sie. |
| Frank: Okay, we’ll leave it there for the verbs! |
| Gina: Once you're comfortable with these, vowel-changing verbs won't be much of a problem, because they're logical in their own way. |
| Frank: Right. Overall, you can see that in the conjugations, the differences are always for the second person singular pronoun du and the third person singular er, sie, and es. |
| Gina: So pay close attention to those second and third person forms! |
| Frank: And another thing - the vowel is always an “E” changing to an “I” or an “A” changing to an “Ä” - which is an A with an umlaut. |
| Gina: So there’s a pattern to help you along the way. |
| Frank: It’s pretty straightforward. And with that we say Viel Glück! Good luck! |
Outro |
| Gina: Listeners, ever have any German language or lesson-related questions? |
| Frank: Or maybe you have some feedback for us... |
| Gina: Leave us a comment or ask a question on the lessons page! |
| Frank: It's super simple. Go to GermanPod101.com... |
| Gina: ...click on comments, |
| Frank: ...enter your comment and name, |
| Gina: ...and that's it! |
| Frank: Commenting is a a great way to practice writing and reading in German. |
| Gina: It helps you learn faster. |
| Frank: And it helps us get better through your feedback. |
| Gina: No excuses. |
| Frank: Go to GermanPod101.com, and comment now. |
| Gina: NOW! |
| Gina: That’s all for this lesson. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you all next time! |
| Frank: Viel spass! Tschüss! |
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