Learn to master the construction "either"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Frank: Frank here! Guten Tag und herzlich wilkommen! |
| Gina: Hi everyone, and welcome back to GermanPod101.com. I’m Gina, and this is Absolute Beginner Season 3, Lesson 13; Getting Quizzed in Germany. In this lesson, you'll learn to master the construction “either...or” and pronounce the German CH. |
| Frank: This conversation takes place at a German language school during class. |
| Gina: The conversation is between two classmates, Kate and Frank. They're playing a game called “Two Lies, One Truth”. Kate starts by making three statements about herself. |
| Frank: Only one statement is true and the others have to figure out which one that is. The speakers are classmates. So they’ll be using informal German. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Frank: Okay... Entweder komme ich aus China oder ich wurde hier geboren oder ich spreche fließend Englisch und Spanisch. |
| Kate: Schwierig! Ich glaube, du sprichst fließend Englisch und Spanisch. |
| Frank: Falsch! Du weißt doch, ich spreche nur wenig Englisch! |
| Kate: Okay, dann vielleicht erstens. |
| Frank: Richtig! Meine Eltern sind Österreicher, aber sie wohnen schon seit vielen Jahren in China. |
| Gina: Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Frank: Okay... Entweder komme ich aus China oder ich wurde hier geboren oder ich spreche fließend Englisch und Spanisch. |
| Kate: Schwierig! Ich glaube, du sprichst fließend Englisch und Spanisch. |
| Frank: Falsch! Du weißt doch, ich spreche nur wenig Englisch! |
| Kate: Okay, dann vielleicht erstens. |
| Frank: Richtig! Meine Eltern sind Österreicher, aber sie wohnen schon seit vielen Jahren in China. |
| Gina: Now, let's hear it with English translation. |
| Frank: Okay... Entweder komme ich aus China oder ich wurde hier geboren oder ich spreche fließend Englisch und Spanisch. |
| Gina: Okay...I'm either from China, or I was born here, or I speak fluent English and Spanish. |
| Kate: Schwierig! Ich glaube, du sprichst fließend Englisch und Spanisch. |
| Gina: Difficult! I believe you speak English and Spanish fluently. |
| Frank: Falsch! Du weißt doch, ich spreche nur wenig Englisch! |
| Gina: Incorrect! You know, I speak only a little English. |
| Kate: Okay, dann vielleicht erstens. |
| Gina: Okay, then maybe the first one. |
| Frank: Richtig! Meine Eltern sind Österreicher, aber sie wohnen schon seit vielen Jahren in China. |
| Gina: Correct! My parents are Austrian, but they've lived in China for many years. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina: Let’s talk a bit about language knowledge in Germany. |
| Frank: One thing I can tell you is that Germans are a lot less likely to know Spanish than English. |
| Gina: That's true. But come to think of it, English, on the other hand, is a mandatory subject at school. You have to take it for at least six years, or even nine if you want to go to university. |
| Frank: Yeah. And it's also increasingly present in primary schools and kindergartens. |
| Gina: But if people haven't used English for, say, ten years or more, they will pretty much forget all of it. |
| Frank: Yes. So if you need to ask a German something in English, your best bet is a student or a businessman. |
| Gina: Other than English, French is the most commonly studied foreign language, followed by Latin. |
| Frank: Also in the former East Germany, Russian used to be the most commonly spoken foreign language. There, you can run across people who’ve actually never learned English. They’ve only ever studied Russian. |
| Gina: Interesting! Ok. Now, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Gina: The first word we shall see is... |
| Frank: entweder...oder [natural native speed] |
| Gina: either...or |
| Frank: entweder...oder [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: entweder...oder [natural native speed] |
| Frank: viel [natural native speed] |
| Gina: much, a lot |
| Frank: viel [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: viel [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Eltern [natural native speed] |
| Gina: parents |
| Frank: Eltern [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Eltern [natural native speed] |
| Frank: was [natural native speed] |
| Gina: what |
| Frank: was [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: was [natural native speed] |
| Frank: falsch [natural native speed] |
| Gina: wrong |
| Frank: falsch [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: falsch [natural native speed] |
| Frank: glauben [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to believe |
| Frank: glauben [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: glauben [natural native speed] |
| Frank: vielleicht [natural native speed] |
| Gina: maybe |
| Frank: vielleicht [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: vielleicht [natural native speed] |
| Frank: also [natural native speed] |
| Gina: so |
| Frank: also [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: also [natural native speed] |
| Frank: fließend [natural native speed] |
| Gina: flowing, fluent, fluently |
| Frank: fließend [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: fließend [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Mal [natural native speed] |
| Gina: time |
| Frank: Mal [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Mal [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Frank: The first word we’ll look at is also. |
| Gina: It’s the German equivalent of “so” when you’re presenting a logical conclusion. |
| Frank: It's also a nice way to move the conversation on to another topic. For example, Also woher kommst du? |
| Gina: “So, where are you from?” |
| Frank: Great. Now let’s look at the word fließend. |
| Gina: This word acts as an adjective and an adverb in German. |
| Frank: Its literal meaning is “flowing”, as in Im fließenden Bach. |
| Gina: “In the flowing river” Or, |
| Frank: Im fließenden Bach gibt es was? |
| Gina: “What is there in the flowing river?” |
| Frank: Yes, that’s the literal meaning. |
| Gina: However, another common translation of this word is “fluent”, with reference to language. |
| Frank: Yes, for example, Er spricht fließend Deutsch. |
| Gina: “He speaks fluent German.” |
| Frank: Sie spricht vier Sprachen, fließend. |
| Gina: “She speaks four languages fluently” |
| Frank: Okay. And the last word we're going to look at is viel. |
| Gina: It can mean “much”, “many”, and “a lot of”. |
| Frank: Yes that’s right, And the word with the opposite meaning is wenig . |
| Gina: Meaning “a little”, “a few,” and “not many.” The uses of these words are very similar. Both of them occur as a determiner, a pronoun, or an adverb. |
| Frank: And both have alternative uninflected and inflected forms that determiners or adjectives have too. for example, the uninflected forms, like viel and wenig, are more usual, and are used with abstract nouns, like "effort", "pain", or "luck". |
| Gina: While for other nouns, the inflected form is more common, but the meaning in both cases is the same. |
| Frank: Adjectives following the inflected forms viele and wenige in plural form usually have strong endings. |
| Gina: The strong inflection of adjectives also applies when no article is used, when a quantity indicated by a number greater than one is used, or when a non-inflectable phrase is used. The adjective endings are the same as the definite article endings, apart from the adjectival ending "-en" in the masculine and neuter genitive singular. Now let’s move on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the phrase “either...or” and the German pronunciation of “ch” |
| Frank: We’ll focus on the entweder...oder construction first. |
| Gina: Right, which is “either...or”. |
| Frank: Typically, the subject of the sentence will follow entweder, but bear in mind that another usage of entweder...oder, is to have the verb directly follow entweder. |
| Gina: Can you give an example, Frank? |
| Frank: Entweder er wird entlassen, oder er findet gar keine Anstellung. |
| Gina: “Either he is dismissed, or he doesn’t get a job at all.” |
| Frank: The alternative version of this, where the verb follows entweder, would be Entweder wird er entlassen, oder er findet gar keine Anstellung. |
| Gina: But don’t you worry, there is no change in meaning here. |
| Frank: Conversely, weder….noch means “neither nor” and is grammatically structured in the same way as entweder...oder. |
| Gina: That’s right! Let’s see an example. |
| Frank: Er liest weder Bücher noch Zeitungen. |
| Gina: “He reads neither books nor newspapers.” However, these constructions have an official edge to them. A more conversational way of saying this is... |
| Frank: Er liest keine Bücher und auch keine Zeitungen. |
| Gina: “He doesn’t read books and newspapers.” |
| Frank: Also, listeners, note that weder...noch must always accompany one another in the sentence. So, noch cannot be used on its own in the sense of “nor” without a preceding weder. |
| Gina: However, there's a way of using one word in German to express this without first using “neither” or “or” preceded by a negative. |
| Frank: Right, that’s und auch nicht / kein. |
| Gina: Great! Now, we have some pronunciation tips for that tricky little “ch” sound in German. Hopefully, you’ve been practicing speaking German. |
| Frank: Now it’s time to focus on some particular pronunciation challenges. |
| Gina: And the “ch” sound usually gives people the most trouble. |
| Frank: The rule is that if the “ch” comes after “a”, “o” or “u”, then it’s pronounced raspily, as in the words noch and brauchen. |
| Gina: This is because “a”, “o” and “u” are what we call “dark vowels,” as they’re pronounced in the back of the mouth where it’s darker. Also, it’s close to your throat, so the “ch” that comes after those vowels is also pronounced in the back of the mouth. |
| Frank: In fact, this “ch” is released out of your throat. |
| Gina: Right. It doesn’t even matter how widely you open your mouth or how you position your teeth and tongue, the sound is formed way before the air even hits those. |
| Frank: By contrast, the “ch” that comes after all other vowels - E, I, Ä, Ö and Ü are pronounced softly and further in front. To pronounce this correctly, start from the “y” sound as in the word “here”. Can you hear it? “y” |
| Gina: Then keep your tongue and mouth in the exact same position and try to blow some air through it using the back of the throat and you’re almost there. |
| Frank: Practice this a lot, because this kind of “ch” comes up in vital words like ich and nicht. |
| Gina: What about the “ch” that doesn’t follow a vowel? |
| Frank: If there is a dark vowel or a consonant after the “ch,” then it’s pronounced like “k”. However, when there is an “e” or “i” following, you can choose how you want to pronounce it. |
| Gina: Take the word “China” for example, which we used in the dialogue. |
| Frank: Some will pronounce this using a soft “ch” as in ich, and others will pronounce it with a simple “sh” sound. This “sh” sound is typical of Hoch-Deutsch, which is official German. Let’s hear both forms - China(soft ch), China (sh) |
| Gina: Also, some people may use a “k” sound. |
| Frank: Yes, something like China (k sound).However, this is a regional variant typical of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, or southern Germany. |
| Gina: But remember, all of these variations are correct. |
| Frank: Okay, listeners, so keep practicing “ch” until it becomes natural. |
Outro |
| Gina: Listeners, looking for a cheat sheet to memorizing German vocabulary? |
| Frank: have you checked out our Video Vocab series? |
| Gina: These themed video lessons combine visual cues with the voices of native speakers. |
| Frank: Just another effective method of learning and retaining thousands of vocabulary words. |
| Gina: Go to GermanPod101.com... |
| Frank: ...click on the Video Lessons tab... |
| Gina: ...and hit play! |
| Frank: It's that easy. |
| Gina: But don't take our word for it. |
| Frank: Try it for yourself at GermanPod101.com |
| Gina: And that does it for this lesson! Don’t forget to check the lesson notes for more information and examples. |
| Frank: Tschüss! |
| Gina: Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
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