Learn how to talk about sites
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina: Hi everyone! Gina here. |
| Frank: Hi, my name is Frank and welcome back to GermanPod101.com! |
| Gina: This is Absolute Beginner, Season 3, Lesson 24 - How Many Animals Are There in this German Animal Park? In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the genitive case. |
| Frank: This conversation takes place on the way from Brandenburger Tor to Siegessaule in Berlin. |
| Gina: It’s between Mrs. Kirsche and Kate Andrews. |
| Frank: The speakers are not close friends yet, so they’ll be using formal German. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Kate: Wie heißt dieser Park? |
| Frau Kirsche: Tiergarten. |
| Kate: Tiergarten? Gibt es hier Tiere? |
| Frau Kirsche: Nein, nicht mehr als sonst. Aber ursprünglich schon. Ich lese im Moment viel über Berliner Geschichte und die Geschichte dieses Stadtteils. |
| Kate: Interessieren Sie sich auch sonst für Geschichte? |
| Frau Kirsche: Ja, aber nur ein bisschen. |
| Gina: Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Kate: Wie heißt dieser Park? |
| Frau Kirsche: Tiergarten. |
| Kate: Tiergarten? Gibt es hier Tiere? |
| Frau Kirsche: Nein, nicht mehr als sonst. Aber ursprünglich schon. Ich lese im Moment viel über Berliner Geschichte und die Geschichte dieses Stadtteils. |
| Kate: Interessieren Sie sich auch sonst für Geschichte? |
| Frau Kirsche: Ja, aber nur ein bisschen. |
| Gina: Now, let's hear it with English translation. |
| Kate: Wie heißt dieser Park? |
| Gina: What's this park called? |
| Frau Kirsche: Tiergarten. |
| Gina: Animal garden. |
| Kate: Tiergarten? Gibt es hier Tiere? |
| Gina: Animal garden? Are there animals here? |
| Frau Kirsche: Nein, nicht mehr als sonst. Aber ursprünglich schon. Ich lese im Moment viel über Berliner Geschichte und die Geschichte dieses Stadtteils. |
| Gina: No, not more than elsewhere. But originally there were. At the moment, I'm reading a lot about Berlin's history and the history of this part of town. |
| Kate: Interessieren Sie sich auch sonst für Geschichte? |
| Gina: Are you interested in history in general? |
| Frau Kirsche: Ja, aber nur ein bisschen. |
| Gina: Yes, but only a bit. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina: Berlin’s history only goes back to the thirteenth century. From a European perspective, that’s pretty young. |
| Frank: Yeah, other German cities go back to the first century or even beyond. But Berlin has a really rocky history, and there are still lots of historic places in Berlin. |
| Gina: We’ll give you a real quick summary. |
| Frank: Yes, originally, Berlin was a seat of the Hohenzollern family, and thereby also the seat of several German kings and emperors. |
| Gina: They left a legacy of beautiful buildings and parks in Berlin, as well as beyond Berlin. |
| Frank: Some of these rulers were very open-minded people. They invited people from all over Europe to come to Berlin. |
| Gina: And among these were some great scientists and thinkers who would've otherwise been censored in their home countries. |
| Frank: Berlin became a center of enlightenment. |
| Gina: Yes, that’s right. |
| Frank: And in the industrial revolution, Berlin also became Germany’s economic center. Berlin has always featured a less-regulated lifestyle than the rest of Germany. |
| Gina: It always attracted the artists and alternative kinds of people, bohemian types even. So you can imagine how popular Berlin was during the age of the Roaring Twenties. |
| Frank: Well, it’s still the place to be now. |
| Gina: Very true, and it’s trendier than ever, actually. And I have to say that Berlin has its own unique atmosphere. |
| Frank: It does indeed. So, check it out, listeners! |
| Gina: Now, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Gina: The first word we shall see is... |
| Frank: über [natural native speed] |
| Gina: about |
| Frank: über [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: über [natural native speed] |
| Frank: fast [natural native speed] |
| Gina: almost |
| Frank: fast [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: fast [natural native speed] |
| Frank: gerade [natural native speed] |
| Gina: straight, just, just now, right now |
| Frank: gerade [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: gerade [natural native speed] |
| Frank: bisschen [natural native speed] |
| Gina : a little |
| Frank : bisschen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: bisschen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: sonst [natural native speed] |
| Gina: otherwise, other than that |
| Frank: sonst [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: sonst [natural native speed] |
| Frank: ursprünglich [natural native speed] |
| Gina: original(ly), initial(ly) |
| Frank: ursprünglich [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: ursprünglich [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Geschichte [natural native speed] |
| Gina: history, story |
| Frank: Geschichte [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Geschichte [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. |
| Frank: The first word is gerade. |
| Gina: It is a word with two distinct meanings. On the one hand, it can mean “straight”. |
| Frank: Like in gerade durch den Park. |
| Gina: “straight to the park” |
| Frank: On the other hand, it can mean “just now” or “right now”, as in Ich sehe sie gerade nicht. |
| Gina: “I don’t see her right now.” Let’s have another example. Frank? |
| Frank: Er macht es gerade. |
| Gina: “He is doing it now” or “He is doing it right now.” |
| Frank: Okay, next up is sonst. |
| Gina: Meaning “other”, “else” or “otherwise”. |
| Frank: For example, Wer kommt sonst noch? |
| Gina: “Who else is coming?” |
| Frank: Or War sonst noch jemand da? |
| Gina: “Was anyone else there?” |
| Frank: Mit wem hat er sonst noch getanzt? |
| Gina: “Who else did he dance with?” We have another tip about this one for you, listeners. |
| Frank: Yes, in some contexts, sonst can overlap with the meaning of anders. |
| Gina: Which also means “else” or “in a different way”. |
| Frank: For example, Koennen Sie etwas anderes vorschlagen. |
| Gina: So that’s one alternative. What’s the next one? |
| Frank: Koennen Sie sonst noch etwas vorschlagen? |
| Gina: Both sentences mean “Can you suggest anything else?” Let’s hear them one more time. |
| Frank: Okay, so with anderes, it is Koennen Sie etwas anderes vorschlagen. And one more time with sonst. Koennen Sie sonst noch etwas vorschlagen? |
| Gina: Both are correct. Now onto the next expression? |
| Frank: The next phrase is Es gibt. |
| Gina: It’s a set phrase meaning “there is” or “there are”. It’s used in the same way as in English, and is followed by the noun or nouns. |
| Frank: Yes, the expression remains the same for both singular and plural noun lists. |
| Gina: Can you give us an example? |
| Frank: Es gibt viele Tiere. |
| Gina: “There are many animals.” |
| Frank: Dort gibt es schoene Blumen. |
| Gina: “There are beautiful flowers there.” |
| Frank: The past tense is used in exactly the same way in terms of sentence structure, but the past form of es gibt is es gab. |
| Gina: Can you give us an example, Frank? |
| Frank: Sure, In der Kirche gab es heute viele Leute. |
| Gina: “There were many people in the church today.” Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the genitive case, which is one of the four German noun cases that we caught a glimpse of in the dialogue. |
| Frank: We’ll cover this case in more detail later. But right now, it’s important to understand its basic usage. Let’s go through a few examples starting with: die Geschichte des Stadtteils. |
| Gina: “the history of the quarter” |
| Frank: die Geschichte der Stadt |
| Gina: “the history of the city” |
| Frank: die Geschichte der Frau |
| Gina: “the women’s history” |
| Frank: die Geschichte der Männer |
| Gina: “the men’s history” |
| Frank: das Spiel des Jahres |
| Gina: “the game of the year”. Basically, the genitive case replaces the English "of the” or the "apostrophe s”. It can also be described as a form of the possessive in this way. |
| Frank: The most obvious genitive article in German is des, which is only ever used for the genitive. However, for feminine words and for plurals, the article is der. This is quite noticeable considering you’d expect to hear Die Frau and not Der Frau. |
| Gina: For masculine or neutral words, the genitive usually also involves adding an “s” to the end of the noun. |
| Frank: As in die Geschichte des Stadtteils |
| Gina: “the history of the quarter” or |
| Frank: das Spiel des Jahres. |
| Gina: “the game of the year”. |
| Frank: And the determiner affected by the genitive case here is des |
| Gina: So remember that this one applies to masculine and neuter. |
| Frank: There is one other form for the genitive and that is the determiner der. |
| Gina: Which is used for feminine and plural nouns. |
| Frank: However, listeners, we have a grammar tip for you. |
| Gina: Yes, for those of you who are not fans of using the genitive case, there is a way to avoid it. |
| Frank: You simply add von |
| Gina: meaning “from” or “of”. |
| Frank: This is a way to completely avoid genitive formations. |
| Gina: And it’s also regularly used by Germans too, right Frank? |
| Frank: That’s right Gina! So if I say Das Haus Franks |
| Gina: That would be the genitive case for "Frank's house." So, listeners, how do you think we could say “the house is Frank’s” while using von? |
| Frank: [pause] It would be Das Haus von Frank. |
| Gina: Let’s try one more! |
| Frank: The one we heard in our dialogue is die Geschichte dieses Stadtteils. |
| Gina: “the history of this part of town”, another genitive example. So how would you form this using von instead of the genitive case? |
| Frank: [pause] Die Geschichte von diesem Stadtteil. |
| Gina: Did you get the sentence structure right, listeners? |
| Frank: Please practice changing between the genitive possessive and the construction of von. |
| Gina: Yes, it’s good to have a few different expressions or formations at your disposal so that you can be flexible! |
| Frank: Wir hoffen, euch hat diese Lektion gefallen. Bis zum nächsten Mal! |
Outro |
| Frank: Listeners, looking for a cheat sheet to memorizing German vocabulary? 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: Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you in the next lesson! |
| Frank: Tschuess! |
Comments
Hide