Learn how to decline a request politely
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Frank: Hallo! Ich bin Frank. |
| Gina: And I’m Gina. Welcome back to GermanPod101.com! This is Absolute Beginner, Season 3, Lesson 25 - An Exhausting Day in Germany. In this final lesson of the series, you’ll learn how to give a reason or cause for something in German. |
| Frank: This conversation takes place in Berlin’s city centre. |
| Gina: It’s between Mr. Kirsche and Kate Andrews. |
| Frank: The speakers are host family friends, so they’ll be using formal German. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Herr Kirsche: So, gehen wir jetzt noch zum Buchladen? |
| Kate: Nein, es tut mir leid, wir sind heute schon so viel gelaufen, ich kann nicht mehr. |
| Herr Kirsche:Ja das verstehe ich. Berlin ist so groß, das kann man niemals alles an einem Tag besichtigen. |
| Kate: Ja, für heute ist es eigentlich genug, wenn Sie nichts mehr weiter in der Stadt vorhaben... |
| Herr Kirsche: Nein, von mir aus können wir nach Hause fahren. Wenn Sie möchten, fahren wir ein anderes mal wieder in die Stadt. Vielleicht morgen oder am Samstag? |
| Kate: Samstag ist gut, weil ich keinen Unterricht habe und wir können schon morgens losfahren. |
| Herr Kirsche: Okay, dann also Samstag. |
| Kate: Vielen Dank. Ich freue mich schon - ich bin froh ihr Gast zu sein. |
| Gina: Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Herr Kirsche: So, gehen wir jetzt noch zum Buchladen? |
| Kate: Nein, es tut mir leid, wir sind heute schon so viel gelaufen, ich kann nicht mehr. |
| Herr Kirsche:Ja das verstehe ich. Berlin ist so groß, das kann man niemals alles an einem Tag besichtigen. |
| Kate: Ja, für heute ist es eigentlich genug, wenn Sie nichts mehr weiter in der Stadt vorhaben... |
| Herr Kirsche: Nein, von mir aus können wir nach Hause fahren. Wenn Sie möchten, fahren wir ein anderes mal wieder in die Stadt. Vielleicht morgen oder am Samstag? |
| Kate: Samstag ist gut, weil ich keinen Unterricht habe und wir können schon morgens losfahren. |
| Herr Kirsche: Okay, dann also Samstag. |
| Kate: Vielen Dank. Ich freue mich schon - ich bin froh ihr Gast zu sein. |
| Gina: Now, let's hear it with English translation. |
| Herr Kirsche: So, gehen wir jetzt noch zum Buchladen? |
| Gina: So, are we walking to the book shop? |
| Kate: Nein, es tut mir leid, wir sind heute schon so viel gelaufen, ich kann nicht mehr. |
| Gina: No, I’m sorry, I can’t walk much further today. |
| Herr Kirsche:Ja das verstehe ich. Berlin ist so groß, das kann man niemals alles an einem Tag besichtigen. |
| Gina: Yes, I understand that. Berlin is so big that you can never see everything in one day. |
| Kate: Ja, für heute ist es eigentlich genug, wenn Sie nichts mehr weiter in der Stadt vorhaben... |
| Gina: Yes, that’s enough for today, actually, if you haven’t got anything else planned in town. |
| Herr Kirsche: Nein, von mir aus können wir nach Hause fahren. Wenn Sie möchten, fahren wir ein anderes mal wieder in die Stadt. Vielleicht morgen oder am Samstag? |
| Gina: No, as far as I’m concerned, we can go home. If you like, we can go into town again another day. Perhaps tomorrow or Saturday? |
| Kate: Samstag ist gut, weil ich keinen Unterricht habe und wir können schon morgens losfahren. |
| Gina: Saturday is good because I don’t have class then, and we can set off in the morning. |
| Herr Kirsche: Okay, dann also Samstag. |
| Gina: Okay then, so Saturday. |
| Kate: Vielen Dank. Ich freue mich schon - ich bin froh ihr Gast zu sein. |
| Gina: Many thanks. I’m already looking forward to it! I’m glad to be your guest. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Frank: First of all, listeners, Berlin is a great place to go sightseeing. |
| Gina: I have to agree. There’s Siegessaule; the Reichstag, which is the parliament building; and the Brandenburg Gate. You probably know all of these. But there are also other places that you should visit during your stay in Berlin. |
| Frank: If you want to spend a lot of money, there’s always Unter den Linden, Berlin’s most famous boulevard, where you’ll find some of the top brands. |
| Gina: Many important government buildings and many expensive shops are located there. |
| Frank: There’s also Potsdamer Platz, which features the Sony Center. It’s a glittering entertainment district with stunning post-modern architecture. This is also where you can watch Hollywood movies in the oriGinal English. |
| Gina: Then there’s Alexanderplatz with its TV Tower. It’s the busiest square in Berlin. |
| Frank: And there's also Checkpoint Charlie, which was the most well-known place where you could cross from West Berlin into East Berlin or vice versa. Today, the checkpoint still exists, but as a tourist attraction with actors as soldiers. |
| Gina: Ok, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Gina: The first word we shall see is... |
| Frank: genug [natural native speed] |
| Gina: enough |
| Frank: genug [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: genug [natural native speed] |
| Frank: ganz [natural native speed] |
| Gina: whole; completely; absolutely |
| Frank: ganz [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: ganz [natural native speed] |
| Frank: froh [natural native speed] |
| Gina: glad |
| Frank: froh [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: froh [natural native speed] |
| Frank: eigentlich [natural native speed] |
| Gina: actually |
| Frank: eigentlich [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: eigentlich [natural native speed] |
| Frank: nichts [natural native speed] |
| Gina: nothing |
| Frank: nichts [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: nichts [natural native speed] |
| Frank: laufen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to jog, to function, to be underway |
| Frank: laufen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: laufen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: weil [natural native speed] |
| Gina: because |
| Frank: weil [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: weil [natural native speed] |
| Frank: anderer; andere; anderes [natural native speed] |
| Gina: other, another |
| Frank: anderer; andere; anderes [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: anderer; andere; anderes [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. The first phrase we’ll look at is: |
| Frank: Es tut mir leid. |
| Gina: This is a useful one, as it is used to apologize. It literally means “it does me harm”, but is used to mean “I’m sorry”. |
| Frank: For example, Es tut mir Leid, dass ich morgen nicht komme. |
| Gina: “I’m sorry that I’m not coming tomorrow.” |
| Frank: You can use the expression on its own - Es tut mir leid. Or if you want to expand to say what you’re sorry about, follow it with dass. |
| Gina: Oh, as we just heard in the example. Could you repeat it for us, Frank? |
| Frank: Es tut mir Leid, dass ich morgen nicht komme. |
| Gina: In informal speech, the es can be dropped to reduce the phrase to |
| Frank: tut mir Leid. |
| Gina: For example |
| Frank: Ich komme morgen nicht, tut mir Leid. |
| Gina: We can translate this as “I’m not coming tomorrow, sorry.” |
| Frank: A way to strengthen the apology is to add the adverb wirklich, meaning “really” to Es tut mir wirklich Leid. |
| Gina: “I’m really sorry. “ |
| Frank: Okay. Next, we’ll talk a little about von mir aus. |
| Gina: The literal meaning is "from out of me," but it can be used figuratively to mean “as far as I’m concerned.” It’s similar to “in my opinion”. Can we have an example, Frank? |
| Frank: von mir aus sieht es gut aus |
| Gina: “In my opinion it looks good.” |
| Frank: The phrase von mir aus can be used to signify approval or confirm something. |
| Gina: Let’s hear another example! |
| Frank: Von mir aus brauchst du das nicht zu machen. |
| Gina: “As far as I’m concerned you don’t need to do that”, or “You don’t need to do that on my account.” The sentence usually starts off with this adverbial phrase. |
| Frank: Okay great, and finally we’ll look at morgen versus morgens. Germans often say morgens instead of am Morgen, which means “in the morning”. Morgen means “tomorrow” as well as “morning”. Morgens on the other hand means “on a morning”, as in a routine action that occurs every morning. |
| Gina: Can you give us an example? |
| Frank: Morgens esse ich immer Wurst mit Broetchen. |
| Gina: “Every morning I eat a sausage bread roll.” |
| Frank: Morgen frueh means “in the morning”, where the frueh is added to differentiate between the initial meaning of morgen, which is “tomorrow”, and “the morning” itself. |
| Gina: As in, before midday? |
| Frank: That’s right. |
| Gina: Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Frank: In this final lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about reasons or causes using the conjunction weil, meaning ‘because’. |
| Gina: We came across it in the dialogue. Kate said... |
| Frank: Samstag ist gut, weil ich keinen Unterricht habe. |
| Gina: “Saturday is good, because I don’t have class.” |
| Frank: So weil means “because”. |
| Gina: And the main thing to remember is that when we use this word, we must place the verb at the end of the sentence. |
| Frank: Yes, so you’ll use weil and the reason with the verb of that clause tagged on at the end. |
| Gina: That’s right. Let’s hear another example, Frank! |
| Frank: Ich machte mir Sorgen, weil sie im Krankenhaus lag. |
| Gina: “I worried, because she was in the hospital.” |
| Frank: Did you hear the last clause following weil? |
| Gina: Let’s hear it one more time. |
| Frank: ...weil sie im Krankenhaus lag. So it’s weil, the conjunction, followed by sie the pronoun, followed by the place, im Krankenhaus, and finally the verb lag. We use the past participle of liegen, literally, “to lie down”, because she is in a hospital bed. |
| Gina: You can find more examples in the lesson notes, listeners. |
| Frank: Did you know though, Gina, that in spoken German you’ll actually sometimes hear the incorrect form of weil being used - Germans sometimes don’t put the verb at the end of the sentence. |
| Gina: Ah yes, I know that can happen. |
| Frank: People would say Ich gehe heute Abend nicht in die Stadt, weil ich muss studieren. |
| Gina: So here the word order didn’t change. It’s a lazy form of German however, so we don’t encourage you to use it, as it’s non-standard. Use the correct form, especially for test purposes. |
| Frank: That’s right. Just be prepared to hear this non-standard form when you speak with native Germans. |
| Gina: Okay! And what’s next? |
| Frank: We want to introduce the use of da, which is an alternative word for weil. |
| Gina: I see, so it’s a synonym? |
| Frank: Precisely! And the good news is that it also follows the same rules as weil. |
| Gina: So once you’ve learned them, you can simply interchange the two. |
| Frank: The difference in usage is that da is more formal than weil. |
| Gina: Right. Da can be used in formal speech and writing meaning “as” or “since”... |
| Frank: ...whereas weil strictly means “because”. Both mean “because”, essentially, but you can see the subtle difference here. |
| Gina: Another thing to note is that da clauses usually precede the main clause and typically indicate a reason that is already known. |
| Frank: For example, Da es schon spaet war, gingen sie nach Hause. |
| Gina: “Since it was late, they went home.” |
| Frank: So you can see the translation difference in that example as da is translated as “since.” |
| Gina: Listeners, please check the lesson notes for more examples and to reinforce what you’ve just learned with us. |
Outro |
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| Gina: Well, that’s it for this lesson and this series! We hope you’ve enjoyed it and found it useful. Remember to leave us a post if you have any comments or questions about this series. Thank you for learning with us, and we’ll see you in another series. |
| Frank: Vielen Dank und bis bald! Tschuess! |
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