Learn to use numbers and describing the time
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: This is Beginner Series, Lesson 16. |
| Judith: Willkommen zurück. |
| Chuck: Welcome back! Thanks for joining us again. |
| Judith: It’s great to have you back. Today’s lesson will be quite vital. |
| Chuck: And why is that? |
| Judith: Because today, we will look at German numbers and ways of telling the time. |
| Chuck: But I already know how to do that. |
| Judith: For a lot of you, this will be a familiar topic. If you had German lessons before or if you follow the newbie series until now. |
| Chuck: Or if you listen to our jingle. |
| Judith: That’s only part of it. We have to review it anyway and make sure that everybody is on the same page. We’ll deal with both topics rather shortly. So if this is absolutely new for you, you may want to listen to the newbie series 6 and 9 as well. |
| Chuck: All right. Fair enough. So today’s dialogue could take place anywhere in Germany or any other German-speaking countries for that matter. There are phrases that you’re bounded here (inaudible) 0:01:05 at least once when you stay in Germany or any other German-speaking country. So let’s listen to today’s dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Michaela: So, John, was machen wir heute? |
| John: Ich weiß nicht… gehen wir in die Stadt? |
| Michaela: Gute Idee, dann siehst du Düsseldorfs Sehenswürdigkeiten. Also, gehen wir! |
| John: Jetzt?? Ich schreibe gerade eine Postkarte. |
| Michaela: Okay, dann gehen wir später. Um halb zwei vielleicht? |
| John: Dann bin ich bei einem Freund. |
| Michaela: Bei einem Freund? |
| John: Ja. Wie wäre es um viertel vor vier? |
| Michaela: Da mache ich Mittagessen für meinen Mann. Und wenn wir noch später gehen… |
| Judith: Now read slowly. |
| Michaela: So, John, was machen wir heute? |
| John: Ich weiß nicht… gehen wir in die Stadt? |
| Michaela: Gute Idee, dann siehst du Düsseldorfs Sehenswürdigkeiten. Also, gehen wir! |
| John: Jetzt?? Ich schreibe gerade eine Postkarte. |
| Michaela: Okay, dann gehen wir später. Um halb zwei vielleicht? |
| John: Dann bin ich bei einem Freund. |
| Michaela: Bei einem Freund? |
| John: Ja. Wie wäre es um viertel vor vier? |
| Michaela: Da mache ich Mittagessen für meinen Mann. Und wenn wir noch später gehen… |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Michaela: So, John, was machen wir heute? |
| Chuck: So, John, what are we doing today? |
| John: Ich weiß nicht… gehen wir in die Stadt? |
| Chuck: I don’t know… do we go into the city? |
| Michaela: Gute Idee, dann siehst du Düsseldorfs Sehenswürdigkeiten. |
| Chuck: Good idea, then you’ll see Düsseldorf’s sights. |
| Michaela: Also, gehen wir! |
| Chuck: So let’s go! |
| John: Jetzt?? Ich schreibe gerade eine Postkarte. |
| Chuck: Now?? I’m just writing a postcard. |
| Michaela: Okay, dann gehen wir später. |
| Chuck: Okay, then let’s go later. |
| Michaela: Um halb zwei vielleicht? |
| Chuck: At 1:30 maybe? |
| John: Dann bin ich bei einem Freund. |
| Chuck: Then I’ll be at a friend’s place. |
| Michaela: Bei einem Freund? |
| Chuck: At a friend’s? |
| John: Ja. Wie wäre es um viertel vor vier? |
| Chuck: Yes. How would a quarter to a four be? |
| Michaela: Da mache ich Mittagessen für meinen Mann. |
| Chuck: Then I’m making lunch for my husband. |
| Michaela: Und wenn wir noch später gehen… |
| Chuck: And if we go even later… |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: I can so relate to this problem half a million times. It’s hard to make an appointment with you sometimes, Chuck. |
| Chuck: That’s because you never use the calendar I use. |
| Judith: No. I think the problem is that you simply want to avoid the work. |
| Chuck: I don’t think that’s it. I think that you just don’t want to look at my calendar. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: Let’s look at the vocabulary. The first word for today is Idee [natural native speed] |
| Chuck: “Idea”. |
| Judith: Idee [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “Idea”. |
| Judith: This word is feminine, die Idee. And the plural is “Ideen” The next word is Sehen [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “To see”. |
| Judith: Sehen [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “To see”. |
| Judith: Note that this verb changes its vowel from E to IE. “Ich sehe, du siehst”. |
| Chuck: “I see, you see”. |
| Judith: The next word is actually related to Sehen. It is Sehenswürdigkeit [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “A sight”. |
| Judith: A really long German word. I’ll break it down. Sehenswürdigkeit [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Sehenswürdigkeit [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: Does that literally mean things we’ve seen? |
| Judith: Yeah. Würdig means “worthy”, and sehen, we already had, was “to see”. So worthy of seeing, and the keit just makes it a noun. Sehenswürdigkeit. |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: It’s feminine, just like any noun that ends in keit, and the plural is Sehenswürdigkeiten. |
| Chuck: And it’s Sehenswürdigkeit or Sehenswürdigkeiten. |
| Judith: Yeah, it's is shorter. |
| Chuck: But the exact same compound word. For that, it helps our one esperanto listener out there. |
| Judith: Are you sure there’s only one? |
| Chuck: I don’t know. |
| Judith: We could start to pull. |
| Chuck: If you speak esperanto right in. |
| Judith: Yes. Please do. Now the next word is Also [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “So”. And notice this is used in the conjunction. So it would be used like this: I want to stop working for GermanPod so much. |
| Judith: Stop speaking things like that. You’re happy. |
| Chuck: Yeah, I am. I’m just kidding. |
| Judith: The next word is Schreiben [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “To write”. |
| Judith: Schreiben [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “To write”. |
| Judith: Next, Gerade [natural native speed] |
| Chuck: “Right now”, as in Ich arbeite für GermanPod right now. |
| Judith: Gerade [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: Ich arbeit gerade für GermanPod. |
| Judith: “I work for GermanPod right now.” |
| Chuck: So do I. |
| Judith: “I am working”. It’s not “I work for them right now” but “I am working right now.” |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: “Gerade” implies that it’s at the very present. The next word is Postkarte [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “Post card”. |
| Judith: Postkarte [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “Post card”. It’s quite an important word. |
| Judith: Yeah. And this is feminine, as you will notice. Die Postkarte. |
| Chuck: Also notice that it’s split at two different word, Post, which is just the postal service, and Karte which means card. |
| Judith: Yeah. Well, Karte has a lot more meanings in German than card as in English. For example, we also say Karte for map. |
| Chuck: But you probably mostly, in Germany, heard in the phrase “rote Karte”. |
| Judith: If you’re with the soccer crowd. |
| Chuck: To get a red card. |
| Judith: The next word is Vielleicht [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “Perhaps”. |
| Judith: Vielleicht [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “Perhaps”. |
| Judith: Vielleicht [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Vielleicht [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “Perhaps”. |
| Judith: Next, Bei [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: Wait, vielleicht means a lot of noodle? No. |
| Judith: No. |
| Chuck: I won’t go then. |
| Judith: You can’t get break it down. |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: The word is Bei. |
| Chuck: “At someone’s place.” |
| Judith: Yeah, Bei [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: It also sounds a lot like bye. |
| Judith: It doesn’t mean “bye”. It’s a [*]. |
| Chuck: It’s quite similar though. |
| Judith: How? |
| Chuck: I’m by the restaurant. No, it doesn’t quite work. |
| Judith: No. |
| Chuck: But it’s easy to remember that way. |
| Judith: I know. It’s like the French che. It has to be used with name or something. For example, ich bin bei Chuck – “I’m at Chuck’s place”. And finally, last word or rather, the last expression for today, Wie wäre es (mit) [natural native speed]. |
| Chuck: “How about (having)”. |
| Judith: Yeah. “How would”. Something “be”. |
| Chuck: That’s a very polite word to ask someone. Could this possibly be okay? |
| Judith: Yeah. It’s like making a suggestion. |
| Chuck: Okay. It could be a useful dating phrase, wouldn’t it? |
| Judith: Sure. If you want to ask your intended “wie wäre es mit Kino?”, “how about going to the cinema?” It’s implied the going part and you just say, “how about cinema?” |
| Chuck: Oh, you better ask “ wie wäre es bei mir”. |
| Judith: That doesn’t sound quite right. |
| Chuck: But why won’t you say that then? |
| Judith: Well, typically the phases “zu mir oder zu dir”. |
| Chuck: That doesn’t used the bei that we learned. |
| Judith: Yeah. That’s why I didn’t bring it as an example. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Chuck: Okay. So wait a minute, if I remember that dialogue correctly, she’s making lunch for her husband at 4:00 o’clock? |
| Judith: Quarter to four. |
| Chuck: Okay. Not a bit late? |
| Judith: Well, yeah. Traditional lunch time is at 12:00 o’clock or between 12:00 and 2:00, but a lot of school children or also people with job like 8:00 to 4:00 job, they may decide to have lunch later when coming home, if the school cafeteria, for example, provides really awful food or if you just don’t want to spend that much money. So these people would have something light in between, like maybe a sandwich or a roll or whatever, and then have lunch at home, and that might be 4:00 o’clock or even 5:00. |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: My father is like that. The other meals would be, like, breakfast, before 8:00 usually, the typical German, I mean. Typical German also gets up at half past 6:00. There’s one meal in Germany that you may not have heard of, it’s kaffee. That’s the way it’s called in German. |
| Chuck: That’s pretty much like the British tea time, right? |
| Judith: Yeah. Well, people drink coffee then, not tea, but they also have like cake, cookies, or maybe they just get together and talk. |
| Chuck: I think I’ve caught you drinking tea than kaffee though. |
| Judith: Yeah. I don’t like kaffee that much. Kaffee doesn’t mean that you have to drink coffee but most Germans prefer coffee to tea. |
| Chuck: Which might have like cakes |
| Judith: Yeah. Very yummy cakes. Germany is known for very yummy cakes. |
| Chuck: Yeah. Cakes and beer, but not at the same time. |
| Judith: That would be awful. |
| Chuck: I met someone in Germany who made a special beer cake. You have to do a lot searching for that. Probably. |
| Judith: The final wheel of the day is called “Abendessen or Abendbrot”, literally meaning “evening eating” or “evening bread”, and it’s around 6:00 o’clock. The name already implies it will be usually bread with something on top like jam or cheese or whatever. |
| Chuck: Yeah. I remember the first time I came to Germany, I was surprised to get such a party lunch, and for dinner then I had only the sandwiches and I was like, “Okay, that’s kind of weird.” |
| Judith: Well, that’s how people eat here. And I think it’s more healthy than what you do, indulging too much at night or like the Greeks, they eat at 10:00 o’clock or whatever. |
| Chuck: And they eat like a four-course meal, right? |
| Judith: It’s really unhealthy. |
| Chuck: But it’s fun. |
| Judith: The only thing that Germans would eat at that time is like snacks. At 8:15, movies start playing on TV. It’s the traditional time for them to start. So then people might be lying in or on the bed and watching whatever movie they chose and having some snacks with that or maybe some wine. |
| Chuck: Although it’s still more common to go to a restaurant in the evening, right? |
| Judith: Yeah. But it’s not generally not very common to go a restaurant. So like twice a year, people might be found at a restaurant. |
| Chuck: Really as opposed the American twice a week or twice a day. |
| Judith: It depends on the people, of course. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: There are people that eat out regularly. Also, the people that have to work long and maybe they choose to eat at a restaurant or a cheap food place like imbiss . |
| Chuck: It also depends on whether you live in a city within expensive restaurants like Berlin or whether you live in a really expensive city like Munich. |
| Judith: Yeah. But generally, a lot of people hold restaurants for special occasions like the big holidays like Christmas and Easter or birthdays, wedding anniversaries, blind dates. |
| Chuck: Guys, if you want to go to a restaurant on a holiday, then make a reservation. |
| Judith: Yeah. Definitely. So, when you make that reservation, you will definitely need to know the times, because you need to tell them exactly what time you’d be showing up. |
| Chuck: And you need to know how many people are coming in your party. |
| Judith: Yes. Maybe we’ll cover that part first because it’s easier. |
| Chuck: But just like in English, there’s many ways to tell the time. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Judith: Once you are fluent in German, you will have no trouble giving it as “siebzehn Uhr vierzehn”, for example. That would be… |
| Chuck: Five fourteen, or rather 17:00 o’clock 14. |
| Judith: We use a 24-hour clock in Germany. |
| Chuck: It’s also just like the way you would say money “siebzehn Euros vierzehn”. |
| Judith: Yeah. |
| Chuck: Seventeen euros and fourteen cents. |
| Judith: Anyway, once you’re fluent, you can say times like that; but until then, you can just round up and still be close enough. So in this case, you should be saying “Viertel nach fünf”. |
| Chuck: A quarter past five. |
| Judith: And that involves a word “Viertel” which means “quarter”. |
| Chuck: You’ll hear “Vier” in there as well. |
| Judith: Yeah. |
| Chuck: It means one fourth. |
| Judith: “-tel” is generally used to make any kind of divisions like “fünftel” would be a fifth, and “sechstel” would be a sixth. |
| Chuck: This is “viertel”, not “vierte”. |
| Judith: That’s what I said, “fünftel” ,“sechstel” , “viertel”. It’s all the same ending. |
| Chuck: Oh. |
| Judith: The other would be the ordinal numbers. If you do a good “-te”, that’s a “te”] ending, “vierte” would be fourth as in “he came in fourth”; but what I was talking of is divisions like a fifth. |
| Chuck: Okay. At least it’s all logical. |
| Judith: The round numbers are the easiest to talk about. For example, you would say “drei Uhr”. |
| Chuck: Three o’clock. |
| Judith: Or maybe “sechs Uhr”. |
| Chuck: Six o’clock. |
| Judith: And then you could indicate a half hour maybe, like “halb sechs”. |
| Chuck: Five thirty. |
| Judith: Yeah. That’s one hard thing about it in German. You always think about the [*] that’s coming up. So if you’re saying “halb sechs” meaning it will be half hour until it’s six o’clock. It’s a bit confusing but you’ll get used to it. And “halb vier”. |
| Chuck: Three thirty. |
| Judith: “halb zwei” |
| Chuck: One thirty. |
| Judith: “halb neun” |
| Chuck: Eight thirty. |
| Judith: Yeah. Then of course, the “viertel”, you can do “viertel nach” as we had before, like “viertel nach vier”. |
| Chuck: A quarter past four. |
| Judith: Or you can do it with “vor” to indicate the next hour. “Viertel vor zehn”. |
| Chuck: Quarter to ten. |
| Judith: “Viertel vor zwölf” |
| Chuck: Quarter to twelve. |
| Judith: This actually means a dire time. In Germany, if you say “viertel vor zwölf” “Es ist schön viertel for zwölf für diese Reformen.”, literally it’s quarter to 12:00 for these reforms to be made. |
Outro |
| Chuck: It’s about time. |
| Judith: Yeah. And now in this lesson’s dialogue, you can review a lot of the case rules that we talked about and we have a couple of times in there. If you’re not completely familiar with the numbers or the times yet, then you can also review the newbie lessons. |
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