Learn about different types of nouns
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 |
| Chuck: This is beginner series, lesson 1. |
| Judith: Welcome to GermanPod101. |
| Chuck: With us, you will learn to speak German with fun and effective lessons. We will also provide you with cultural insights. |
| Judith: And tips you won’t find in a textbook. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you will learn some first things about German. |
| Judith: Some greetings, some basic grammar and you are set. |
| Chuck: Every lesson will feature a dialogue completely in authentic German. |
| Judith: Today the dialogue will be between the police officer and a German woman. I will play the German woman. |
| Chuck: Now if you are listening on an iPod |
| Judith: Or an iPad Touch or an iPhone |
| Chuck: Just click the center button of your iPod or tap the screen on an iPad Touch or iPhone to see the notes for this lesson while you listen. |
| Judith: Read along while you listen. |
| Chuck: This technique will help you remember faster. |
| Judith: And it will help you with your pronunciation as well. |
| Chuck: Now let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| P: Guten Tag! |
| M: Guten Tag! |
| P: Wie ist Ihr Name? |
| M: Maria Müller. |
| P: Alter? |
| M: Dreißig. |
| P: Nationalität? |
| M: Deutsch. |
| P: Wohnort? |
| M: Berlin. |
| P: Geburtsort? Auch Berlin? |
| M: Nein, Essen. |
| Judith: Now it’s slowly. |
| P: Guten Tag! |
| M: Guten Tag! |
| P: Wie ist Ihr Name? |
| M: Maria Müller. |
| P: Alter? |
| M: Dreißig. |
| P: Nationalität? |
| M: Deutsch. |
| P: Wohnort? |
| M: Berlin. |
| P: Geburtsort? Auch Berlin? |
| M: Nein, Essen. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| P: Guten Tag! |
| P: Good day! |
| M: Guten Tag! |
| M: Good day! |
| P: Wie ist Ihr Name? |
| P: What is your name? (literally): how is your name?) |
| M: Maria Müller. |
| M: Maria Müller. |
| P: Alter? |
| P: Age? |
| M: Dreißig. |
| M: 30. |
| P: Nationalität? |
| P: Nationality? |
| M: Deutsch. |
| M: German. |
| P: Wohnort? |
| P: Place of residence? |
| M: Berlin. |
| M: Berlin. |
| P: Geburtsort? Auch Berlin? |
| P: Place of birth? Berlin too? |
| M: Nein, Essen. |
| M: No, Essen. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Chuck: So wait! Judith, what have you done to be questioned by the police? |
| Judith: I don’t know. |
| Chuck: I think there is something I don’t know about you. |
| Judith: But it’s not me, it’s my character, Mary Miller but I don’t know what she did either. |
| Chuck: That’s what they all say. |
| Judith: I guess the next lessons will show. |
| Chuck: Alright. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: For this first lesson, I thought we’d talk about some greetings in German. Well you’ve already seen the greeting [Guten Tag]. |
| Chuck: Good day. |
| Judith: This was used in the dialogue. It’s a formal greeting which can be used throughout the day. There is also [Guten Morgen]. |
| Chuck: Good morning. |
| Judith: This is specific to the morning only till about noon. |
| Chuck: And you will also notice that some people will just say [Morgen]. |
| Judith: Yeah or variations even. There is also [Guten Abend]. |
| Chuck: Good evening. |
| Judith: Starting at about 6 PM, you can greet people with [Guten Abend] instead of [Guten Abend] and there is [Gute Nacht]. |
| Chuck: Goodnight. |
| Judith: This is not a greeting. It’s a way of saying bye. And normally, you would say goodbye as [Auf Wiedersehen]. |
| Chuck: Goodbye and note this is a formal. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Judith: And it can be used any time of the day. All of this is formal language. You should use this kind of language with people that you don’t know, with strangers, with random adults, with officials, teachers anybody but when you are talking informally for example to your friends or to children, you should use a different kind of language. You can say hello for example or hi for a greeting and the informal way of saying goodbye is [Tschüss]. There are also variations depending on the region and personal style. I think there are even some people that say [Hallöchen] or Hallöle or [Tschüssi] but to me it sounds very childish. What do you think about this issue of formal and informal? |
| Chuck: When I first got here, I didn’t think it was very important but after being here a while, I noticed that it was very important. For example, you don’t go into a bank and just say, hello or hi, you would say [Guten Tag] and also we should use the [Sie] form which means you formally. |
| Judith: Yeah there are two different words for you in German. One is [Du] when you are talking informally and then there is Sie when you are talking formally. And the conjugation changes accordingly too and you are also expected to address people as [Herr] so and so. That means mr. or [Frau] for mrs until they tell you otherwise. It will take a while unlike in America where people say, hey I am Tom, okay. It’s quite surprising for me because here I am so used to calling everybody by their last name and [Herr or Frau] or whatever. Anyway, we will get back to this in the next lesson and also to the [Du] and Sie. For now, let’s have some basic notes about the German language. What can you tell me Chuck? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: Well German is Germanic language believe it or not. So it has the same origin as for example English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and for an English speaker, it’s comparatively easy to learn because you recognize a lot of words from English as well. |
| Judith: Yes or expressions and sayings that are similar, structures that are similar but there are also some things that are difficult that are different in English and German and German speakers have trouble with these. |
| Chuck: One of the things that I know I have had a lot of trouble with is the gender of nouns. We just don’t have that in English. |
| Judith: Yes but you may have seen it in Spanish or French. |
| Chuck: So German has three of them. |
| Judith: Yes German has three genders. |
| Chuck: Masculine, feminine and neuter. |
| Judith: Yes and the definite article changes accordingly. So when you have a masculine noun which is a male noun if you want, the article the is translated as [Der]. For feminine nouns, it’s [Die] and for neuter nouns, its [Das]. Well some of it is obvious. For example [Der Mann] |
| Chuck: The man, |
| Judith: Is masculine. [Die Frau]. |
| Chuck: The woman |
| Judith: Is feminine and [Das Kind]. |
| Chuck: The child |
| Judith: Is neuter because you don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl but very often these genders are assigned randomly and you will have to learn them by heart. For this reason, whenever you learn a noun, germanpod101 will tell you the gender as well. So for example, if I am teaching the word [Name] just now, I will say [Der Name] and that’s how you know that the [Name] is masculine. That’s the word for name. So this is how we will do in the vocabulary section and you will notice the gender of every noun and try to memorize it. |
| Chuck: Yeah one thing you might also have noticed if you ever read German is that a disproportionate number of words are capitalized but why? |
| Judith: That’s because all German nouns have to be capitalized. This is a special rule in German but it makes it easier to read or find because you are not wondering. For example, in English, the word book can be a noun or a verb like the book or to book a flight and this kind of confusion cannot exist in German because nouns are always spelt with the capital letter. |
| Chuck: At least not if you are reading. |
| Judith: Yeah. Well it’s also that we don’t have as many words that just sound the same. And in German, what I really like is that you can combine noun after noun after noun to form really long detailed descriptions. In this case, nouns are actually written together. So there is one long string of a word. It looks really daunting to a learner but they are actually quite easy. |
| Chuck: What’s that really long German word? |
| Judith: Oh there is a game that children play where they have to put one noun after the other and the last one who can’t add another noun to the whole thing is the loser. So there is one that goes like [Donaudampfschiffekapitänsmützenfarbe] whatever like the color of the – of a Danube River captain’s hat. It does not make sense but it is fun. So an easy example would be the word kindergarten which you have in English too. It’s a combination of kinder |
| Chuck: Children |
| Judith: And garden |
| Chuck: Garden. |
| Judith: So a garden for children and you see if you know those parts, then the long German nouns are not scary anymore and as an additional relief, you don’t need to learn the gender of them either. |
| Chuck: If there is a compound word, then that’s the gender of the last word in the compound. |
| Judith: Yes so in this case, the last word is [Garten] and it’s [Der Garten] masculine. So the entire word will be masculine as well. [Der] kindergarten. In today’s dialogue, there were two compound nouns [Wohnort] |
| Chuck: Living place or place of residence. |
| Judith: Yes and [Geburtsort] |
| Chuck: Birthplace |
| Judith: [Wohnort] is a combination of a verb and a noun because [Wohnen] to live or inhabit is a verb. So [Wohn] to live or inhabit and [Ort] place. [Wohnort] place of residence, place where you live. And [Geburtsort] is the combination of [Geburt] birth and [Ort] place with an additional S in between for no apparent reason. |
| Chuck: So you could all see those extra Ss sort of like glued kept towards together. |
| Judith: Yes and you will see it quite often. Now let’s look at the other words that came up in today’s dialogue. First we have [Guten Tag]. |
| Chuck: Good day or good afternoon. |
| Judith: Yeah we already mentioned it. It’s a formal greeting. Then [Wie]. |
| Chuck: How. |
| Judith: [Wie]. |
| Chuck: How. Note that [Wie] is spelled wie. |
| Judith: Yes the ie combination is along e… |
| Chuck: And ordinarily if you see a W in German, it’s pronounced like a V. |
| Judith: Yes always. It’s a question word, wie how and the question we had in the dialogue is [Wie ist Ihr Name?]. So [Ist] is “is”, [Ihr] is “your (formal)” and [Name] is “name”. Let’s go through them more slowly. [Ist] |
| Chuck: is |
| Judith: [Ist] |
| Chuck: Ss |
| Judith: Almost the same as in English and there is [Ihr] |
| Chuck: Your formally |
| Judith: [Ihr] |
| Chuck: Your formally |
| Judith: [Name] |
| Chuck: Name. |
| Judith: It’s actually just the same as in English except for the capitalization [Name] but we pronounce every single letter and it’s [Der Name] masculine. |
| Chuck: The name. |
| Judith: Then we had [Alter]. |
| Chuck: Age |
| Judith: [Das Alter]. |
| Chuck: The age |
| Judith: Then long word [Nationalität]. |
| Chuck: Nationality. |
| Judith: [Die Nationalität] I will say it slowly too [Nationalität] |
| Chuck: Nationality. |
| Judith: This is feminine [Die Nationalität] as I said and actually all words ending in [tät] are feminine and they all end in T in English. The other way around is not true. You can’t say all words that end in T end in [Tät] in German but this way it works. Next word [Deutsch] |
| Chuck: German. |
| Judith: [Deutsch] |
| Chuck: German. |
| Judith: This can be an adjective for the person or the language. [Deutsch] |
| Chuck: German. |
| Judith: Next [Wohnen]. |
| Chuck: To live or inhabit. |
| Judith: [Wohnen, wohnen]. |
| Chuck: To live or inhabit. |
| Judith: The [Wohnen] does not mean you are alive. It means you live at a place. Here we have the combination of [Wohnort] and this involves the word [Ort] |
| Chuck: Town, place or location. |
| Judith: [Der Ort] |
| Chuck: Town, place or location. |
| Judith: Next [Geburt]. |
| Chuck: Birth |
| Judith: [Geburt, Geburt]. |
| Chuck: Birth. |
| Judith: [Die Geburt] Feminine. |
| Chuck: The birth. |
| Judith: Next [Auch]. |
| Chuck: Also |
| Judith: [Auch] |
| Chuck: Also |
| Judith: Very important word and finally we know how to answer a yes/no question in German. The word for no is [Nein]. |
| Chuck: No. |
| Judith: [Nein]. |
| Chuck: No. |
| Judith: And the other [Ja]. |
| Chuck: Yes. |
| Judith: [Ja]. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Yes. All right, I think that just about does it for today. |
| Judith: Before we go, we want to tell you about the way to drastically improve your pronunciation. |
| Chuck: Oh yes that voice recording tool. Isn’t it? |
| Judith: Yes the voice recording tool in the premium learning center. |
| Chuck: Just record your voice with a click of a button. |
| Judith: And then you can play it back just as easily. |
| Chuck: So record your voice and then listen to it. |
| Judith: Compare it to the native speakers |
| Chuck: And adjust your pronunciation. |
| Judith: This will help you to improve your pronunciation fast. |
| Chuck: We will also be releasing an entire mini series focusing on pronunciation improvement. So check back in GermanPod101. See you there. |
| Judith: Yes see you there. Tschüss. |
Comments
HideHi Holly,
Thank you for your valuable feedback. 👍
The community of our learners is incredibly diverse and so are their interests
and levels of proficiency.
Sorry to hear that you felt you didn't benefit enough from this lesson. I will forward
your comment to our team to keep your concerns in mind when creating new content. 😉
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
I think they speak too much English, explain too much about something which is not related to the language itself. It is not helpful for me
Hello Delia,
Thank you for posting.
That's a great technique indeed.👍
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Ich finde gern verwandte Woerter wie Geburtstag und Geburtsort. Also verstehe ich mehr Deutsch.
Hi Kirit Sheth,
Thank you for your question.👍
I am glad someone brings this up.
On the other hand, yes, a policeman/woman can
stop you and ask you for identification. I don't think
it happens a lot since Germany nowadays is probably one of the
strongest democracies in the world, but to be able to verify someone's
identity sometimes contributes to safety. 😉
If you have any further questions, please let us know.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Can a policeman in Germany just stop a citizen and start an interrogation ? What about civil liberties ?
Hallo Kirit Sheth,
We are sorry for the inconvenience. Could you please send an email to our technical team with a detailed description of the problem including your device and browser type, so that our team can look into the issue thoroughly and correct it as soon as possible? Danke schön!
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Levente
Team GermanPod101.com
Hello Pedro,
Thank you for your feedback.
I have listened to the entire track twice and I couldn't find
the part you are referring to.
Could you be a little more specific as to where exactly
you found this?
Thank you for your help.😉
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
There is a software bug that is irritating. If a phone call comes while studying, it is not possible to switch off the lesson.
Hey guys,
not sure if it was intended, or not, but when Chuck mispronounces the "Geburtsort" line, you can hear the correction/ discussion between him and Judith... Not sure if that was an editing mistake?
Just got to GermanPod and it looks like an awesome resource!
Hallo Sofiane,
Bitte schön! 😇👍
We are very happy to have you here. Let us know if you have any questions.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Levente
Team GermanPod101.com
Great job, vielan Dank
Hallo Sameh,
Danke schön for posting. We are very happy to hear that you enjoy studying with us. Please let us know if you have any questions. 😉
Wishing you good luck with your German,
Levente
Team GermanPod101.com
Thanks for you, good job
Hi Magdalena,
You can use the [Notes] feature in the menu below the lesson’s title to add any comments about the lesson’s content that you consider more important to review later.
Then, to access them, go to:
https://www.germanpod101.com/learningcenter/account/notes
In case of any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,
Cristiane
Team GermanPod101.com
It would be great if I could write some notes for just myself, like the articles of some of the words seen in this lesson. I will just put it here, just in case this can be recaptured by myself in the future:
der Wohnort
der Geburtsort
die Nationalität
das Alter
der Name
😄 Tschüss und danke!!
Hi Nil,
The [Vocabulary] section uses the dictionary form of the entries, therefore it doesn't include the article.
Thank you for your kind understanding.
Sincerely,
Cristiane
Team GermanPod101.com
Hi, thank you for this great lesson.But I am wondering why the articles of the nouns cannot be seen in vocabulary list.
thank you for the vocabulary list
i am looking forward to learn german !
robert
Hallo Luzivalde,
I am glad to hear that you are planning to visit the country! I hope you like the rest of our series.👍
Sincerely,
Cristiane
Team GermanPod101.com