Learn about pronouns and possessives
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Beginner series, Season 2, Lesson #21. Are You Always This Apathetic At Work in Germany? Hello and welcome to germanpod101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn German. |
| Judith: I am Judith and thanks again for being here with us for this beginner series, season 2 lesson. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you will learn how to express apathy in German, but I am not sure I really care about it. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place in the office of a German company. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Mr. Mueller that is our soft bit of my friend and his boss. Speakers are in a business relationship. Therefore they will be speaking formal German. Now if you are listening on an iPod. |
| Judith: Or an iPod touch or iPhone |
| Chuck: Click the center button of the iPod and tap the screen on an iPod 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. Okay let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Boss: Herr Müller, schön Sie zu sehen! |
| C: Ja, was für eine Überraschung! |
| Boss: Wir haben viel zu tun. Zuerst kopieren Sie bitte die Notizen hier und dann bereiten Sie das Meeting mit unserem Investor vor. |
| C: Okay. |
| Boss: Bis später dann! |
| Boss: So, Herr Müller, haben Sie die Notizen? |
| C: Nein... |
| Boss: Und das Meeting? |
| C: Wen interessiert es?! |
| Judith: Now it’s slowly. |
| Boss: Herr Müller, schön Sie zu sehen! |
| C: Ja, was für eine Überraschung! |
| Boss: Wir haben viel zu tun. Zuerst kopieren Sie bitte die Notizen hier und dann bereiten Sie das Meeting mit unserem Investor vor. |
| C: Okay. |
| Boss: Bis später dann! |
| Boss: So, Herr Müller, haben Sie die Notizen? |
| C: Nein... |
| Boss: Und das Meeting? |
| C: Wen interessiert es?! |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Boss: Herr Müller, schön Sie zu sehen! |
| Boss: Mr Müller, nice to see you! |
| C: Ja, was für eine Überraschung! |
| C: Yes, what a surprise! |
| Boss: Wir haben viel zu tun. Zuerst kopieren Sie bitte die Notizen hier und dann bereiten Sie das Meeting mit unserem Investor vor. |
| Boss: We have a lot to do. First please copy these notes and then prepare the meeting with our investor. |
| C: Okay. |
| C: Okay. |
| Boss: Bis später dann! |
| Boss: So see you later! |
| Boss: So, Herr Müller, haben Sie die Notizen? |
| Boss: So, Mr Müller, do you have the notes? |
| C: Nein... |
| C: No… |
| Boss: Und das Meeting? |
| Boss: And the meeting? |
| C: Wen interessiert es?! |
| C: Who cares?! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Now with words like meeting and investor in this lesson, I thought it would be a good time to talk about Denglish. |
| Chuck: Well Denglish is what we call English words that German is adopting right now. For example, meeting. |
| Judith: These words are tricky because people argue about the gender and what plural they should take. Very often, people will just use the English plural minus the rules that Germans can’t remember. For example, the English word hobby that’s [Hobbys] with a ys in German. Other words have familiar endings and if there is a rule for these in German, then these will behave according to that rule. For example investor that’s [Investoren] |
| Chuck: There is also lot of fake English in German too. Everyone will tell you that these words are English but you may have never heard them before or at least not with that meaning. |
| Judith: Yeah things like [Handy] |
| Chuck: Cell phone. |
| Judith: Or [Call-Shop] |
| Chuck: A place to make cheap phone calls to other countries. |
| Judith: Or [Beamer] |
| Chuck: Projector. Yeah in fact when I was working at the University in Heilbronn, my boss came up to me one day and he said, could you go in and get the beamer ready. And I said, what’s that? Well it’s an English word. Okay! What’s a beamer? You know, it’s like a projector. Ah! okay, I got it now. Another one I particularly like is the German word for the table game of table soccer. |
| Judith: That’s called [Kicker] |
| Chuck: Yeah and in English, we call it foosball. It is even more hilarious. So if you ever want to surprise your German friends, you can ask them what the word for kicker is in English and they will never know. Let’s look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: First word is [Überraschung] |
| Chuck: Surprise. |
| Judith: [Überraschung, Überraschung] This word is feminine, [Die Überraschung] and the plural is [Überraschungen] Next word [Tun] |
| Chuck: To do. |
| Judith: This word is a bit irregular but you don’t need to worry about it right now. [Tun, tun] Next word [Zuerst] |
| Chuck: At first or firstly. |
| Judith: [Zuerst, zuerst] Next word [Kopieren] |
| Chuck: To copy. |
| Judith: [Kopieren, kopieren] Next word [Notiz] |
| Chuck: Note. |
| Judith: [Notiz, Notiz, die Notiz] This is feminine and the plural is [Notizen] Next word [Vorbereiten] |
| Chuck: To prepare. |
| Judith: [Vorbereiten, vorbereiten] The [Vor] splits off. Next word [Meeting] |
| Chuck: Business meeting. |
| Judith: [Meeting, Meeting] This word is neuter and the plural is meetings. Next word [Investor] |
| Chuck: Investor. |
| Judith: Investor, Investor. This word is masculine [Der] investor and the plural is [Investoren]. Next word, [Bis]. |
| Chuck: Until. |
| Judith: [Bis, bis] Next word [Wen] |
| Chuck: Whom. |
| Judith: [Wen, wen] Next word [interessiert] |
| Chuck: Interested. It is interesting. |
| Judith: [Interessiert, interessiert] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first phrase we will look at is [Was für ein] |
| Chuck: What a! |
| Judith: This is an exclamation. For example, [Was für eine Überraschung!] |
| Chuck: What a surprise! |
| Judith: Or [Was für ein schönes Kleid!] |
| Chuck: What a beautiful dress! |
| Judith: The next word is [Bis] |
| Chuck: Until or see you. |
| Judith: Yes this word is also used when you want to say, see you today, see you tomorrow, I will see you later, see you next week, see you next Monday, whenever. |
| Chuck: Can you use [Bis] by itself? |
| Judith: No, it’s not as common. We always use variation of this at the end of our lessons. So watch out for it. |
| Chuck: [Bis dann.] |
| Judith: For example or [Bis nächste Woche.] |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson are pointers and possessives. |
| Judith: Technically this is [Dieser] in German and that is [Jener]. However this forms especially the [Jener] form is almost out of use in spoken German. |
| Chuck: I’ve actually hardly ever heard these in Germany. They typically get replaced by [Der, die, das] |
| Judith: Or as you’ve seen in the dialogue, we add a hier as in [Die Notizen hier] instead of [Diese Notizen] |
| Chuck: Let’s also have a close look at possessives. We have encountered most of them by now. So Judith, why don’t you give us the full list? |
| Judith: Sure [Mein] |
| Chuck: My |
| Judith: [Dein] |
| Chuck: Your, singular informal |
| Judith: [Sein] |
| Chuck: His or its |
| Judith: [Ihr] |
| Chuck: Her |
| Judith: [Unser] |
| Chuck: Our |
| Judith: [Euer] |
| Chuck: Your plural |
| Judith: [Ihr] |
| Chuck: Their or your formal. |
| Judith: I think the hardest part is not to confuse the [Ihr] that means their or your with [Ihr] you plural when it’s not a possessive. |
| Chuck: Yeah it can get complicated. |
| Judith: Don’t forget that these change too like adjectives. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Well that just about does it for today. Testing yourself is one of the most effective ways to learn. |
| Judith: That’s why we have three types of quizzes. |
| Chuck: Vocabulary, grammar and content specific. |
| Judith: Each quiz targets specific skills. |
| Chuck: And together these quizzes will help you master several fundamental skills. |
| Judith: You can find them in the learning center at. |
| Chuck: Germanpod101.com. So see you next week and listen for it. |
| Judith: [Bis nächste Woche.] |
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