Learn how to express excitement
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Beginner series, Season 2, Lesson #28. Planes, Trains, or Automobiles—or Maybe a German Bus! 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 excitement. |
| Judith: I am excited because today we are embarking on a new story. |
| Chuck: We are still learning how to express emotions but in a different setting. |
| Judith: The beginning of this new story takes place at a German airport. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Caroline and Martin, two American tourists. The speakers are friends. Therefore they will be speaking informal German. Now before we listen to the conversation |
| Judith: We want to ask |
| Chuck: Do you read the lesson notes while you listen? |
| Judith: We received an email about the study tip. |
| Chuck: So we are wondering if you tried it and if so |
| Judith: What do you think of it? |
| Chuck: Leave us feedback in the comments section of this lesson. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Caroline: Juchhu! Jetzt sind wir in Europa! |
| Martin: Ich kann es kaum fassen! Zwei Wochen in alten Städten und modernen Metropolen! |
| Caroline: Nicht nur zwei Wochen, ganze sechzehn Tage! Erst Berlin, dann München, vielleicht Heidelberg, Paris... |
| Martin: Können wir auch nach Amsterdam fahren? |
| Caroline: Wenn du möchtest. Ich weiß nicht, ob man mit dem Zug von Deutschland aus bis nach Amsterdam fahren kann. |
| Martin: Sonst mieten wir ein Auto, oder wir fliegen. |
| Judith: Now it’s slowly. |
| Caroline: Juchhu! Jetzt sind wir in Europa! |
| Martin: Ich kann es kaum fassen! Zwei Wochen in alten Städten und modernen Metropolen! |
| Caroline: Nicht nur zwei Wochen, ganze sechzehn Tage! Erst Berlin, dann München, vielleicht Heidelberg, Paris... |
| Martin: Können wir auch nach Amsterdam fahren? |
| Caroline: Wenn du möchtest. Ich weiß nicht, ob man mit dem Zug von Deutschland aus bis nach Amsterdam fahren kann. |
| Martin: Sonst mieten wir ein Auto, oder wir fliegen. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Caroline: Juchhu! Jetzt sind wir in Europa! |
| Caroline: Yay! Now we are in Europe! |
| Martin: Ich kann es kaum fassen! Zwei Wochen in alten Städten und modernen Metropolen! |
| Martin: I can hardly believe it! Two weeks in ancient cities and modern metropoles! |
| Caroline: Nicht nur zwei Wochen, ganze sechzehn Tage! Erst Berlin, dann München, vielleicht Heidelberg, Paris... |
| Caroline: Not just two weeks, a whole 16 days! First Berlin, then Munich, maybe Heidelberg, Paris… |
| Martin: Können wir auch nach Amsterdam fahren? |
| Martin: Can we also go to Amsterdam? |
| Caroline: Wenn du möchtest. Ich weiß nicht, ob man mit dem Zug von Deutschland aus bis nach Amsterdam fahren kann. |
| Caroline: If you want. I don't know if it's possible to take the train from Germany all the way to Amsterdam. |
| Martin: Sonst mieten wir ein Auto, oder wir fliegen. |
| Martin: Otherwise we rent a car, or we fly. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: So let’s talk about this actually. |
| Chuck: How about we talk about getting around. |
| Judith: Yes getting around within Germany and also the neighboring countries. Obviously you can rent a car and drive around once you familiarized yourself with the German traffic rules and the look of the road signs. Some of them are quite different from the ones in the States. |
| Chuck: I’d say the most important thing to keep in mind especially if you are traveling on the [Autobahn] is to – that you are not allowed to pass people on the right. |
| Judith: Yes well there is a couple of rules like that but you should keep in mind that the gas here is at least twice and sometimes three times as expensive as in the States. So renting a car might not be the cheapest nor the most convenient way to see Germany. |
| Chuck: I’d say it’s pretty much the worst way at all. I actually prefer trains. And next to cars, trains are I think far most in people’s minds even maybe before cars, especially if you are going from a big city to another big city but even from small cities to other small cities, you can always get there. |
| Judith: And Germany boasts fast trains that can take you from any big city to any other at speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour. |
| Chuck: It is 190 miles per hour. |
| Judith: They even go internationally. So you may be able to catch a direct train to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Continental Denmark, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Milan or… |
| Chuck: I think they get the point. Anyway, there is a very comprehensive network of slower regional trains as well. So you can get pretty much everywhere by train. |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: I don’t even see a reason to get a car if you are here unless you are really going out into the country. |
| Judith: And there you may be able to get buses. I mean buses are pretty good for getting around in cities or to get from one small town to another in the countryside but Germany does not rely much on long distance buses because trains are so much faster and more comfortable. There are a couple of long distance bus lines available now that you may try and they will go between major German cities and some international ones. |
| Chuck: And of course, you can also fly but flying from one part of Germany to another is kind of new because people just always went by train. |
| Judith: It’s not that big of a country. |
| Chuck: Yeah exactly. When you think about domestic flying here, it’s like flying within your own region of the United States or even flights within England I think are not that common as well. Let’s say if you want to just go to Venice or Barcelona or London for the weekend, you can probably do that and it is not that expensive. |
| Judith: Yeah because of the rush of cheap airlines here. They just make it possible. You need to wait for a good offer and then you can definitely just hop to another city for the weekend. |
| Chuck: All right. Well let’s hop on over to taking a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: First word [Juchhu] |
| Chuck: Yoohoo! |
| Judith: [Juchhu, Juchhu] Next word [Europa] |
| Chuck: Europe. |
| Judith: [Europa, Europa] Next word [Woche] |
| Chuck: Week. |
| Judith: [Woche, Woche, die Woche] this is feminine and the plural is [Wochen]. Next word [Alt] |
| Chuck: Old. |
| Judith: [Alt, alt] Next word [Modern] |
| Chuck: Modern |
| Judith: [Modern, modern] Next word [Metropole] |
| Chuck: Metropolis. |
| Judith: [Metropole, Metropole, die Metropole] And the plural is [Metropolen]. Next word [Fahren] |
| Chuck: To drive or ride a vehicle as a passenger or to go but not by foot. |
| Judith: [Fahren, fahren] And this is a vowel changing verb. So the form is [Er fährt] and [Du fährst]. Next word [Ob] |
| Chuck: Whether. |
| Judith: [Ob, ob] Next word [Zug] |
| Chuck: Train. |
| Judith: [Zug, Zug, der Zug] And the plural is [Züge] Next word [Mieten] |
| Chuck: To rent. |
| Judith: [Mieten, mieten] Next word [Auto] |
| Chuck: Car. |
| Judith: [Auto, Auto, das Auto] This is neuter and the plural is [Autos] Next word [Fliegen] |
| Chuck: To fly. |
| Judith: [Fliegen, fliegen] |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Judith: The first word we look at is [Ganz] |
| Chuck: Whole. |
| Judith: [Ganze sechzehn Tage] |
| Chuck: A whole 16 days. |
| Judith: In this case, [Ganze] is plural to fit [Tage] The other word I wanted to look at today is [Ob] |
| Chuck: Whether. |
| Judith: This starts a subclause. So be sure to put the verb at the end [Ich weiß nicht ob es wahr ist.] |
| Chuck: I don’t know whether or if it is true. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The grammar focus of this lesson is incomplete sentences. Today’s dialogue featured a lot of them. They are actually very common in spoken German. |
| Judith: And incomplete sentence is a sentence that is missing a subject or a main verb or both. However these have to be easily guessable in order for this to work. Here are some examples. |
| Chuck: Missing verb |
| Judith: [Kommt Martin zur Party? Ja, und Paul auch.] That is [Ja, und Paul kommt auch.] |
| Chuck: Missing subject. |
| Judith: [Oh, tut mir leid. Ist schon OK.] So with the missing part included, that would be [Oh, das tut mir leid. Es ist schon OK.] |
| Chuck: Missing subject and verb. |
| Judith: [Zwei Wochen in alten Städten und modernen Metropolen.] In this sentence, we are missing the [Wir haben]. For example [Wir haben zwei Wochen in alten Städten und modernen Metropolen.] |
| Chuck: Missing main clause. |
| Judith: [Wenn du möchtest] as in [Wenn du möchtest können wir das tun.] |
| Chuck: Except for the cases where [Das] or [Es] are dropped, all of these rely on the context to tell you what’s missing. Well that just about does it for today. |
Outro |
| Judith: Ready to test what you just learned. |
| Chuck: Make this lesson’s vocabulary stick by using lesson specific flashcards in the learning center. |
| Judith: There is a reason everyone uses flashcards. |
| Chuck: They work. |
| Judith: They really do help memorization. |
| Chuck: You can get flashcards for this lesson at |
| Judith: Germanpod101.com |
| Chuck: All right see you next time. |
| Judith: [Bis nächstes Mal.] |
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