Learn how to use question tags
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: This is beginner series, Lesson #7. 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 season, second season lesson. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you will learn how to have a typical conversation coming home. |
| Judith: You find yourself in this situation almost every day. So it’s extremely useful to master. |
| Chuck: This conversation takes place at Maria’s home. |
| Judith: It seems the policeman did finally let her go. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Maria and her boyfriend. |
| Judith: Chuck will be playing the boyfriend in this case. |
| Chuck: The speakers are very close. Therefore they will be speaking informal German. |
| Judith: Now |
| Chuck: If you don’t already have one |
| Judith: Stop by germanpod101.com |
| Chuck: And sign up for your free lifetime account. |
| Judith: You can sign up in less than 30 seconds. |
| Chuck: But pause this lesson as you sign up because we will listen to the conversation now. |
| DIALOGUE |
| M: Hallo, ich bin wieder da! |
| B: Hey!! |
| M: Es tut mir leid, dass ich spät dran bin. |
| B: Macht nichts. Ich bin oben. |
| M: Ah, du arbeitest wieder, oder? |
| B: Ja, aber ich komme gleich runter. Du bist heute dran mit dem Kochen, nicht? |
| M: Ja, ich koche heute etwas. |
| Judith: Und jetzt langsam. And now slowly. |
| M: Hallo, ich bin wieder da! |
| B: Hey!! |
| M: Es tut mir leid, dass ich spät dran bin. |
| B: Macht nichts. Ich bin oben. |
| M: Ah, du arbeitest wieder, oder? |
| B: Ja, aber ich komme gleich runter. Du bist heute dran mit dem Kochen, nicht? |
| M: Ja, ich koche heute etwas. |
| Judith: Und jetzt mit übersetzung. Now with translation. |
| M: Hallo, ich bin wieder da! |
| M: Hallo, I'm back! [literally - I'm there again] |
| B: Hey!! |
| B: Hey!! |
| M: Es tut mir leid, dass ich spät dran bin. |
| M: I'm sorry that I'm late. |
| B: Macht nichts. Ich bin oben. |
| B: No worries. I'm upstairs. |
| M: Ah, du arbeitest wieder, oder? |
| M: Ah, you are working again, aren't you? |
| B: Ja, aber ich komme gleich runter. Du bist heute dran mit dem Kochen, nicht? |
| B: Yes, but I'm coming downstairs shortly. It's your turn to cook today, isn't it? |
| M: Ja, ich koche heute etwas. |
| M: Yes, I'm cooking something today. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Chuck: So this is between two real German people? |
| Judith: Yeah well you are representing one of them. So the accent is not quite perfect but yes sure it’s real German conversation. |
| Chuck: Right now, there is no slang or anything. Is that common? |
| Judith: There is slang. For example, the [Oder] is the question. We will get into that in the grammar section but yeah it’s – there is no dialect if that’s what you mean. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: No dialect because we are teaching Hochdeutsch here, High German. This is what we call Standard German Hochdeutsch. Hochdeutsch originated as a written standard. So that literature could be understood all over Germany despite the local dialects. And one of the key factors in this movement to standardized German was actually Martin Luther’s translation of a Bible. |
| Chuck: Yeah I heard that in some areas of the north, High German had to be studied like a foreign language because the local dialect was so different; but nowadays, all these dialogues have almost all died out. |
| Judith: Yes if you look around now, most of the people speak Hochdeutsch with some local twist everywhere. I mean the southern dialect were not as much affected. So they are harder to understand but still it’s [a variation of Hochdeutsch]. It’s not a different language anymore and Hochdeutsch is just not a foreign language any more to anybody, except of course the immigrants. |
| Chuck: What about the Bavarians? |
| Judith: Well I know I don’t think it’s a foreign language. It is just Bavarians is particularly hard. I think Bavarian dialects are probably the farthest you can get from standard High German within Germany. |
| Chuck: Because they are still taught Bavarian in the school right? |
| Judith: Yes I believe so that all over Germany, the teachers have to speak Hochdeutsch in class but in Bavaria, they don’t need to. |
| Chuck: Well in any case, pretty much everyone is well acquainted with it and you can switch to Hochdeutsch when talking with foreigners or people not from the region. |
| Judith: Yes almost everybody except some Bavarians or some older people. |
| Chuck: Speaking of learning some German, should we go over the vocabulary? |
| Judith: Of course |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: First word is [Wieder] |
| Chuck: Again. |
| Judith: [Wieder, wieder] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Da] |
| Chuck: There |
| Judith: [Da, da] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Es tut mir leid] |
| Chuck: I am sorry. |
| Judith: [Es tut mir leid, Es tut mir leid] |
| Chuck: Next word |
| Judith: [Spät] |
| Chuck: Late |
| Judith: [Spät, spät] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Nichts] |
| Chuck: Nothing |
| Judith: [Nichts, nichts] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Macht nichts] |
| Chuck: It’s nothing, don’t worry, don’t apologize. |
| Judith: [Macht nichts, macht nichts] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Oben] |
| Chuck: On top or upstairs. |
| Judith: [Oben, oben] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Kommen] |
| Chuck: To come. |
| Judith: [Kommen, kommen] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Gleich] |
| Chuck: Shortly or equal. |
| Judith: [Gleich, gleich] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Runter] |
| Chuck: Down or downstairs. |
| Judith: [Runter, runter] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Heute] |
| Chuck: Today |
| Judith: [Heute, heute] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Dran sein] |
| Chuck: Its one’s turn. |
| Judith: [Dran sein, dran sein] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Mit] |
| Chuck: With |
| Judith: [Mit, mit] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Now let’s take a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first word or phrase we will look at is [Dran sein] |
| Chuck: As you may know, I love board games. So it’s one of the first expressions I learned in German. The phrase [Du bist dran] is used to say it’s your turn. This can be quite important if you are an impatient board game player like me. |
| Judith: [Du bist dran] |
| Chuck: Literally that means you are at it. |
| Judith: You could also say [Ich bin dran] for it’s my turn and so on but there is another way of using [Dran sein] and it also appeared in today’s dialogue. They said [Ich bin spät dran] |
| Chuck: That means I am late. |
| Judith: [Dran sein] only has this meaning when you combine it with [Spät] |
| Chuck: Late |
| Judith: Or [Früh] |
| Chuck: Early. So remember to use [Dran sein] in the phrases you are late, we are early and alike. |
| Judith: Okay the other word we want to have a closer look at today is [Gleich] |
| Chuck: That means shortly. |
| Judith: For example, you would use it in [Ich komme gleich] |
| Chuck: I will be there shortly |
| Judith: Or [Bis gleich] |
| Chuck: See you in a bit. |
| Judith: Be careful not to confuse [Gleich, später] and [Bald] |
| Chuck: [Später] is later and [Bald] is soon. |
| Judith: So if you say [Bis bald] |
| Chuck: That means see you soon as in a couple of days from now or maybe longer. |
| Judith: Whereas if you say [Bis später] or [Bis gleich] |
| Chuck: You are implying that you will see the person a little later on the same day. I once used [Bis später] as I was leaving a party and everyone looked at me a bit strange. |
| Judith: I can imagine. It was probably late already and you did not actually plan to see them later that night. Alright, now let’s look at some real grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Judith: This lesson is actually mostly a review lesson. So we don’t do much new – just one small point about question tags. |
| Chuck: Question tags are the short phrases that you stick at the end of English sentences in order to reassure yourself. For example, in the sentence, you are coming to the party. Aren’t you? The ‘Aren’t you’ is a question tag. If English is not your native language, you will know that question tags are rather annoying in English because you have to adapt them to the sentence. You might have to say “isn’t he” or “won’t you” or “didn’t I” or the like; or if you are Canadian, you might say “Eh”. |
| Judith: Yeah in Canadian English, it’s easier but I had to learn all those forms like isn’t he, wasn’t he, won’t you’s. It’s really hard and German is much easier in this respect because the question tags don’t depend on the sentence. They only depend on the person speaking. Now if you look at textbooks, they will teach you that the German question tag is [Nicht wahr] |
| Chuck: Not true. |
| Judith: But it sounds quite old dated to me and germanpod101 will teach you modern German. So now-a-days, what people actually say is [Oder] |
| Chuck: Or |
| Judith: Or [Nicht] |
| Chuck: Not |
| Judith: Regional varieties of course. In North Rhine-Westphalia for example where I come from, the most common question tag is [Ne] |
| Chuck: And I noticed in the south where I was living for a while, you will hear either [Gell] or [Gelle] |
| Judith: Yeah these are not translatable but they are essential for understanding colloquial German. In the dialogue, we use question tags twice once in [Ah, du arbeitest wieder, oder?]. |
| Chuck: Ah you are working again, aren’t you? |
| Judith: And once in [Du bist heute dran mit dem Kochen, nicht?] |
| Chuck: It’s your turn to cook today, isn’t it? |
| Judith: So even though Maria and her boyfriend live in Berlin, we decided to go with Hochdeutsch phrases. |
Outro |
| Chuck: So that just about does it for today. Before we go, we want to tell you about a way to drastically improve your pronunciation. |
| Judith: The voice recording tool. |
| Chuck: Yes the voice recording tool in the premium learning center. |
| Judith: Record your voice with a click of a button. |
| Chuck: And then play it back just as easily. |
| Judith: So you record your voice and then listen to it. |
| Chuck: Compare it to the native speakers |
| Judith: And adjust your pronunciation. |
| Chuck: That will help your pronunciation fast. Of course, you should also use our accent improvement lessons if you want to have a good German accent. So see you there. |
| Judith: [Bis dann] |
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