Learn how to buy things in German
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 |
| Judith: Hello [Ich heiße] Judith. |
| Chuck: Hi I’m Chuck. |
| Judith: [Sie hören GermanPod101.com] |
| Chuck: You’re listening to GermanPod101.com. This is the new beginner series lesson 8. |
| Judith: [Willkommen zurück.] |
| Chuck: Welcome back listeners for another beginner lesson brought to you by GermanPod101.com |
| Judith: Do you remember what we did in the last one? |
| Chuck: Let`s see, Oh, we learnt how to ask for directions, right? |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: That’s right, the American visitor was looking for the museum, now he’s back from the museum visit and a German friend’s enlisted him to help her shop for clothes. |
| Judith: Let’s see what a shopping trip might sound like in German. |
| Chuck: Yeah, I imagine for a lot of you if you go for the first time shopping in a foreign country, you’re quite intimidated because, well, the people may not speak English there. So first we‘ll see the German friend talking to the staff of the clothes store. First we‘ll see the German friend talking to the staff of the clothing store. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: Entschuldigung, wo finde ich T-Shirts? |
| C: Für Damen oder für Herren? |
| A: Für Damen natürlich. |
| C: Die T-Shirts sind… |
| A: Schon gut, ich sehe sie schon. |
| … |
| A: Wie findest du dieses? |
| B: Na ja, es ist sehr grün. |
| A: Ach, grün ist in Mode. Ich werde dieses T-Shirt anprobieren. |
| … |
| A: Und, was denkst du? |
| B: Ich finde es nicht so schön, du siehst dick darin aus… |
| A: Ach was! Streifen machen dünn. Ich finde es toll. |
| Judith: Now read slowly. |
| A: Entschuldigung, wo finde ich T-Shirts? |
| C: Für Damen oder für Herren? |
| A: Für Damen natürlich. |
| C: Die T-Shirts sind… |
| A: Schon gut, ich sehe sie schon. |
| … |
| A: Wie findest du dieses? |
| B: Na ja, es ist sehr grün. |
| A: Ach, grün ist in Mode. Ich werde dieses T-Shirt anprobieren. |
| … |
| A: Und, was denkst du? |
| B: Ich finde es nicht so schön, du siehst dick darin aus… |
| A: Ach was! Streifen machen dünn. Ich finde es toll. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. Entschuldigung, wo finde ich T-Shirts? |
| Chuck: Excuse me, where can I find T-shirts? |
| Judith: Für Damen oder für Herren? |
| Chuck: For women or for men? |
| Judith: Für Damen natürlich. |
| Chuck: For women of course. |
| Judith: Die T-Shirts sind… |
| Chuck: The T-shirts are. |
| Judith: Schon gut, ich sehe sie schon. |
| Chuck: I got it, I see them already. |
| Judith: Wie findest du dieses? |
| Chuck: How do you find this one? |
| Judith: Na ja, es ist sehr grün. |
| Chuck: Oh, well, it’s very green? |
| Judith: Ach, grün ist in Mode. |
| Chuck: Green is in fashion. |
| Judith: Ich werde dieses T-Shirt anprobieren. |
| Chuck: I’d like to try on this T-shirt. |
| Judith: Und, was denkst du? |
| Chuck: And what do you think? |
| Judith: Ich finde es nicht so schön, du siehst dick darin aus… |
| Chuck: I find it not so nice, you look a little fat. |
| Judith: Ach was! Streifen machen dünn. Ich finde es toll. |
| Chuck: Oh, what? Stripes makes you look thin. I like it. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: So, how was your shopping experience in Germany? |
| Chuck: It’s not too hard. |
| Judith: What do you mean not too hard? |
| Chuck: I mean I don’t see it there aren’t different than that states, just the people speak German to you. |
| Judith: Did you have trouble finding the same kind of clothes? |
| Chuck: Not really, or that maybe I just don’t care that much about them. |
| Judith: Yeah. Yeah, I find that, well, I haven’t been to the states all that often, but I think people are a little more like a fashion contrast over here in Germany. |
| Chuck: Yeah, I’d say it sort of New York and LA, that would be true. |
| Judith: Yeah, and people don’t often buy clothes at big stores that sells anything. Usually people like to go to small boutiques, you know in a pedestrian zone where you walk by the windows and you go in the shops that have interesting looking clothes. |
| Chuck: Yeah, I think it’s also not quite common to go like used clothes on shopping here, right? With discount stores. |
| Judith: No that’s-- well we have second hands of stores, but they’re not really common. I mean discount clothes, yes. Discount textiles are growing. Especially with the Turkish areas of town. |
| Chuck: Yeah, I’d say one thing that you definitely see in Germany’s less people wear T-shirts. |
| Judith: Yes, Except in summer. |
| Chuck: Yeah, that’s true. Well, even in the summer, you don’t-- you can still see other clothes. |
| Judith: Some of people wear whatever-- Yeah, used to, it depends, I mean, because for official things you have to be dressed like nicely not in a T-shirt. That the thing is, I find it kind of weird to see so many Americans wearing T-shirts say in winter, because the weather is such in Germany that the cold really goes down to your bones because it’s so humid, and then you want something to protect your arms. |
| Chuck: I think it’s also that in the states places are extremely well heated so usually you’re going from, say your house to your car, and you’re driving somewhere then you walk inside in another really heated place again, and so pretty much everywhere you can wear a T-shirt. As here if you wear T-shirts all the time you just start freezing when you go inside places. |
| Judith: Maybe. |
| Chuck: But is actually much more ecologically to not like heat everything to a crazy amount so it feels like summer inside. |
| Judith: I think it’s healthier too, I mean if you’re going from really cold to really hot, you’re bound to get a cold. Even in summer I found it quite amazing how much air-conditioning there was, but we talked about that a lot already. |
| Chuck: Yeah, well, it seems those for the winter just need a direction of the heating. |
| Judith: Okay, well in Europe people tend to wear clothes that has a nice cut like that are kind of form fitting if you can say that. |
| Chuck: Yeah, It’s a nice way of saying they’re tighter, right? |
| Judith: Yeah, It’s not that much baggy stuff like the really wide T-shirts that don’t show your form at all. And a lot of women will wear accessories all the time, like necklaces, purses, earrings, rings, whatever just to dress up. |
| Chuck: Yeah, you also know that people don’t wear a white shoes that often here, unless say you’re jogging or like in a gym. |
| Judith: Yeah, the most common shoe color is black really, and after that maybe earth colors but white is really uncommon. |
| Chuck: Yeah, and you would pretty much never see white socks unless you’re working out, right? |
| Judith: Yes, white tennis socks are perfect for gym days. |
| Chuck: Yeah, but you won’t wear them to say, even like an, I guess, still kind of weird, maybe just to wear them out. |
| Judith: It depends on the color of shoe. It should probably fit the color of your shoe, which means that a lot of socks are black. |
| Chuck: Yeah, a good point. Have to also mention I was quite surprised to see how many people wear hoodies here. |
| Judith: Yeah, it depends on the fashion of course. Sometimes they’re in fashion, sometimes they are not. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: The sense of fashion already starts at school, because about no school I know of has a school uniform or dress code so--. Well, okay, they specify that you can’t show up in Pyjamas or you can’t show up in bedding suits, but I mean dress codes in the sense of what you have to wear. People try to outdo each other in terms of fashion or dressing up or-- so the sense of fashion develops in school, and then when you go to a workplace you almost definitely expected to wear dress clothes, like nice shirts, nice pants. Maybe a jeans it’s okay, but more likely you even wear other pants and probably not a T-shirt. |
| Chuck: And nice shoes, right? |
| Judith: Sorry. |
| Chuck: And nice shoes. |
| Judith: Well, of course it goes with it. |
| Chuck: I mean we’re-- I quite shocked Judith-- about a week ago we were watching an American TV show and there was a lady dressed in very nice suit and then she had white tennis shoes on, on American TV show. It’s like one of these talk shows. |
| Judith: Yeah, and that was-- I think the audience notice that too though. I mean, on TV you just expect people to look nice. |
| Chuck: Yeah, shoe as well. You know, the restaurants and I’d say especially clothes may take offense if you come in with clothing that’s too casual. |
| Judith: Well, clubs obviously always have a dress code of how you’re supposed to show up there, but also restaurants if you’re in a nice fancy restaurant and you can’t go there and show what’s maybe-- |
| Chuck: Of course fancy restaurants in the states will be the same way, well, just--. |
| Judith: Well, not fancy fancy, like a middle class fancy. |
| Chuck: Okay, I see. Oh, have what we got almost on fashion vocabulary? |
| Judith: Yeah, sure. |
| Chuck: But our fashion vocabulary doesn’t include white socks, right? |
| Judith: Nope. |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: I don’t think all the Americans wear the white socks either, but there’re a lot of them. |
| Chuck: You can write in the comments if you wear white socks. I know I still have a collection of white socks when I used to live in the states. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: Okay vocabulary. First word is [Wo.] |
| Chuck: Where, that’s where as in where is that, not as in I wear something. |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: Don’t confuse them in our fashion section usage. |
| Judith: Okay, next [Naja.] |
| Chuck: Well. |
| Judith: [Naja.] |
| Chuck: Well. It’s often used as a stop word like in the middle of a sentence like something something [Naja.]. |
| Judith: Yeah, or as in not well not bad. Like [Naja, das.], yeah. |
| Chuck: That’s great. |
| Judith: Yes, that’s the next word it’s [Toll.] |
| Chuck: Great. |
| Judith: [Toll.] |
| Chuck: Great. |
| Judith: Next [Mode.] |
| Chuck: Fashion. |
| Judith: [Mode, Mode.] |
| Chuck: Fashion. |
| Judith: This word is feminine, [Die Mode.] |
| Chuck: The fashion. It’s actually the same as in French, doesn’t it? |
| Judith: [La Mode] yeah. [Mode.] |
| Chuck: I think it probably comes from that. So I guess. |
| Judith: Definitely, I mean the fashion comes from France. France and Italy. |
| Chuck: Yeah, fair enough. |
| Judith: Next [Anprobieren.] |
| Chuck: To try on. |
| Judith: [Anprobieren, anprobieren.] |
| Chuck: To try on. |
| Judith: This splits off, so it’s actually [Ich probiere an.] or [Er probiert an.] the [An] always splits off. |
| Chuck: I know that [Probieren] is just to try. |
| Judith: Yes. Well not [Versuchen] but [Probieren] is like to try the taste of something for example, or-- |
| Chuck: Like to try some cheese. |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: To try some vegetable French cheese. Okay, enough for fashion. |
| Judith: Next [Denken] |
| Chuck: To think. |
| Judith: [Denken, denken.] |
| Chuck: To think. |
| Judith: Next [Dick.] |
| Chuck: Fat. |
| Judith: [Dick, dick.] |
| Chuck: Fat. |
| Judith: Next [Streifen.] |
| Chuck: Stripes. |
| Judith: [Streifen, Streifen.] |
| Chuck: Stripes. |
| Judith: Or stripe. |
| Chuck: Or stripe, I was about to say that. |
| Judith: Yeah, and it’s masculine [Der Streifen]. |
| Chuck: The stripes. |
| Judith: And plural is the same. And the next word [Dünn.] |
| Chuck: Slim or thin. |
| Judith: [Dünn.] |
| Chuck: Slim or thin. |
| Judith: So this’s the opposite of [Dick. Dick und dünn.] |
| Chuck: Fat and thin. |
| Judith: Now a color [Grün.] |
| Chuck: Green. |
| Judith: [Grün.] |
| Chuck: Green. |
| Judith: And even though they didn’t come up in the dialogue, let’s look at some other words for colors. For example [Rot] |
| Chuck: Red. |
| Judith: [Rot] |
| Chuck: Red. |
| Judith: [Gelb] |
| Chuck: Yellow. |
| Judith: [Gelb.] |
| Chuck: Yellow. |
| Judith: [Blau.] |
| Chuck: Blue. |
| Judith: [Blau.] |
| Chuck: Blue. |
| Judith: [Weiß] |
| Chuck: White. |
| Judith: [Weiß] |
| Chuck: White. |
| Judith: And [Schwarz.] |
| Chuck: Black. |
| Judith: [Schwarz.] |
| Chuck: Black, and that one spells just like the common last name that you would see [Schwarz], just pronounced different. |
| Judith: With at Z of course. I think I’ve seen [Schwarz] spelled with at TZ. |
| Chuck: Ah, yeah, you’re right. |
| Judith: But it’s definitely like derived from this word. It’s a common last name. |
| Chuck: All right, so you just gave us a bunch of colors. How may I use them? I know, I bet you can give us some examples, couldn’t you? |
| Judith: Yeah, [Natürlich]. For example [Ich trage eine schwarze Jeans und einen blauen Pullover.] |
| Chuck: All right, I got this one. I’m carrying black jeans. |
| Judith: No, I’m wearing. [Tragen] can be either, carry or wear. |
| Chuck: All right. And a blue pullover. |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: Or sweeter. |
| Judith: Yes, and notice that jeans is singular, actually if you say [Hose] too, that’s a trousers set, also singular in German, so [Ich trage eine Jeans, eine schwarze Jeans.] |
| Chuck: Do you also have a word for sweeter? |
| Judith: Sweet shirt you can say. |
| Chuck: Well, it’s not a sweeter, it’s just pullover, right? |
| Judith: Yeah [Pullover] |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: Or simply [Pulli] |
| Chuck: Yeah. [You want to sound cool] with your sweeter. |
| Judith: You say the colors are used just like adjectives, so you have to adapt them to the noun, as in [Schwarze Jeans, eine schwarze Jeans] and [Einen blauen Pullover] Just like adjectives. |
| Chuck: Jeans are singular, right? |
| Judith: Yes, I already mentioned. |
| Chuck: Okay. So I guess I should be paying attention more, shouldn’t I? |
| Judith: Yes. Or we listen to this podcast. |
| Chuck: All right, all right, let’s get to another example. |
| Judith: Okay, an example where it’s not-- where it does not have to be adjusted is [Der Himmel ist blau] |
| Chuck: The heaven is blue. |
| Judith: No, the sky. [Himmel] can be either. |
| Chuck: Okay, I guess the sky makes much more sense in this case. |
| Judith: Yes, and there’s no adjective ending here because it comes after [Ist] and any time you have an adjective after [Sein] then you don’t have to change the ending. This is different from Romance languages like French or Spanish, where you still have to change them. |
| Chuck: So [Der Himmel ist himmelblau oder?] |
| Judith: Yeah, you can say that [Himmelblau] is a way of describing a different kind of blue, shade of blue. It’s sky blue, blue as the sky. And we have a lot of descriptive names for colors like that. For example also [Feuerrot.] |
| Chuck: Fiery red. |
| Judith: Yes, or [Nachtschwarz] |
| Chuck: Night black. |
| Judith: [Giftgrün.] |
| Chuck: Poison green? |
| Judith: Yeah, it’s a green color that’s hurting the eyes almost. |
| Chuck: Aha. |
| Judith: [Mausgrau] |
| Chuck: Mouse gray. |
| Judith: Yes, so you can make a lot of very nice descriptive adjectives like this. Not just colors, it can be other adjectives as well. |
| Chuck: Like what? |
| Judith: Like for example, [Hoch] and [Haushoch] so [Hoch] is High or tall and [Haushoch] |
| Chuck: Wait, wait, wait, can I get this one? Does this mean like tall as the house? |
| Judith: Yes exactly. |
| Chuck: Ah okay, cool never heard that one before. |
| Judith: You might have heard it in expression [Unser Team hat Haushoch gewonnen.] |
| Chuck: Our team had a house tall one? |
| Judith: Yeah, it’s expression, it’s like a local usage if you want. They won by a whole a lot. |
| Chuck: They won sky high maybe? |
| Judith: Yes, something like that. |
| Chuck: Something like that |
| Judith: Really a high score. |
| Chuck: Now we get the point anyway. |
| Judith: Yeah, it’s an expression, [I probably] had a good example. But you can also do for example [Kinderleicht] as derived from [Leicht] |
| Chuck: That’s like, like child’s play. |
| Judith: Yes, [Leicht] is easy and [Kinderleicht] is easy as child’s play. |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: [Wir hoffen, dass die GermanPod101 Lektionen Kinderleicht sind.] We hope that the GermanPod101 lessons are really super easy. |
| Chuck: [Naja, vielleicht nicht kinderleicht aber schon leicht.] So, maybe not super easy but at least easy. |
| Judith: [Was denkt ihr?] What do you think? |
| Chuck: Yeah, let’s know in the comments. In the forum. |
| Judith: Yes, I’d love to hear that. |
| Chuck: And tell us of our perception of American fashion as what we think it is. |
| Judith: Well, you have obviously seen a lot of it while staying in America but. |
| Chuck: Yeah, but I never really paid attention to that much until I came to Europe, I sure that goes along with the stereotype. |
| Judith: Yeah, okay. So, we’d be really glad to hear from you. Now let’s listen to the dialogue one more time. |
| A: Entschuldigung, wo finde ich T-Shirts? |
| C: Für Damen oder für Herren? |
| A: Für Damen natürlich. |
| C: Die T-Shirts sind… |
| A: Schon gut, ich sehe sie schon. |
| … |
| A: Wie findest du dieses? |
| B: Na ja, es ist sehr grün. |
| A: Ach, grün ist in Mode. Ich werde dieses T-Shirt anprobieren. |
| … |
| A: Und, was denkst du? |
| B: Ich finde es nicht so schön, du siehst dick darin aus… |
| A: Ach was! Streifen machen dünn. Ich finde es toll. |
Outro |
|---|
| Chuck: All right, great, we’re done with the lesson, and the weather is beautiful outside. |
| Judith: Actually it’s not. It’s [Dreary] winter weather. It might even be raining. |
| Chuck: Well, it actually was raining. But, well, I guess any weather is better than sitting in the studio. |
| Judith: You want to go home and play around with the vocabulary tools, don’t you? you can do a lot of things with vocabulary on GermanPod101. |
| Chuck: I got to leave I said that? Yeah, that’s what I meant to say. Of course it was, of course, of course. |
| Judith: Okay, thank you all for listening, and I hope you’re tuning again next week. |
| Chuck: See you next week. |
| Judith: [Bis nächste Woche.] |
Comments
Hide