Learn about some common mistakes made by native German speakers
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are some common mistakes German native speakers make? |
| Igor: And where do they come from? |
| Michael: At GermanPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Ben Lee tries to cheer himself up after getting a bad mark in his English exam while his friend Yannek Young destroys his confidence completely. |
| "At ‘least’ I’m good at German." |
| Ben Lee: Zumindestens kann ich Deutsch sprechen. |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee: Zumindestens kann ich Deutsch sprechen. |
| Yannek Young: Das heißt 'zumindest' |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee: Zumindestens kann ich Deutsch sprechen. |
| Michael: "At 'least' I’m good at German." |
| Yannek Young: Das heißt 'zumindest' |
| Michael: It's "at least." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: As a language learner you might have been in situations when you made a mistake using German. |
| Igor: We know that such situations might be a bit demotivating, and might make you feel slightly embarrassed. |
| Michael: But, in this lesson, we’ll show you that making mistakes is a part of using a language, and even native speakers make and often repeat certain mistakes. |
| Some of those mistakes are so common even among the native speakers that they don’t even realize that they’re not using the proper German grammar. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: One example has appeared in our dialogue. Let’s listen to it again. |
| Do you remember how Ben says "At 'least' I’m good at German." |
| Igor: Zumindestens bin ich gut in Deutsch. |
| Michael: The mistake made in this sentence is the word |
| Igor: Zumindestens |
| Michael: Now let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember Yannek corrects Ben? |
| "It's "at least."" |
| Igor: Das heißt 'zumindest' |
| Michael: This is one of the most common mistakes made by German natives. This mistake comes from merging two words that are very similar, and also have a very similar meaning. The first word, which carries the original intent, is |
| Igor: Zumindest |
| Michael: meaning “at least,” as in |
| Igor: Zumindest war das unser Plan. |
| Michael: in English, “at least this was our plan.” The other word is |
| Igor: Mindestens |
| Michael: also translating as “at least,” but with a small difference in the nuance, |
| Igor: Um in Deutschland Bier zu kaufen, muss man mindestens 16 Jahre alt sein. |
| Michael: “To buy beer in Germany, you have to be at least 16 years old.” |
| Igor: To be honest, for many native speakers the word zumindestens feels way more natural to say than the correct zumindest. |
| Michael: But, even if it feels natural, it’s a mistake that should be avoided. Still, you will hear many native speakers repeating this mistake very often. |
| The next mistake is of a phonetic nature. It’s happening due to the similarity between how the letters |
| Igor: d und t |
| Michael: sound. The most prominent representatives of this mistake are the words |
| Igor: seit |
| Michael: meaning “since,” and |
| Igor: seid |
| Michael: being the conjugated form of |
| Igor: sein |
| Michael: meaning “to be.” This is mostly made in the written language, since you can barely hear the difference between both words in the spoken language. Also, due to the fact that the meaning of both words is very different, making this mistake won’t change the meaning of the sentence, and you’ll always understand what someone is trying to write. |
| Igor: However, this mistake is so common that some people even established an internet page called www.seitseid.de which gives you an explanation of when to use seit and when to use seid. |
| Michael: The site became a meme in Germany and is usually posted as a comment under texts where the author made this very common mistake. |
| Our next mistake is a phonetic one again. In many German words, the letter “h” is silent—for example in the word |
| Igor: wahr, |
| Michael: meaning “true.” This word is spelled with an “h” in the third position, which you can’t really hear when saying the word out loud. That’s why many people just skip the “h” and write it down as |
| Igor: war |
| Michael: which in German also has a meaning—“was.” |
| Similar to what we had in the previous mistake, |
| Igor: wahr und war |
| Michael: has different meanings and functions, so it’s easy to understand from the context what the author means, even when the mistake is made. |
| Another common mistake is the wrong usage of the words, |
| Igor: als |
| Michael: meaning “than,” and |
| Igor: wie |
| Michael: in this context translated as “as.” |
| Both words are used to compare two things with each other. If you want to express that something is even, you should use |
| Igor: wie. |
| Michael: Let’s have a look at an example sentence to make it easier to understand, |
| Igor: Du bist genauso groß wie ich. |
| Michael: meaning “you’re as tall as I am.” If you want to express that something is uneven, you should use |
| Igor: als. |
| Michael: Let’s also have a look at an example for this scenario, |
| Igor: Du bist größer als ich, |
| Michael: meaning “you’re taller than me.” |
| Now, the rules for using these two words are very easy, but still, many German natives confuse these two words and use them in the opposite way, using |
| Igor: wie |
| Michael: to express that something as uneven, and |
| Igor: als |
| Michael: to express that something is even. This is a very common mistake you’ll probably hear in Germany a lot. Some people also tend to combine these two words in one sentence, |
| Igor: Ich bin größer als wie du. |
| Michael: This is also a mistake, and the words |
| Igor: als und wie |
| Michael: usually can’t be combined in this way. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson you learned that it’s not a shame to make mistakes while learning a language because even native speakers make a lot of mistakes using their own language. |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: Many common mistakes can be traced back to Germany being a country of many dialects, where the language has its own regional twists. The form of German that is taught in school is called standard German, or |
| Igor: Hochdeutsch, |
| Michael: literally “higher German.” This is also our reference point if we talk about German grammar. However, many regions are ruled by dialects. Some of them disregard the rules of standard German. To give you an example, in Berlin, people speaking in the Berlin dialect don’t use the accusative case, so, instead of saying, |
| Igor: Ich liebe dich, |
| Michael: meaning “I love you,” you’ll hear |
| Igor: Ik liebe dir. |
| Michael: where the accusative pronoun |
| Igor: dich |
| Michael: is replaced by the dative pronoun, |
| Igor: dir. |
| Michael: If you travel around, you will notice some mistakes being repeated more often in some parts of Germany. For dialects, these are not seen as a mistake, but you shouldn’t adopt those rules as a German learner who’s studying the standard German language. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Igor: Tschüsschen! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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