Learn about the declension of masculine German nouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Series Season 2, Lesson 13. Declension of German masculine nouns. Look for the green dot. Hello and welcome to the intermediate series at GermanPod101.com, where we study modern German in a fun, educational format. |
| Judith: So improve your German with us and become a real expert. |
| Chuck: Thanks for being here with us for this lesson. Judith, what are we looking at this time? |
| Judith: In this lesson, you will learn about German garbage disposal. |
| Chuck: Ok. Today’s conversation takes place in a German home. The conversation is between Mike and his German friend, who might just be getting annoyed with him. |
| Judith: Since the speakers are friends, they will be speaking informal German. |
| Chuck: Attention, listeners. Comment… |
| Judith: Comment… |
| Chuck: And comment some more. |
| Judith: It’s easy. |
| Chuck: And asking questions really helps improve progress. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| D: Was ist denn das?? |
| A: Was? |
| D: Ich wollte gerade den gelben Sack rausbringen, aber da sind ja Essensreste drin! Hast du die da reingetan? |
| A: Ja... |
| D: Hättest du nicht aufpassen können?! |
| A: Ich weiß nicht, wie ihr in Deutschland den Müll sortiert! Ist dieser gelbe Sack nicht für alles? |
| D: Nein. Der gelbe Sack ist für Verpackungen. Man erkennt die Verpackungen, die in den gelben Sack gehören, am grünen Punkt. Irgendwo auf der Verpackung ist ein grüner Punkt, so wie dieser hier. |
| A: Ahh. Und wohin kommen Essensreste? |
| D: Ich würde sie in den Biomüll tun. |
| Judith: Now read slowly. Jetzt langsam. |
| D: Was ist denn das?? |
| A: Was? |
| D: Ich wollte gerade den gelben Sack rausbringen, aber da sind ja Essensreste drin! Hast du die da reingetan? |
| A: Ja... |
| D: Hättest du nicht aufpassen können?! |
| A: Ich weiß nicht, wie ihr in Deutschland den Müll sortiert! Ist dieser gelbe Sack nicht für alles? |
| D: Nein. Der gelbe Sack ist für Verpackungen. Man erkennt die Verpackungen, die in den gelben Sack gehören, am grünen Punkt. Irgendwo auf der Verpackung ist ein grüner Punkt, so wie dieser hier. |
| A: Ahh. Und wohin kommen Essensreste? |
| D: Ich würde sie in den Biomüll tun. |
| Judith: Jetzt mit Übersetzung. Now with the translation. |
| D: Was ist denn das?? |
| D: What is that?? |
| A: Was? |
| A: What? |
| D: Ich wollte gerade den gelben Sack rausbringen, aber da sind ja Essensreste drin! Hast du die da reingetan? |
| D: I just wanted to take out the yellow sack, but there are food leftovers in it! Did you put them in there? |
| A: Ja... |
| A: Yes… |
| D: Hättest du nicht aufpassen können?! |
| D: Couldn't you have paid attention?! |
| A: Ich weiß nicht, wie ihr in Deutschland den Müll sortiert! Ist dieser gelbe Sack nicht für alles? |
| A: I don't know how you sort the garbage in Germany! Isn't this yellow sack for everything? |
| D: Nein. Der gelbe Sack ist für Verpackungen. Man erkennt die Verpackungen, die in den gelben Sack gehören, am grünen Punkt. Irgendwo auf der Verpackung ist ein grüner Punkt, so wie dieser hier. |
| D: No. The yellow sack is for packaging. You can recognize the packagings, which belong in the yellow sack, by the green dot. Somewhere on the packaging there is a green dot, like this one here. |
| A: Ahh. Und wohin kommen Essensreste? |
| A: Ahh. And where do food leftovers go? |
| D: Ich würde sie in den Biomüll tun. |
| D: I would put them into the bio. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Chuck: Well, I think the cultural point is cut out for us here. |
| Judith: Yes. So what would you say about this? |
| Chuck: I’d say that Germans are typically more conscious of the environment than Americans. |
| Judith: Yeah, definitely. One part is how the garbage is treated so we want to facilitate reuse or reclaiming of [inaudible 00:01:12] resources. People keep apart all different types of garbage and you should probably learn them by heart before you stay with a German family. |
| Chuck: So, for one thing, there’s the [Biomüll] or the bio trash. It’s like everything that’s compostable, like food, peels and the like. But beware because peels of citrus fruit are not put in bio trash because it’s typically contaminated with chemicals. |
| Judith: And then there’s the [Papiermüll], that’s the paper trash. Paper is collected separately so that it can easily be recycled into fresh paper. |
| Chuck: Note that also includes cardboard and the like. |
| Judith: And then the [Gelbe Sack], one that was mentioned in this dialogue. This one is for packaging and for synthetic materials. Anything that sports a green dot and that isn’t too dirty will go in here. |
| Chuck: So, I remember logically, if you see a green dot, it goes in the yellow sack. |
| Judith: It’s a bit confusing but… |
| Chuck: Well, green here is, of course, for the environment and how green things should be. |
| Judith: Next up is [Sondermüll]. That’s everything that contains or used to contain chemicals that are hazardous to nature, like for example batteries, corrosive cleaning fluid, some electronics. |
| Chuck: One of the thing that really takes some getting used to is that glasses [inaudible 00:02:25] in big containers. You’ll see them often near supermarkets or just the middle of nowhere sometimes. |
| Judith: Not in the middle of nowhere. It would be in a residential neighborhood, somewhere among the houses. |
| Chuck: Well, anyway, you’ll first be shocked by them cause you’ll see there’s brown glass and what looks like white glass, which actually means transparent glass, and green glass. Also notice that mini bottles can be returned to the place where you bought them to get deposit back. So you shouldn’t throw all the glass in here. |
| Judith: Yeah, you probably want to get your money back. And, of course, there’s the [Restmüll]. What we call [Restmüll] is anything else and that goes just in regular trash. |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: First word is [Gelb]. |
| Chuck: Yellow. |
| Judith: [Gelb, gelb] Next, [Sack]. |
| Chuck: “Sack” or “bag”. |
| Judith: [Sack, Sack, der Sacke] this is masculine. And plural, [Die Säcke]. Next, [Herausbringen]. |
| Chuck: To take out. |
| Judith: [Herausbringen, rausbringen, herausbringen] You use either [Rausbringen] or [Herausbringen] depending on context. We’ll talk about this in the word usage. Next, [Rest]. |
| Chuck: Rest. |
| Judith: [Rest, Rest, der Rest] this is masculine. Plural, [Die Reste]. Next, [Reintun] or [Hineintun]. |
| Chuck: To put in. |
| Judith: [Reintun, Hineintun] Next, [Müll]. |
| Chuck: “Garbage” or “trash”. |
| Judith: [Müll, Müll, der Müll] Next, [Sortieren]. |
| Chuck: “To sort”, “arrange” or “classify”. |
| Judith: [Sortieren, sortieren] Next, [Verpackung]. |
| Chuck: Packaging. |
| Judith: [Verpackung, Verpackung, die Verpackung] Next, [Erkennen]. |
| Chuck: To recognize. |
| Judith: [Erkennen, erkennen] Next, [Punkt]. |
| Chuck: “Dot” or “point”. |
| Judith: [Punkt, Punkt, der Punkt, die Punkte] Next, [Irgendwo]. |
| Chuck: Somewhere. |
| Judith: [Irgendwo, irgendwo] Next, [Bio]. |
| Chuck: “Bio” or “organic”. |
| Judith: [Bio, bio] |
| 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: As promised, we will first look at [Rausbringen] and [Reintun]. Both of these are colloquial shortenings, so [Rausbringen]… |
| Chuck: To take out. |
| Judith: Would be [Herausbringen] in written German. |
| Chuck: Wait, could that be used to take someone out too? Like on a date? |
| Judith: No, definitely not. This is like “to get trash out”. |
| Chuck: Ok, so you wouldn’t want to [Rausbringen] your date. |
| Judith: No. |
| Chuck: Maybe if she’s really bad. |
| Judith: [Reintun] would be [Hereintun] in written German. |
| Chuck: To put in. |
| Judith: But, actually, the letter would probably be replaced by a more accurate word because [Tun]… |
| Chuck: Do. |
| Judith: Is so general. You probably wouldn’t write it. So the second point is that all [inaudible 00:05:49] dialogue we talk of [Wohin kommt] something, but in English you would say “Where does this go?” |
| Chuck: Nice. |
| Judith: So this is probably unexpected. |
| Chuck: What was an example of that? |
| Judith: [Wohin kommen Verpackungen? Where does packagings go?] like in what kind of trash would go [Inaudible]. |
| Chuck: Ok. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: Let’s review the declension of masculine nouns along with their articles and adjectives in this lesson. There’s really no logic to it except the adjective takes the ending that the article should have gotten if there’s no article. When there is an article, the adjective will almost always end in EN. |
| Judith: At the beginning of your studies, I wouldn’t worry too much about getting the endings right because people will understand you anyway. There’s little potential for confusion and uneducated Germans sometimes have trouble with these too. However, since you’re listening to the Intermediate Series, now is the time to study the endings. |
| Chuck: The best way to remember the endings is by reciting them with a sample word. Then, whenever you need them, you can mentally go over the forms of this sample word you chose until you find the right one. With a little practice it just becomes automatic. |
| Judith: For masculine nouns, what better word to choose than [Mann]. And since adjectives matter too, we’ll take [Der große Mann] or [Ein großer Mann] as our one example. |
| Chuck: At least I never get these wrong, ever. |
| Judith: Ok, here are the forms. |
| Chuck: Nominative, singular. |
| Judith: [Der große Mann, ein großer Mann]. |
| Chuck: Genitive, singular. |
| Judith: [Des großen Mannes, eines großen Mannes] |
| Chuck: Dative, singular. |
| Judith: [Dem großen Mann, einem großen Mann] |
| Chuck: Accusative, singular. |
| Judith: [Den großen Mann, einen großen Mann] |
| Chuck: Nominative, plural. |
| Judith: [Die großen Männer, große Männer] |
| Chuck: Genitive, plural |
| Judith: [Der großen Männer, großer Männer] |
| Chuck: Dative, plural. |
| Judith: [Den großen Männern, großen Männern] |
| Chuck: Accusative, plural. |
| Judith: [Die großen Männer, großen Männer] This is, of course, a part of the lesson that you absolutely have to look up in our PDF transcription. You can find the whole table there and then you should practice [Der große Mann, ein großer Mann, des großen Mannes, eines großen Mannes] and so on. And if you repeat them to yourself with a little rhythm, you will soon be able to know them all by heart. |
| Chuck: If you make a rap and it’s really cool, you can put it on YouTube. |
| Judith: Let us know if you do. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Well, I think I'm going to watch a bit of YouTube. I mean, I think that does it for today. Premium Members, use the Review Track to perfect your pronunciation. |
| Judith: The Review Track is available in the Premium Section of the website. |
| Chuck: In the Learning Center. |
| Judith: And also through iTunes via the Premium Feed. |
| Chuck: The Review Track gives you vocabulary and phrases followed by a short pause so that you can repeat the words aloud. |
| Judith: The best way to get good fast. |
| Chuck: So I think we get out of here fast. See you next time. |
| Judith: Bis nächstes Mal. |
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