Learn how to talk about things you like
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Series Season 2, Lesson 20. Warning, this German lesson has tons of info you may find pleasing. Hi, my name is Chuck and I'm joined here by Judith. |
| Judith: Hello, [Wie gehts?]. How are you? |
| Chuck: [Mir gehts gut, danke.] I'm fine, thanks. |
| Judith: Glad to see you’re here with us again. |
| Chuck: So what should we learn today? |
| Judith: In this lesson, you will learn how to talk about what you like. |
| Chuck: This conversation takes place at a company headquarters in Berlin between an interviewer and Mike, who’s applying for a job. The speakers have a business relationship, therefore they will be speaking formal German. |
| Judith: Listeners, I have a question. |
| Chuck: A question? |
| Judith: Yes. I want to know when was the last time you commented? |
| Chuck: Ah yeah, you haven’t asked that before. |
| Judith: Stop by GermanPod101.com, leave us a comment or just say hi. |
| Chuck: Alright, you heard her. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| M: Guten Tag, Herr Marshmellow! |
| A: Guten Tag, Frau Michely! |
| M: Ich sehe Sie sind pünktlich, das ist gut. Fangen wir direkt an. Warum haben Sie sich auf diesen Job beworben? |
| A: Ich habe bereits an der University of Maine erfolgreich Englisch unterrichtet und es hat mir sehr viel Spaß gemacht. Da ich jetzt nach Berlin gezogen bin und es hier nicht so viele Englisch-Muttersprachler gibt, dachte ich, dass ich diese Arbeit wieder aufnehmen könnte. |
| M: Wieso haben Sie sich gerade bei unserer Firma beworben? |
| A: Ich habe mir Ihre Webseite und Ihre Schule in Berlin-Mitte angeschaut, und was ich gesehen habe, hat mir gefallen. |
| M: Warum sind Sie überhaupt nach Berlin gezogen? |
| A: Es gibt mehrere Gründe. Ich war schon länger nicht mehr mit meinem Leben in den Staaten zufrieden. |
| Judith: Now read slowly. |
| M: Guten Tag, Herr Marshmellow! |
| A: Guten Tag, Frau Michely! |
| M: Ich sehe Sie sind pünktlich, das ist gut. Fangen wir direkt an. Warum haben Sie sich auf diesen Job beworben? |
| A: Ich habe bereits an der University of Maine erfolgreich Englisch unterrichtet und es hat mir sehr viel Spaß gemacht. Da ich jetzt nach Berlin gezogen bin und es hier nicht so viele Englisch-Muttersprachler gibt, dachte ich, dass ich diese Arbeit wieder aufnehmen könnte. |
| M: Wieso haben Sie sich gerade bei unserer Firma beworben? |
| A: Ich habe mir Ihre Webseite und Ihre Schule in Berlin-Mitte angeschaut, und was ich gesehen habe, hat mir gefallen. |
| M: Warum sind Sie überhaupt nach Berlin gezogen? |
| A: Es gibt mehrere Gründe. Ich war schon länger nicht mehr mit meinem Leben in den Staaten zufrieden. |
| Judith: Und jetzt mit Übersetzung. |
| M: Guten Tag, Herr Marshmellow! |
| M: Good day, Mr Marshmellow! |
| A: Guten Tag, Frau Michely! |
| A: Good day, Mrs Michely! |
| M: Ich sehe Sie sind pünktlich, das ist gut. Fangen wir direkt an. Warum haben Sie sich auf diesen Job beworben? |
| M: I see you are punctual, that's good. Let's start directly. Why did you apply for this job? |
| A: Ich habe bereits an der University of Maine erfolgreich Englisch unterrichtet und es hat mir sehr viel Spaß gemacht. Da ich jetzt nach Berlin gezogen bin und es hier nicht so viele Englisch-Muttersprachler gibt, dachte ich, dass ich diese Arbeit wieder aufnehmen könnte. |
| A: I have already taught English successfully at the university of Maine and it was a lot of fun for me. Since I now moved to Berlin and there are not as many English native speakers here, I thought that I could take up this occupation again. |
| M: Wieso haben Sie sich gerade bei unserer Firma beworben? |
| M: Why did you apply at our company in particular? |
| A: Ich habe mir Ihre Webseite und Ihre Schule in Berlin-Mitte angeschaut, und was ich gesehen habe, hat mir gefallen. |
| A: I looked at your website and your school in Berlin-Mitte and I liked what I saw. |
| M: Warum sind Sie überhaupt nach Berlin gezogen? |
| M: Why did you move to Berlin at all? |
| A: Es gibt mehrere Gründe. Ich war schon länger nicht mehr mit meinem Leben in den Staaten zufrieden. |
| A: There are several reasons. I have not been content living in the states for a long time. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Judith: What shall we talk about in terms of culture today? |
| Chuck: How about websites? |
| Judith: Very good. I find that there are less German businesses than American businesses that have websites. |
| Chuck: I'm quite surprised. I’d often be interested in a restaurant in Berlin, for example, and I look and I find they don’t even have their own website. |
| Judith: Yeah, it’s annoying. You can’t look up opening hours or anything. |
| Chuck: But German websites, if they do exist, are often also translated to English. Just look for a British or American flag on the side, or the word “English” somewhere. |
| Judith: On the downside, a lot of websites just look unprofessional. |
| Chuck: But note that every company with a website in Germany has to have something called the [Impressum] which is often wrongly translated to “imprint”, but it’s basically their legal information. For example, their legal name, and address, and telephone contact information. |
| Judith: Or even the tax number. It depends, but some of this information you have to give out if you’re a company and you have a website, though a lot of people don’t know it or don’t do it. But technically it’s illegal not to list this with your website. Another thing is that the German government regularly goes after [Racist] sites if [They are hosted] in Germany, and of course they also go after other illegal content. |
| Chuck: Let’s go over the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: First word, [Pünktlich]. |
| Chuck: Punctual. |
| Judith: [Pünktlich, pünktlich] Next, [Anfangen]. |
| Chuck: “To start” or “begin”. |
| Judith: [Anfangen, anfangen] Next, [Spaß]. |
| Chuck: Fun. |
| Judith: [Spaß, Spaß] This is masculine, [Der Spaß]. Next, [Ziehen]. |
| Chuck: “To drag” or “move”. |
| Judith: [Ziehen, ziehen] Next, [Aufnehmen]. |
| Chuck: “To take up”, “record” or “admit” somebody”. |
| Judith: [Aufnehmen, aufnehmen] This word behaves like [Nehmen] except with the [Auf] splitting off. Next, [Gerade]. |
| Chuck: “Straight”, “just now”, “exactly”. |
| Judith: [Gerade, gerade] Next, [Webseite]. |
| Chuck: Website. |
| Judith: [Webseite, Webseite] This word is feminine and the plural is [Webseiten]. Next, [Gefallen]. |
| Chuck: To please. |
| Judith: [Gefallen, gefallen] And this verb includes a vowel change from [A] to [Ä], so [Es gefällt]. Next, [Überhaupt]. |
| Chuck: At all. |
| Judith: [Überhaupt, überhaupt] Next, [Grund]. |
| Chuck: Reason. |
| Judith: [Grund, Grund, der Grund] this is masculine. Next, [Staat]. |
| Chuck: “State” or “country”. |
| Judith: [Staat, Staat, der Staat, die Staaten] Next, [Zufrieden]. |
| Chuck: “Content” or “satisfied”. |
| Judith: [Zufrieden, zufrieden] |
| 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 [Da]. At the beginning of a sentence, this one means “since” as in “because, because of something”. [Da] Next is [Gerade bei unserer Firma] from the dialogue. |
| Chuck: Exactly at our company. |
| Judith: The meaning of [Gerade] in this context means “Why do you all want to work with us and not them?” So [Gerade mit uns]. Next we have the phrase [Nicht mehr]. |
| Chuck: Not anymore. |
| Judith: [Mehr] just means “more”, but [Nicht mehr], “not anymore”. And finally the word [Staat].[Staat] normally means “state” but it can be either a federal state, which would be called [Bundesstaat], or the state as in the German state, for example. |
| Chuck: Note this is spelled with two A’s. |
| Judith: Yeah, don’t confuse with [Stadt] which is spelled S-T-A-D-T and means “city”. |
| Chuck: I still confuse these even today. |
| Judith: Mostly you confuse the plurals, I think. For [Staat] it’s [Staaten], “the states”, like [Die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika], and for [Stadt], “the city”, it’s [Städte]. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is how to express that you like something in German. |
| Judith: The word [Gefallen] literally means “to please” but it’s a lot more common than it’s English equivalent. |
| Chuck: You also see this in Spanish if you studied that. It’s used basically whenever you’re talking about whether or not you like a concrete thing. |
| Judith: When you’re talking about abstract things, [Mögen] is more common. And when talking about actions, German doesn’t use a verb at all but uses the word [Gerne]. |
| Chuck: Gladly. |
| Judith: So [Gefallen] is used for concrete things. |
| Chuck: Can you give us an example sentence? |
| Judith: Sure. [Das Grüne T-Shirt gefällt mir nicht, gefällt es dir?] |
| Chuck: Literally this means “The green T-shirt doesn’t please me. Does it please you?” But not literally, “I don’t like the green T-shirt. Do you like it?” |
| Judith: You see that you have to rethink your sentence structure a bit. Basically, the English subject, the person who like something will be dative in German, and the English object, the thing that is liked, will be the subject of the German sentence. |
| Chuck: If you think in terms of the English verb “to please”, you won’t find it difficult to wrap your head around this structure. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. Testing yourself is one of the most effective ways to learn. |
| Judith: That’s why we have three types of quizzes. |
| Chuck: Vocabulary, grammar and content-specific. |
| Judith: Each quiz targets specific skills. |
| Chuck: And together, these quizzes will help you master several fundamental skills. |
| Judith: You can find them in the Learning Center at… |
| Chuck: GermanPod101.com. Thank you for listening and hope to see you again next week! |
| Judith: Auf Wiederhören! |
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