Learn how to sound educated
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Series Season 2, Lesson 25. The easiest way to sound more educated when you speak German. Hello and welcome to GermanPod101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn German. |
| Judith: I'm Judith and thanks again for being here with us for this Intermediate Series Season 2 lesson. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to sound educated in German by creating long sentences. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place in the outdoor area of a traditional German restaurant. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Mike and his German friend. The speakers are friends, therefore they will be speaking informal German. Basic and Premium Members… |
| Judith: If you have a 3G phone… |
| Chuck: You can see the lesson notes in your favorite browser on your phone. |
| Judith: Stop by GermanPod101.com to find out more. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| D: Und, schmeckt es dir? |
| A: Ja, das Schnitzel ist wirklich gut! Das könnte sogar meinen Eltern gefallen. |
| D: Freut mich zu hören. Ich esse gerne hier, aber nicht zu oft, denn sonst würde ich dick werden. Außerdem ist deutsche Küche sehr schwer. |
| A: Ich bin amerikanische Küche gewohnt. Also nicht Hamburger und Pommes, sondern die Küche der Südstaaten, aber das Problem ist das gleiche. |
| D: Das kann ich mir vorstellen. ... |
| D: Sollen wir heute Abend noch etwas unternehmen? |
| A: Was denn? |
| D: Vielleicht ins Kino gehen? |
| A: Klingt gut. Weißt du, wo wir das Programm finden? |
| D: Ja, das steht immer im Internet und in den Tageszeitungen. |
| Judith: Now read slowly. Und jetzt langsam. |
| D: Und, schmeckt es dir? |
| A: Ja, das Schnitzel ist wirklich gut! Das könnte sogar meinen Eltern gefallen. |
| D: Freut mich zu hören. Ich esse gerne hier, aber nicht zu oft, denn sonst würde ich dick werden. Außerdem ist deutsche Küche sehr schwer. |
| A: Ich bin amerikanische Küche gewohnt. Also nicht Hamburger und Pommes, sondern die Küche der Südstaaten, aber das Problem ist das gleiche. |
| D: Das kann ich mir vorstellen. ... |
| D: Sollen wir heute Abend noch etwas unternehmen? |
| A: Was denn? |
| D: Vielleicht ins Kino gehen? |
| A: Klingt gut. Weißt du, wo wir das Programm finden? |
| D: Ja, das steht immer im Internet und in den Tageszeitungen. |
| Judith: Und jetzt mit Übersetzung. Now with the translation. |
| D: Und, schmeckt es dir? |
| D: So, do you like it? |
| A: Ja, das Schnitzel ist wirklich gut! Das könnte sogar meinen Eltern gefallen. |
| A: Yes, the schnitzel is really good! My parents could even like it. |
| D: Freut mich zu hören. Ich esse gerne hier, aber nicht zu oft, denn sonst würde ich dick werden. Außerdem ist deutsche Küche sehr schwer. |
| D: Glad to hear that. I like to eat here, but not too often, because otherwise I would become fat. Besides, the German cuisine is very heavy. |
| A: Ich bin amerikanische Küche gewohnt. Also nicht Hamburger und Pommes, sondern die Küche der Südstaaten, aber das Problem ist das gleiche. |
| A: I am used to American cuisine. Well, not hamburgers and fries but the Southern cuisine, but it's the same problem really. |
| D: Das kann ich mir vorstellen. ... |
| D: I can imagine that. ... |
| D: Sollen wir heute Abend noch etwas unternehmen? |
| D: Shall we do anything else tonight? |
| A: Was denn? |
| A: Like what? |
| D: Vielleicht ins Kino gehen? |
| D: Maybe go to the movies? |
| A: Klingt gut. Weißt du, wo wir das Programm finden? |
| A: Sounds good. Do you know where we can find the program listing? |
| D: Ja, das steht immer im Internet und in den Tageszeitungen. |
| D: Yes, it's always listed online and in the daily newspapers. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Judith: I think this lesson is just begging for a cultural point on cinemas. |
| Chuck: Alright. Well, don’t you mean theaters? |
| Judith: That would be one of the issues, I guess. In German, if you say theatre you really mean a place where there’s life actors. |
| Chuck: One thing that I find really annoying in German theaters or cinemas is that the popcorn is sweet, not salty. |
| Judith: Of course it’s sweet, made with honey. What else would you eat popcorn with? |
| Chuck: Butter? |
| Judith: Nobody heard of butter popcorn, what’s that supposed to be? |
| Chuck: Butter popcorn… But one thing that is nice here is that you can get beer in the cinema. |
| Judith: Yeah, if you fancy drinking some beer then why not? I mean it’s your night out, right? |
| Chuck: Yeah. It’s a family place. |
| Judith: Is it? [Past 10 PM] it doesn’t look like it. |
| Chuck: What do you like about the cinemas here? |
| Judith: I like that you have the chance to get ice cream. Like, they will typically show an ice cream commercial and after that there’s people come in, and they come to your seats and they offer you to buy the ice cream. |
| Chuck: Just like in the States, the foods and drinks are a lot more expensive than you would get them normally. |
| Judith: That goes without saying. Another thing that’s different here is that all the seats are numbered, so you can’t generally sit where you want. You can reserve a seat beforehand or you get assigned a seat when you buy your ticket, but you can’t just sit down and expect to keep the place. People can get quite annoyed if you grab their seat. |
| Chuck: Yeah, it’s quite funny sometimes. It’s a theatre here and I notice the foreigners or like the Americans come in and they have their movie tickets to see the English language movie and then they realize that, “Oh, we have a reservation on our tickets…” They have to get up and get to their reservation. |
| Judith: What I don’t like is that all movies are dubbed. I mean unless they’re art movies… sometimes even art movies are dubbed. Germans don’t believe in subtitles and I would really like to hear the original language and just get the German subtitles to help me find the meaning if it’s too difficult. |
| Chuck: Yeah, I even know of only one English language movie theater in Germany. There may be a couple one. |
| Judith: You mean one that shows exclusively English movies, yeah. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: It’s not that much of a demand for English language movies except from the tourists and the expats. |
| Chuck: Well, and people learning English. |
| Judith: Not so much even. |
| Chuck: They wouldn’t go out to be entertained in English, per say. |
| Judith: Yeah. |
| Chuck: Alright, so let’s look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: [Sich freuen]. |
| Chuck: To be happy. |
| Judith: [Sich freuen, sich freuen]. Next word, [Schwer] |
| Chuck: “Heavy” or “difficult”. |
| Judith: [Schwer, schwer] Next word, [Gewohnt sein]. |
| Chuck: To be used to. |
| Judith: [Gewohnt sein, gewohnt sein] Next word, [Hamburger]. |
| Chuck: “Hamburger”, but in other contexts this could be someone from Hamburg. |
| Judith: [Hamburger, Hamburger] This is masculine. And the plural is the same as with all ER words. Next word, [Pommes]. |
| Chuck: French fries. |
| Judith: [Pommes, Pommes] And it’s always plural. Next word, [Sondern]. |
| Chuck: But. |
| Judith: [Sondern, sondern] This only means “but” when you’re mentioning an alternative like, not A but B. Next word, [Problem]. |
| Chuck: Problem. |
| Judith: [Problem, Problem] This word is neuter, [Das Problem], and the plural is [Probleme]. Next word, [Gleich]. |
| Chuck: “Equal”, “the same” or “equals”. |
| Judith: [Gleich, gleich] Next word, [Sich vorstellen]. |
| Chuck: “To imagine”, “to introduce oneself”. |
| Judith: [Sich vorstellen, sich vorstellen] And the [Vor] splits off. Next word, [Unternehmen]. |
| Chuck: “To venture” or “undertake”. |
| Judith: [Unternehmen, unternehmen] Next word, [Kino]. |
| Chuck: “Cinema” or “movie theatre”. |
| Judith: [Kino, Kino] This is neuter, [Das Kino], and the plural is [Kinos]. Next word, [Programm]. |
| Chuck: “Program” or “TV channel”. |
| Judith: [Programm, Programm, das Programm] is neuter and the plural is [Programme]. Next word, [Zeitung]. |
| Chuck: Newspaper. |
| Judith: [Zeitung, Zeitung, die Zeitung] and the plural is [Zeitungen]. |
| 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: The first word we’ll look at is [Könnte]. |
| Chuck: Could. |
| Judith: This is the conditional tense of [Können] and it’s very often used in polite request, like [Könnten Sie mir helfen?]. Then we have the phrase [Freut mich zu hören]. |
| Chuck: “It delights me to hear that” or “I'm happy to hear that”. |
| Judith: Exactly. [Freut mich], “it delights me”, [Zu hören], “to hear”. Finally there’s the word [Südstaaten]. |
| Chuck: The southern United States. |
| Judith: Yes, it consists of [Süd], “south” and [Staaten], which is “states” so “the southern states”. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is on conjunctions, words that link two main clauses together. |
| Judith: You will sound a lot more advanced in German if you can form longer sentences. This is especially true in writing. Writing long sentences is almost always seen as a proof of being well-educated. |
| Chuck: Here’s a list of the most useful words you can use to turn two shorter phrases into one long sentence. |
| Judith: There are two types of such words, conjunctions which link two main clauses and subjunctions which link a main clause to a sub clause. There’s no difference in meaning really, but you have to pay attention because of a different word order in sub clauses. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, we’ll just look at conjunctions linking two main clauses. |
| Judith: First connecting word if [Aber]. |
| Chuck: But. |
| Judith: For example, [Ich esse gern, aber ich bin nicht dick]. |
| Chuck: I like to eat but I'm not fat. |
| Judith: Then we have [Sondern]. |
| Chuck: This is “but” but only when giving an alternative. |
| Judith: For example, [Ich nehme keine kleine Cola sondern eine große]. |
| Chuck: I'm not taking a small Coke, but a large. |
| Judith: Then we have [Sonst]. |
| Chuck: Otherwise. |
| Judith: [Geben Sie mir das Geld sonst schieße ich]. |
| Chuck: Give me the money, otherwise I’ll shoot. |
| Judith: Then [Deshalb] or [Deswegen], there’s no difference between the two. |
| Chuck: So that’s why. |
| Judith: [Ich habe noch einen Termin, deshalb kann ich nicht kommen] or [Deswegen kann ich nicht kommen]. |
| Chuck: I have another appointment, that’s why I can’t come. |
| Judith: And finally, [Denn]. |
| Chuck: Because. |
| Judith: [Ich esse gerne in diesem Restaurant, denn es schmeckt hier immer gut]. |
| Chuck: “I like to eat at this restaurant because it always tastes good here.” |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. Judith, I’d like to share a study tip a listener shared with us. |
| Judith: Ah, you’re talking about the student who uses just the conversation tracks to review the lessons. |
| Chuck: Yeah, you read my mind just like last week. Yes, a listener of ours listens to each lesson several times. |
| Judith: Then, afterwards, she gets the conversation only track from our site. |
| Chuck: She then listens to them on shuffle again and again. She creates her own immersion program using GermanPod101.com. |
| Judith: This is a great idea. Please, give it a try and let us know what you think. |
| Chuck: Okay, see you next weeK! |
| Judith: Bis nächste Woche! |
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