Learn how to talk about movies
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Series Season 2, Lesson 26. Haven’t you heard of this German movie? |
| Judith: Hello, everyone. I'm Judith and welcome to GermanPod101. |
| Chuck: With us, you’ll learn to speak German with fun and effective lessons. |
| Judith: We also provide you with cultural insights. |
| Chuck: And tips you won’t find in a textbook. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about the movies in German. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at a German home. |
| Chuck: This conversation is between Mike and his German friend. The speakers are friends, therefore they will be speaking informal German. This lesson is one part of the Intermediate Series Season 2. |
| Judith: You can find the rest of the lessons at… |
| Chuck: GermanPod101.com. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| D: Hier ist das Programm. Siehst du etwas, das dich interessiert? |
| A: Hmm, lass mal sehen... Der neue Bond-Film klingt interessant. |
| D: Bist du dir sicher? In Deutschland gibt es den nicht mit Untertiteln, nur synchronisiert. Ich finde es doof, wenn man die echten Stimmen der Schauspieler nicht hören kann. |
| A: Oh, das wusste ich nicht. Ja, ich denke es wäre zu komisch für mich, plötzlich andere Stimmen zu hören. |
| D: Es gibt ein Kino, das englische Originalversionen zeigt, aber ich denke, wir sollten lieber einen deutschen Film gucken. Deutsche Filme kannst du in Amerika nicht so leicht finden. |
| A: Das stimmt. |
| D: Hier ist ein Drama, das zur Zeit der DDR spielt. Was hältst du davon? |
| A: Hmm, nicht schlecht, aber mir wäre eine Komödie lieber, etwas Lustiges. |
| Judith: Now read slowly. Jetzt langsam. |
| D: Hier ist das Programm. Siehst du etwas, das dich interessiert? |
| A: Hmm, lass mal sehen... Der neue Bond-Film klingt interessant. |
| D: Bist du dir sicher? In Deutschland gibt es den nicht mit Untertiteln, nur synchronisiert. Ich finde es doof, wenn man die echten Stimmen der Schauspieler nicht hören kann. |
| A: Oh, das wusste ich nicht. Ja, ich denke es wäre zu komisch für mich, plötzlich andere Stimmen zu hören. |
| D: Es gibt ein Kino, das englische Originalversionen zeigt, aber ich denke, wir sollten lieber einen deutschen Film gucken. Deutsche Filme kannst du in Amerika nicht so leicht finden. |
| A: Das stimmt. |
| D: Hier ist ein Drama, das zur Zeit der DDR spielt. Was hältst du davon? |
| A: Hmm, nicht schlecht, aber mir wäre eine Komödie lieber, etwas Lustiges. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| D: Hier ist das Programm. Siehst du etwas, das dich interessiert? |
| D: Here's the program. Do you see anything that interests you? |
| A: Hmm, lass mal sehen... Der neue Bond-Film klingt interessant. |
| A: Hmm, let's see... the new Bond movie sounds interesting. |
| D: Bist du dir sicher? In Deutschland gibt es den nicht mit Untertiteln, nur synchronisiert. Ich finde es doof, wenn man die echten Stimmen der Schauspieler nicht hören kann. |
| D: Are you sure? In Germany it's not available with subtitles, just dubbed. I find it stupid when you can't hear the real voices of the actors. |
| A: Oh, das wusste ich nicht. Ja, ich denke es wäre zu komisch für mich, plötzlich andere Stimmen zu hören. |
| A: Oh, I didn't know that. Yes, I think it would be too weird for me to suddenly hear other voices. |
| D: Es gibt ein Kino, das englische Originalversionen zeigt, aber ich denke, wir sollten lieber einen deutschen Film gucken. Deutsche Filme kannst du in Amerika nicht so leicht finden. |
| D: There is a cinema, which shows English original versions, but I think we should rather watch a German movie. You can't find German movies as easily in America. |
| A: Das stimmt. |
| A: That's true. |
| D: Hier ist ein Drama, das zur Zeit der DDR spielt. Was hältst du davon? |
| D: This is a drama which is set at the time of the GDR. What do you think of it? |
| A: Hmm, nicht schlecht, aber mir wäre eine Komödie lieber, etwas Lustiges. |
| A: Hmm, not bad, but I'd prefer a comedy, something funny. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Judith: Alright. So how about we talk about German movies this time? |
| Chuck: Sounds good. |
| Judith: There are actually quite a lot of nice German movies. I'm thinking now, what kind of movies could we recommend to our listeners? Do you have any suggestions? |
| Chuck: Actually, my favorite German movie I actually saw in the States for a video store there. It’s called [Viktor Vogel], commercial man. About a kid that goes into an [Ad agency] to go to get a job, and then finds himself suddenly in a meeting, and then suddenly lands himself a job that way. Quite funny. |
| Judith: One of my favourite entertaining German movies is [Good Bye, Lenin]. It’s really funny about the GDR, and there’s this woman who falls in a coma and only wakes up after the reunification. And in order not to upset her too much, the kids have to play like it’s still like the communist times. |
| Chuck: Maybe you want to explain what the GDR is really quick, for our new listeners? |
| Judith: The GDR is the German Democratic Republic, that’s the East German, the communist state. |
| Chuck: Ok. There’s also an interesting movie called [Lola rennt] or you might know it as [Run Lola Run]. It’s a very high-packed action movie with about different scenes about how things could have happened if something else had been different. |
| Judith: And, of course, the most successful funny German movie is [Der Schuh des Manitu]. It’s a parody of certain Western movies. I think it’s actually a bit hard to understand for foreigners because the actors sometimes speak dialect for comedic effect and it’s a parody of Karl May movies, so if you haven’t see a Karl May movie then you won’t get all the references. |
| Chuck: When I think about serious German movies, I'm not sure if you can get it in English or not, but there’s a movie called [Das Experiment]. It’s about a psychological experiment - this actually took place in the United States but German cinema decided to make a movie about it. It’s about a group of people who are assigned either positions as prison guards or as prisoners, but it’s not for the light-hearted so yeah. I wouldn’t sleep right after it. |
| Judith: It’s a pretty angsty movie but I find it very worthwhile watching. Also [Der Untergang], you have to see that one, “The Downfall”. |
| Chuck: What’s that? |
| Judith: About the Third Reich, the very last days. |
| Chuck: Ah, yeah some people actually criticize it because it was a movie that didn’t portray Hitler in such a bad light. |
| Judith: I think he still looks bad enough. |
| Chuck: Yeah. So those are our recommendations. |
| Judith: There’s more. We have a whole list of movies, a whole thread about them in the forum, on GermanPod101.com. So look there and recommend your own German movies that you like. |
| Chuck: Alright, sounds great. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: First word, [Untertitel]. |
| Chuck: Subtitle. |
| Judith: [Untertitel, Untertitel, der Untertitel] is masculine. And the plural is the same as with all words ending in EL. Next, [Synchronisiert]. |
| Chuck: “Synchronized” or “dubbed”. |
| Judith: [Synchronisiert, synchronisiert] Next, [Doof]. |
| Chuck: “Dumb”, “foolish” or “silly”. |
| Judith: [Doof, doof] Next, [Echt]. |
| Chuck: “True”, “genuine”, “authentic” or “real”. |
| Judith: [Echt, echt] There’s also a German band by that name. Next, [Stimme]. |
| Chuck: Voice. |
| Judith: [Stimme, Stimme, die Stimme] it’s feminine and the plural is [Stimmen]. Next, [Schauspieler]. |
| Chuck: Actor. |
| Judith: [Schauspieler, Schauspieler] This word is masculine and the plural is the same. |
| Chuck: And the female form is [Schauspielerin]. |
| Judith: [Schauspielerin] Next, [Komisch]. |
| Chuck: “Strange” or “comical”. |
| Judith: [Komisch, komisch] Next, [Plötzlich]. |
| Chuck: Suddenly. |
| Judith: [Plötzlich, plötzlich] Next, [Drama]. |
| Chuck: Drama. |
| Judith: [Drama, Drama] This word is neuter, [Das Drama], and the plural is [Dramen]. Next, [Halten]. |
| Chuck: “To hold” or “consider or regard someone or something”. |
| Judith: [Halten, halten] And this is a vowel changing word so it’s [Er hält]. Next, [Komödie]. |
| Chuck: Comedy. |
| Judith: [Komödie, Komödie] This word is feminine and the plural is [Komödien]. Next, [Lustig]. |
| Chuck: Funny. |
| Judith: [Lustig, lustig] |
| 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 phrase we look at is [Was hälst du davon?]. |
| Chuck: Literally, “What do you hold of it” but more normally “What do you think of it? How do you regard it?” |
| Judith: Yes, that’s it. [Was hälst du davon?] And the other thing is [Mir wäre eine Komödie lieber]. |
| Chuck: Literally “A comedy would rather be to me”. Of course you’d never say that, it’s more like “I would prefer a comedy”. |
| Judith: Yes. The actual German verb for “to prefer”, [Vorziehen], is really rarely used. So you say really [Mir wäre lieber]. |
| Chuck: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before even. |
| Judith: Yeah. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: You’ll sound a lot more advanced in German if you’ve conformed longer sentences, especially in writing. In the last lesson, we already looked at words you can use to link two main clauses. |
| Judith: Now we shall look at ways to link a main clause and a sub clause. |
| Chuck: Be sure to pay attention to the different word order in sub clauses. |
| Judith: So the first such linking word is [Weil]. |
| Chuck: Because. |
| Judith: [Ich esse gerne in diesem Restaurant, weil es hier immer gut schmeckt]. |
| Chuck: I like to eat at this restaurant because it always tastes good here. |
| Judith: Next one is [Falls]. |
| Chuck: If |
| Judith: [Falls ich ihn sehe, sage ich es ihm]. |
| Chuck: If I see him, I shall tell him. |
| Judith: [Wenn] is almost the same. It’s also “if” but it can also mean “when” when you’re talking about the present or future. [Wenn ich ihn sehe, sage ich es ihm]. |
| Chuck: If or when I see him, I shall tell him. |
| Judith: [Als] is “when” for the past, only when you’re talking about the past tense or something that happened in the past. [Als ich ihn sah, sagte ich es ihm]. |
| Chuck: When I saw him, I told him. |
| Judith: Then we have [Ob]. |
| Chuck: Whether. |
| Judith: [Ich fragte ihn, ob er schon davon gehört hatte]. |
| Chuck: I asked him whether he had heard of it already. |
| Judith: The last one we want to look at today is [Um]. |
| Chuck: In order to. |
| Judith: [Ich sagte nichts, um nicht dumm zu erscheinen]. |
| Chuck: ”I didn’t say anything in order not to appear stupid.” |
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 a specific skill. |
| Chuck: And together these quizzes will help you master fundamental skills. |
| Judith: You can find them in the Learning Center at… |
| Chuck: GermanPod101.com. So, see you next week! |
| Judith: Bis nächste Woche! |
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