Learn how to write a cover letter
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Series 2, Lesson 9. Applying for a job - part one. |
| 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 any textbook. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to apply for a job. |
| Judith: We already covered how to write a CV, so now we’ll write a cover letter. |
| Chuck: This conversation takes place at a German home. The conversation is between Mike and his German friend. |
| Judith: The German friend is trying to help him land a job. |
| Chuck: The speakers are friends, therefore they will be speaking informal German. Now, if you’re listening on an iPod. |
| Judith: Or an iTouch or iPhone. |
| Chuck: Click the center button of the iPod or tap the screen on an iPod touch or iPhone to see the notes for this lesson while you listen. |
| Judith: Read along while you listen. |
| Chuck: This technique will help you remember faster. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| D: „Ich denke, du kannst dich trotzdem beim Institute of English als Lehrer bewerben, auch wenn sie nicht ausdrücklich Lehrer suchen. Und bei anderen Sprachschulen in Berlin kannst du dich auch bewerben.“ |
| A: „Okay, dann schicke ich ihnen meinen Lebenslauf, aber dazu brauche ich auch einen Brief.“ |
| D: „Kein Problem; ich helfe dir. Wie wäre es hiermit - Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, hiermit bewerbe ich mich als Englischlehrer bei Ihrem Institut.“ |
| D: „Ich bin Muttersprachler, gerade aus den USA nach Berlin umgezogen, und habe bereits Erfahrungen als Englischlehrer gesammelt.“ |
| D: „Nach meinem Studium der Sozialwissenschaften, welches ich mit einem Bachelor of Arts abschloss, blieb ich zunächst an der University of Maine und unterrichtete dort zwei Jahre lang als wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter Englisch… |
| Judith: Now read slowly. |
| D: „Ich denke, du kannst dich trotzdem beim Institute of English als Lehrer bewerben, auch wenn sie nicht ausdrücklich Lehrer suchen. Und bei anderen Sprachschulen in Berlin kannst du dich auch bewerben.“ |
| A: „Okay, dann schicke ich ihnen meinen Lebenslauf, aber dazu brauche ich auch einen Brief.“ |
| D: „Kein Problem; ich helfe dir. Wie wäre es hiermit - Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, hiermit bewerbe ich mich als Englischlehrer bei Ihrem Institut.“ |
| D: „Ich bin Muttersprachler, gerade aus den USA nach Berlin umgezogen, und habe bereits Erfahrungen als Englischlehrer gesammelt.“ |
| D: „Nach meinem Studium der Sozialwissenschaften, welches ich mit einem Bachelor of Arts abschloss, blieb ich zunächst an der University of Maine und unterrichtete dort zwei Jahre lang als wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter Englisch… |
| Judith: Jetzt mit Übersetzung. Now with the translation. |
| D: „Ich denke, du kannst dich trotzdem beim Institute of English als Lehrer bewerben, auch wenn sie nicht ausdrücklich Lehrer suchen. Und bei anderen Sprachschulen in Berlin kannst du dich auch bewerben.“ |
| D: „I think you can still apply to be a teacher at the Institute of English, even if they aren't explicitly looking for teachers. And you can also apply at other language schools in Berlin.“ |
| A: „Okay, dann schicke ich ihnen meinen Lebenslauf, aber dazu brauche ich auch einen Brief.“ |
| A: „Okay, then I shall send them my CV, but I also need a letter to go with that.“ |
| D: „Kein Problem; ich helfe dir. Wie wäre es hiermit - Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, hiermit bewerbe ich mich als Englischlehrer bei Ihrem Institut.“ |
| D: „No problem; I will help you. How'bout this - 'Ladies and Gentlemen, herewith I am applying to be an English teacher at your institute.“ |
| D: „Ich bin Muttersprachler, gerade aus den USA nach Berlin umgezogen, und habe bereits Erfahrungen als Englischlehrer gesammelt.“ |
| D: „I am a native speaker, I just moved from the USA to Berlin, and I have already collected experience as an English teacher.“ |
| D: „Nach meinem Studium der Sozialwissenschaften, welches ich mit einem Bachelor of Arts abschloss, blieb ich zunächst an der University of Maine und unterrichtete dort zwei Jahre lang als wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter Englisch… |
| D: „After my study of social sciences, which I completed with a Bachelor of Arts, I initially stayed at the University of Maine and taught English there for two years as a research assistant... |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Judith: Alright, we’ll learn more of how this letter goes in the next lesson. For now let’s talk about language knowledge in Germany. What’s up with all those English schools? |
| Chuck: Everybody learns a first foreign language, usually English, for an early age, often starting with little games in kindergarten and elementary school though middle school is where it really starts. That’d be, I’d say, fifth grade and up? |
| Judith: Yes, in Germany it’s fifth grade and up. So in fifth grade people start to really learn English, and in grade seven a lot of students have to choose a second foreign language, typically they can choose between French and Latin. And later there are more opportunities to learn more languages. I managed to learn four languages at my secondary school. Well, it’s not everybody that’s interested in languages that much but two or three languages are quite normal. Actually, you can’t get around learning two languages until graduation. If you want to go to university, you have to take two languages for at least five years each. Foreign languages, that is. |
| Chuck: And you also can’t afford to do badly in the exams because the grades matter and you may have to repeat a year. |
| Judith: Yeah, if the grades are too bad you repeat. And you can’t opt out of your first foreign language until grade 11 and only if you already have two other languages to keep up then. |
| Chuck: I guess it’s safe to say that language classes are general much more effective than the ones in American schools, wouldn’t you think? |
| Judith: Yes, generally yes. I mean especially at the gymnasium which leads up to university, the language instruction is really high quality. |
| Chuck: The gymnasium? Are you talking about German class? |
| Judith: We mentioned this in an earlier lesson. It’s actually the kind of high school that allows you to go onto university. We have a three split high school system. |
| Chuck: Ok, that makes much more sense than playing foreign language sports. |
| Judith: Anyway, so if you go to gymnasium you’ll have nine years of English classes, otherwise you’ll have five. This should be enough for all Germans to know good English but there are really a couple of factors that will hamper this. First there is the older generation that didn’t have these requirements at school so they never had to learn any amount of English. Then there’s the East Germans who learn Russian as a first foreign language and, of course, even if you learn five years of English after a couple of more years you will probably remember hardly anything. |
| Chuck: It’s often why you’ll find that the English is much better in the larger cities because the people who live there are much more likely to come in contact with foreigners, for example, and have to practice their English from time to time. |
| Judith: Or generally your best bet, if you need somebody who speaks English, would be a student age generation. They’ve had a lot of English classes and they probably still have to use it occasionally or prove that they know it. Alright. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Judith: First word [Trotzdem]. |
| Chuck: “Despite that” or “anyway”. |
| Judith: [Trotzdem, trotzdem] next, [Ausdrücklich]. |
| Chuck: Explicitly. |
| Judith: [Ausdrücklich, ausdrücklich] Next, [Schicken]. |
| Chuck: To send. |
| Judith: [Schicken, schicken] Next, [Hiermit]. |
| Chuck: “Herewith” or “hereby”. |
| Judith: [Hiermit, hiermit] Next, [Ehren]. |
| Chuck: To honor. |
| Judith: [Ehren, ehren] Next, [Umziehen]. |
| Chuck: To move to another home. |
| Judith: [Umziehen, umziehen] And with this verb you have to know that the [Um] splits off. |
| Chuck: [Ich ziehe um]. |
| Judith: Yes. Next, [Bereits]. |
| Chuck: Already. |
| Judith: [Bereits, bereits] Next, [Sammeln]. |
| Chuck: To collect. |
| Judith: [Sammeln, sammeln] Next, [Studium]. |
| Chuck: “Study” as in the time at university. |
| Judith: [Studium, Studium, das Studium] it’s neuter. And the plural is [Studien]. Next, [Zunächst]. |
| Chuck: “Initially” or “at first”. |
| Judith: [Zunächst, zunächst] Next, [Lang]. |
| Chuck: For an amount of time. |
| Judith: Yes. So first you put the amount of time and then you say [Lang]. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases for this lesson. |
| Judith: The first phrase we’re going to look at is [Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren]. |
| Chuck: This is standard greeting formula in letters. It literally means “Very honored ladies and gentlemen”. |
| Judith: Yeah, so you would use this when you don’t know who you’re writing to, like when you’re writing to a company. If you do know who you’re going to write to, you should start with [Sehr geehrte Frau] whatever or [Sehr geehrter Herr] whatever. |
| Chuck: Notice it’s [Geehrte Frau] so there’s no R at the end of [Geehrte] there. And with a man it is [Geehrter Herr]. |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: That’s very hard to hear when you just listen. |
| Judith: Yeah, but it’s adjective [Declension], people should already know it. |
| Chuck: Yeah, but it’s not something you want to mess up. |
| Judith: Now we can learn the word [Trotzdem]. [Trotzdem] means “despite that”. |
| Chuck: Or “however”. |
| Judith: Germans just love contrasting things in every single sentence so you’ll hear [Trotzdem] a lot more often than in English. There’s also [Aber] and [Jedoch] that you also hear very, very often. |
| Chuck: Ah, don’t worry. You can just drop like half of these words when translating in English. |
| Judith: Ok, now for some grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The grammar focus of this lesson is the [Preterite] past tense. |
| Judith: We’ve already seen the perfect past tense, but this is the second past tense in German. It’s called the [Präteritum], [Preterite] past tense. This is a source of forms like [War] or [Hatte] which you may have encountered briefly in the beginner lessons. |
| Chuck: We will do two lessons on the [Preterite] past tense so that you have time to get familiar with it. |
| Judith: In this lesson, let’s have a first look. |
| Chuck: Generally the forms as rather easy. Regular verbs behave as if they’re stem contained an additional TE, so [Warten] behaves as if it was a verb called [Warteten]. |
| Judith: Ok, I’ll go over the forms. [Ich wartete] |
| Chuck: I waited. |
| Judith: [Du wartetest] |
| Chuck: You waited. |
| Judith: [Er wartete] |
| Chuck: He waited. |
| Judith: [Wir warteten] |
| Chuck: We waited. |
| Judith: [Ihr wartetet] |
| Chuck: You all waited. |
| Judith: [Sie warteten] |
| Chuck: “They waited”. Those conjugations are much easier in English, but as you may have noticed there is just one difference in the German. Instead of the expected [Er wartetet], we get [Er wartete]. |
| Judith: That’s because it would sound silly otherwise. |
| Chuck: Ah ok. |
| Judith: [Wartetet] Three T’s in there, no thanks. [Er wartete] Unfortunately, just like for the perfect tense, a lot of verbs that the irregular stem. As these words were all just one word, separable verbs will still split off their prefix. |
| Chuck: So that’s the [Preterite] past tense in a nutshell. Watch out for it as you re-listen to today’s dialogue and also the next one. In the next lesson, we’ll review this and cover when to use the [Preterite] past tense. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. Ok, some of our listeners already know about the most powerful tool on GermanPod101.com. |
| Judith: Line by line audio. |
| Chuck: The perfect tool for rapidly improving listening comprehension. |
| Judith: By listening to lines of the conversation again and again. |
| Chuck: Listen until every word and syllable becomes clear. Basically, we break down the dialogue into comprehensible bite-sized sentences. |
| Judith: You can try the line by line audio in the Premium Learning Center at GermanPod101. |
| Chuck: Thanks for listening. |
| Judith: Bis nächstes Mal. |
| Chuck: See you next time. |
Comments
Hide