Learn how to use the plural accusative case, which focus mostly on German feminine nouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here, intermediate series season three lesson eleven. Shopping online in Germany and your boss doesn't have to know. |
| 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 shop for things in German online stores. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place in a German office. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Mr. Jones and Mrs. Bayer. |
| Judith: The speakers are coworkers therefore they'll be speaking formal German, |
| Chuck: Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Bayer: Guten Morgen, Herr Jones. |
| Jones: Guten Morgen, Frau Bayer. |
| Bayer: Hmm, Herr Jones, irgendwie sehen Sie heute anders aus als sonst… |
| Jones: Ja? |
| Bayer: Ja! Sie tragen einen grauen Anzug! Bisher haben Sie immer nur schwarze Anzüge getragen! |
| Jones: Ja, stimmt. Ich bin gestern in verschiedene Geschäfte gegangen. Es ist ganz schön schwer, passende Anzüge zu finden! |
| Bayer: Ja, das kenne ich! Ich finde nie die richtigen Schuhe! Immer stimmt etwas nicht! |
| Jones: Ja genau! Ich mag nur wenige Farben. Deshalb trage ich eigentlich nur schwarze Anzüge, aber dieses Mal habe ich mich für diesen grauen Anzug entschieden. |
| Bayer: Ich finde er steht Ihnen sehr gut! Tragen Sie doch öfter mal graue Anzüge. |
| Jones: Danke. Vielleicht mache ich das! |
| Bayer: Haben Sie auch gleich neue Krawatten dazu gekauft? |
| Jones: Kra…was? |
| Bayer: Eine Krawatte? Man sagt auch 'Schlips'. |
| Jones: Ach so, ja. Nein, an Krawatten habe ich nicht gedacht! |
| Bayer: Dann müssen Sie wohl noch einmal einkaufen gehen! |
| Jones: Oh nein. |
| Bayer: Aber man kann ja auch im Internet einkaufen. Da finden Sie sicher viele verschiedene Krawatten! |
| Jones: Ja, das ist eine gute Idee! |
| Bayer: Gut, genug gequatscht. Fangen wir an zu arbeiten. Sonst treten wir unserem Chef noch auf den Schlips! |
| Jones: Haha, ja und das wollen wir ja nicht riskieren! |
| Bayer: Good morning, Mr Jones. |
| Jones: Good morning, Mrs Bayer. |
| Bayer: Hmm, Mr Jones, somehow you look different today than the other days... |
| Jones: Yes? |
| Bayer: Yes! You are wearing a grey suit! So far you have always worn black suits exclusively! |
| Jones: Yes, that's right. I went to several different shops yesterday. It is quite difficult to find suitable suits! |
| Bayer: Yes, I know that! I can never find the right shoes! Something is not right about this! |
| Jones: Yes, exactly! I only like few colors. Therefore I generally only wear black suits, but this time I have decided in favor of a grey suit. |
| Bayer: I think it suits you very well! Do wear grey suits more often. |
| Jones: Thanks. Maybe I will do that! |
| Bayer: Did you also buy new cravats to go with that? |
| Jones: Cra...what? |
| Bayer: A cravat? People also say 'necktie'. |
| Jones: Oh, yes. No, I never thought about cravats! |
| Bayer: Then you will probably have to go shopping again! |
| Jones: Oh no. |
| Bayer: But you can also shop online. There you will surely find many different cravats! |
| Jones: Yes, that's a good idea! |
| Bayer: Okay, we've chatted enough. Let's start working. Otherwise we'll tread on our boss' necktie (= toes)! |
| Jones: Haha, yes and we don't want to risk that! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: What is this about shopping online? |
| Chuck: Well shopping online can be really worthwhile. You can often find good deals. |
| Judith: Yes, in Germany the only thing you can't expect to find deals for are books. There's a German law that books have to be sold at the same price everywhere unless they're damaged or used. |
| Chuck: But that also means you can just buy it online instead of having to go to the store and get it and the shipping is free. |
| Judith: Yeah, typically the shipping for books is free to make up for the inability to give discounts, otherwise shipping costs are still quite low. The distances are just not as great as in the states, Germany as a whole is slightly smaller than the state of Montana. |
| Chuck: And because of that and the efficiency of the German postal system, what you order usually will arrive the next day without paying anything extra. |
| Judith: Also you should know that VAT called [Mehrwertsteuer] in German. |
| Chuck: Value Added Tax. |
| Judith: Is already included in the prices, always. In Germany the tax is 7% for food and other necessities and 19% for everything else. |
| Chuck: It's quite similar to the sales tax that you have in the States and Canada but also are credit cards quick coming online? |
| Judith: Online they're somewhat okay but the most typical form of payment is still called [Lastschrift] this means that the company will draw the money straight from your bank account without you having to do anything as opposed to that paying by [Vorkasse] means that you first have to transfer the money to them and when they see that they will send you the item. |
| Chuck: So it could take about two or three days for the money to get to them right? |
| Judith: Yes, it's typical. And then there’s the option [Rechnung] that you someday would get. [Rechnung] means you pay once you receive the item and the bill. These are non automatic forms of payment unless the [Lastschrift] so if you have concerns about the company's credibility, you should prefer [Vorkasse] or [Rechnung] |
| Chuck: Also note that credit cards are as a form of payment online embraced by some companies but not all of them. I remember I was looking at a TV the other, let's see that was about a couple of months ago, and I was just shocked to see they didn't take credit cards even though it's on the Internet. Well it was actually a real store that was also accepting Internet payments but I just couldn't believe it. |
| Judith: Well to me it's not that surprising because credit cards are just not as common in Germany and to pay with a credit card the merchant has to pay the credit card company, whereas if the clients pay by electronic bank transfer then they get the full sum. So they don't have to offer a discount that way. |
| Chuck: And after you've already paying 19% for the sales tax, value added tax, it can be quite a lot if you just see more percentages added onto that. Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is... |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: [bisher] |
| Chuck: Up until now. |
| Judith: [bisher] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [schwer] |
| Chuck: Heavy or difficult. |
| Judith: [schwer] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [passend] |
| Chuck: Fitting or suitable. |
| Judith: [passend] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Schuh] |
| Chuck: Shoe. |
| Judith: [Schuh, der] and the plural is [Schuhe] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [deshalb] |
| Chuck: Therefore. |
| Judith: [deshalb] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [entscheiden] |
| Chuck: To decide. |
| Judith: [entscheiden] it's usually used reflexively as [sich entscheiden] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [öfter] |
| Chuck: More often. |
| Judith: [öfter] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Krawatte] |
| Chuck: Cravat or tie. |
| Judith: [Krawatte, die] and the plural is [Krawatten] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Schlips] |
| Chuck: Tie. |
| Judith: [Schlips, der] and the plural is [Schlipse] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Internet] |
| Chuck: Internet. |
| Judith: [Internet, das] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: quatschen. |
| Chuck: [To chat or chatter.] |
| Judith: [quatschen] this is a weak verb and it's colloquial. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [treten] |
| Chuck: To kick or tread, |
| Judith: [treten] the forms are [Er tritt], [Er trat], [Er ist getreten] or [Er hat getreten] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [riskieren] |
| Chuck: To risk. |
| Judith: [riskieren] |
| 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 phrase we'll look at is [Der Anzug steht Ihnen sehr gut]! |
| Chuck: The suit looks good on you. So it stands on him very well. |
| Judith: Yeah well literally it says it stands very well on you but as we mentioned in the last lesson, standing is the same as the word [sitzen] that we had in the last lesson, it means to fit in all the right places. And there's another phrase that I want to look at today, it's [auf den Schlips treten]. |
| Chuck: To tread on someone's time. |
| Judith: Yes, that's a neutral thing but it's just an expression and in English the expression would be to tread on someone's toes. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: For our grammar point today we'll continue our studies in the accusative. Today we'll go over the plural forms, fortunately the plural forms largely correspond with those of feminine nouns and the accusative plural is the same as the nominative plural. |
| Judith: This means that they key ending is e and the definite article is die as in [die Männer], [die Frauen] and [die Kinder]. the indefinite article does not exist in plural but related words like [kein] and [mein] use [keine] and [meine] for plural so they also use the key ending e. |
| Chuck: Stand alone adjectives also get the ending e but they're preceded by an article possessive pronoun or something like that and they use the ending en instead. |
| Judith: We can see this pattern in a lot of places. Adjectives take the ending en if another word is already using the key ending of the case. |
| Chuck: So what does that mean in practice? |
| Judith: [Ich mag die Anzüge] [Ich mag die neuen Anzüge] and [Ich mag meine neuen Anzüge, Ich mag neue Anzüge] the forms Frauen and Kinder are the same because in plural there is no difference between the genders in German. |
| Chuck: Okay, that was less painful than expected. Maybe we should have one more word about when to use the accusative. |
| Judith: All right. There are three cases for using the accusative, first for the direct object, for example [Ich geben meinem Freund den Hung] |
| Chuck: I give the dog to my friend. |
| Judith: [den Hund] is accusative and [meinem Freund] is dative instead. The second case you use the accusative for movement into a direction for example [Ich gehe in den Park] |
| Chuck: I go into the park. |
| Judith: Or [Ich lege das Buch auf dem Tisch] |
| Chuck: I put the book on the table. |
| Judith: For the third case, the accusative is also used after the prepositions [durch, für, gegen, ohne] and [um] |
Outro |
| Chuck: Well that just about does it for today. Judith I'd like to share a study that the listeners shared with us. |
| Judith: You're talking about the student who uses just the conversation tracks to review the lessons. |
| Chuck: Guess you read my mind. Listeners listen to each lessons several times. |
| Judith: And then afterwards gets the conversation only the track from our site. |
| Chuck: You really did know what I was thinking about. Then she listens to it on shuffle again and again, she created her own emerging 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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