Learn the slight difference between German adjectives and adverbs
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here, intermediate series season three lesson twelve. Are you up for homely German restaurants and homemade German food? |
| Judith: Hi my name is Judith and I'm joined here by Chuck. |
| Chuck: Hello everyone and welcome back to germanpod101. |
| Judith: What are we learning today? |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you'll learn how to order typical German dishes at a restaurant. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at a traditional German restaurant. |
| Chuck: The conversation takes place between Mr. Jones, an unnamed waitress and Mr. Mueller. |
| Judith: The speakers are in a business relationship, therefore they will be speaking in formal German. |
| Chuck: Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Müller: Herr Jones, sind Sie bereit für die Mittagspause? |
| Jones: Ja, ich bin auch schon richtig hungrig. |
| Müller: Schön! Mögen Sie die deutsche Küche? Ich kenne ein gutes Restaurant zwei Straßen weiter… |
| Jones: Hmm, ich habe bisher eigentlich nur die Berliner Currywurst probiert. Sauerkraut habe ich auch schon mal gegessen. Das hat mir auch gut geschmeckt. Also meinetwegen gerne. |
| Müller: Schön, gehen wir. |
| Müller: Hier sind wir. |
| Jones: Ah, es sieht hier sehr gemütlich aus! |
| Kellner: Guten Tag. Hier bitte, die Karte. Kann ich Ihnen schon etwas zu trinken bringen? |
| Müller: Ja, für mich ein Mineralwasser, bitte. |
| Jones: Für mich ebenfalls. |
| Kellner: Kommt sofort. |
| Jones: Können Sie mir denn ein gutes Gericht empfehlen? |
| Müller: Hmm, also die Spätzle mit Gulasch sind sehr lecker und die Rinderroulade mit Rotkohl und Klößen ist auch empfehlenswert. Oder wenn Sie süßes Essen mögen, dann vielleicht die Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus. |
| Jones: Nein, süßes Essen mag ich mittags nicht so gern. Und Gulasch hört sich seltsam an. Ich glaube, ich nehme die Roulade. |
| Müller: Dann nehme ich die Spätzle mit Gulasch. |
| ... |
| Müller: Wie schmeckt es Ihnen? |
| Jones: Hmm, die Soße ist mir etwas zu salzig. Aber die Roulade und der Rotkohl schmecken sehr lecker. Wie ist Ihr Gulasch? |
| Müller: Das Gulasch ist auch lecker. Und die Spätzle sind sogar hausgemacht! |
| Jones: Mensch, das nächste Mal nehme ich auch das seltsame Gulasch! |
| Müller: Mr Jones, are you ready for lunch break? |
| Jones: Yes, and I'm also really hungry already. |
| Müller: Nice! Do you like German cuisine? I know a good restaurant two streets from here. |
| Jones: Hmm, so far I actually only tried Berlin-style curry sausage. I have also eaten sauerkraut once. I liked the taste. So for my part, gladly. |
| Müller: Great, let's go. |
| Müller: Here we are. |
| Jones: Ah, this place looks very homely! |
| Waiter: Good day. Here, the menu. Can I already bring you something to drink? |
| Müller: Yes, mineral water for me please. |
| Jones: For me as well. |
| Waiter: Coming up right away. |
| Jones: Can you recommend a good dish to me? |
| Müller: Hmm, the Southern German pasta with goulash are very yummy and the beef roulade with red cabbage and potato dumplings is also worth recommending. Or if you like sweet food, then maybe some potato pancakes with apple sauce. |
| Jones: No, I don't like sweet food for lunch. And goulash sounds weird. I believe I shall take the roulade. |
| Müller: Then I shall take the Southern German pasta with goulash. |
| ... |
| Müller: How do you like your food? |
| Jones: Hmm, the sauce is a little too salty for my taste. But the roulade and the red cabbage taste very good. How is your goulash? |
| Müller: The goulash is also very yummy. And the Southern German pasta is even home-made! |
| Jones: Man, next time I shall also take the weird goulash! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: All right I think this dialogue bought a lot of typical dishes that you can find at most German restaurants. Let's see what they are. |
| Chuck: Well it's certainly making me hungry in any case. So anyway everyone should have heard of sauerkraut. But not that here I don't think people think of it as something to put on hot dogs do they? |
| Judith: Nope. [Currywurst] I'm not sure. |
| Chuck: Oh yeah [Currywurst] is really good, you take a sausage and chop it up into pieces and then they put a sauce on it like tomato and curry powder. |
| Judith: We actually have an entire blog about just [Currywurst] so just listen to that one to find out all the gory details. It's just a fast food item. |
| Chuck: It's not gory, it's just yummy and usually it's served with fries or possibly also raw. |
| Judith: Now about [Spätzle] |
| Chuck: Mmm [Spätzle] |
| Judith: [Spätzle] is a type of egg based pasta that is typical to southern Germany in particular. |
| Chuck: I'd say that it's a finer version of macaroni and cheese. |
| Judith: Depends how you prepare it. In today's restaurant it's served with gulasch that is pieces of meat and paprika and possibly other vegetables in a slightly spicy sauce. This dish originally came from Hungary. |
| Chuck: [Klöße] is another typical German staple, they're dumplings made of very finely grated potato but they don't taste like potato that much anymore. |
| Judith: [Klöße] are often served with [Rotkohl] that is a red cabbage and [Rinderroulade] is a thin slice of beef on which you spread mustard, ham and onions and then which is then rolled up and baked. [Rinderroulade mit Klöße] and [Rotkohl] is one of the most delicious German dishes and traditionally served on Sundays or holidays. |
| Chuck: I think it's also quite common to serve the [Rinderroulade] with string beans with bacon wrapped around them isn't it? |
| Judith: Yes, that's the alternative to the [Rotkohl]. Finally [Kartoffelpuffer] potato pancakes or they're also sometimes called [Reibekuchen] in German. Those are a sweet main course, they're prepared by running potatoes through a food processor to make really thin strings of them kind of like Chinese noodles, and by adding onions, flour or also other ingredients and spices you get a dough which is then fried in a pan to make little round pancakes [Kartoffelpuffer] are typically eaten with [Apfelmus] that is apple sauce or sugar beet syrup. |
| Chuck: You'll also notice that they taste somewhat similar to tater tots if you know those. You will get strange reactions if you ask for ketchup with them |
| Judith: Oh yes. |
| Chuck: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we should see is ... |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: [hungrig]. |
| Chuck: Hungry. |
| Judith: [hungrig] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [kennen] |
| Chuck: To know somebody. |
| Judith: [kennen] the forms are [Er kennt, Er kannte, Er hat gekannt] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [schmecken] |
| Chuck: To taste. To taste good. |
| Judith: [schmecken] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [meinetwegen] |
| Chuck: From my side, if it was up to me, for all I care. |
| Judith: [meinetwegen] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [gemütlich] |
| Chuck: Comfortable, cozy or home like |
| Judith: [gemütlich]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [ebenfalls]. |
| Chuck: As well. |
| Judith: [ebenfalls] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [empfehlen]. |
| Chuck: To recommend. |
| Judith: [empfehlen] the forms of [Er empfiehlt, Er empfahl, Er hat empfohlen]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Rind]. |
| Chuck: Cattle. |
| Judith: [Rind, das] and the plural is [Rinder]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Kohl] |
| Chuck: Cabbage. |
| Judith: [Kohl] this is also the name of one of our former chancellors. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Kartoffel] |
| Chuck: Potato. |
| Judith: [Kartoffel, die] and the plural is [Kartoffeln] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [salzig] |
| Chuck: Salty. |
| Judith: [salzig] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [hausgemacht] |
| Chuck: Homemade. |
| Judith: [hausgemacht] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let's have a closer look at the usage from some of the words and phrase from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first lesson we'll look at is the word [hungrig] |
| Chuck: Hungry |
| Judith: It's a lot less often used in German than it is in English. In most cases you will want to say [Ich habe Hunger] and there's no rule for when you can say [Ich bin hungrig] instead. The other thing I wanted to draw your attention to is [Gemütlichkeit]. [Gemütlichkeit] is a German specialty according to some. It describes the feeling of staying at home, being comfortable, not being hurried, not being mean. [Gemütlichkeit] includes the word [Gemüt] which can be mind, soul or disposition so [gemütlich] is something that's good for the soul or that has a good disposition to it. You can describe both places and people as [gemütlich] |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The grammar focus of this lesson is the difference between adjectives and adverbs. |
| Judith: One of the rare ways the German grammar is easier than English grammar is the case of adjectives versus adverbs. In German adjectives and adverbs initially look the same, there is no special ly ending for adverbs for example however there is a difference in usage. |
| Chuck: Adjectives have to match the related noun in case, number and gender so for nouns as accusative singular, and it's a feminine noun to boot. Then the adjective has to use the right ending for accusative singular feminine. |
| Judith: What's more as we've seen in the lesson on the accusative. The right ending may sometimes also depend on whether the article already used the key ending for that case or not. So it's a complicated matter to figure out what ending to put on your adjective. |
| Chuck: To be fair, I still haven't quite mastered it. But adverbs however never add any ending, they always appear just as in the dictionary, and there's another thing. If you've studied a romance language you may know that the adjectives are supposed to match the noun even in sentences like the sauce is salty. |
| Judith: [Die Soße] is non active singular feminine in this sentence so you might expect to see [salzige] just like you'd say [die salzige Soße] |
| Chuck: However in German adjectives only change when they precede a noun. If you're connecting a noun and an adjective using a form of [sein] or any other verb. All bets are off and the adjective will stay the same. |
| Judith: [Die Soße ist salzig] |
Outro |
| Chuck: The sauce is salty. You might call it an adverb then except the linguists don't typically talk of adverbs when it comes to the verb 'to be'. Okay well that just about does it for today. Some of our listeners already know about the most powerful tool in 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 bit sized sentences. |
| Judith: You can try the line by line audio in the premium learning center at germanpod101.com |
| Chuck: Well I'm really hungry so I'm heading out. We'll see you next time, |
| Judith: [Also bis nächstes Mal]! |
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