Learn the dative plural and their endings
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here, intermediate season 3 lesson 21. Seeing a German doctor. |
| 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: And 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 to a German doctor. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at a doctor’s office. |
| Chuck: the conversation is between Mr. Jones and the receptionist and afterwards the doctor. |
| Judith: the speakers are in a business relationship therefore they’ll be speaking formal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Jones: Guten Tag. Mein Name ist Frank Jones. Ich möchte zu Frau Dr. Pfeiffer. |
| Sprechstundenhilfe: Gerne. Bitte setzen Sie sich kurz ins Wartezimmer und füllen Sie diesen Bogen aus. Ich rufe Sie dann auf. |
| Jones: Okay, danke. |
| Sprechstundenhilfe: Herr Jones? |
| Jones: Ja. |
| Sprechstundenhilfe: Sie sind dran. |
| Pfeiffer: Guten Tag, Herr Jones. |
| Jones: Hallo. |
| Pfeiffer: Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen? |
| Jones: Ich habe etwas Halsschmerzen und ein bisschen Schnupfen. |
| Pfeiffer: Seit wann haben Sie denn die Schmerzen? |
| Jones: Hmm, seit etwa ein bis zwei Wochen. |
| Pfeiffer: 1-2 Wochen?!? |
| Jones: Äh, nein. Ich meine natürlich Tage! |
| Pfeiffer: Okay, dann schaue ich mir Ihren Hals einmal an. Können Sie bitte den Mund weit aufmachen? |
| Jones: Aaaaaaaa. |
| Pfeiffer: Okay, danke. Ja, ihr Hals ist entzündet. Aber das ist nicht ungewöhnlich bei Erkältungen. Ich verschreibe Ihnen Halsschmerztabletten. Die helfen den meisten Menschen sehr gut. |
| Jones: Okay. Aber Antibiotika brauche ich nicht? |
| Pfeiffer: Nein. Ich verschreibe meinen Patienten nicht so schnell Antibiotika. |
| Jones: Kann ich denn arbeiten? |
| Pfeiffer: Ja, wenn es nicht schlimmer wird, können Sie arbeiten. Hier sind ein Attest und das Rezept. |
| Jones: Äh, ist das Rezept für Antibiotika? |
| Pfeiffer: Nein, für Halsschmerztabletten. Bei Ihren Halsschmerzen ist ein Antibiotikum doch nicht nötig… Sollten Sie in den nächsten Tagen noch unter anderen Beschwerden, wie Fieber, leiden, kommen Sie noch einmal in meine Sprechstunde. Gute Besserung! |
| Jones: Danke. |
| Jones: Good day. My name is Frank Jones. I would like to see Dr. Pfeiffer. |
| Receptionist: Gladly. Please sit down for a short while in the waiting-room and fill out this sheet of paper. I shall call you up. |
| Jones: Okay, thanks. |
| Receptionist: Mr Jones? |
| Jones: Yes. |
| Receptionist: It's your turn. |
| Pfeiffer: Good day, Mr Jones. |
| Jones: Hello. |
| Pfeiffer: How can I help you? |
| Jones: I have a somewhat sore throat and snuffles. |
| Pfeiffer: Since when do you have this pain? |
| Jones: Hmm, for about one to two weeks. |
| Pfeiffer: 1-2 weeks?!? |
| Jones: Ehm, no. I mean days of course! |
| Pfeiffer: Okay, then I shall have a look at your throat. Can you please open your mouth widely? |
| Jones: Aaaaaaa. |
| Pfeiffer: Okay, thanks. Yes, your throat is inflamed. But that is not unusual when you have a cold. I shall prescribe some cough drops. These help most people very well. |
| Jones: Okay. But I don't need antibiotics? |
| Pfeiffer: No. I don't prescribe antibiotics to my patients so quickly. |
| Jones: But can I work? |
| Pfeiffer: Yes, if it doesn't get worse, you can work. Here's a medical certificate and the prescription. |
| Jones: Ehm, is that prescription for antibiotics? |
| Pfeiffer: No, for cough drops. An antibiotic is unnecessary for your sore throat... If you suffer from other symptoms in the next few days, for example fever, come see me during consultation hour again. Get well soon! |
| Jones: Thanks. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Okay, so are there any tips you can give for our American listeners about seeing doctors in Germany? |
| Chuck: One thing is even if you don’ live here, bring your health insurance card along and a little bit of cash. |
| Judith: Yes or if you don’t have a German health insurance card, then a lot of cash because I don’t know any doctor who would accept a credit card come to pay by that and if you don’t have a health insurance card then he has no indication that you’ll pay so you have to expect to pay immediately. |
| Chuck: Yes and you must be prepared to wait because without an appointment you could be waiting up to I’d say about two hours. |
| Judith: Yes it can be really bad if you don’t have an appointment or if it’s just a bad day with a lot of cases but you can find an array of magazines in the waiting room, you may also want to bring something of your own to pass the time on to your iPod and bring that along. |
| Chuck: But you may only want to listen in one ear so you can hear if your name is announced. The doctors may offer additional services not covered by health insurance. Like an extra teeth replacement or an extra examination. You won’t hear many offers like that though and you can safely decline all of them if you want. |
| Judith: Yes, if you have a German health insurance that should cover anything that’s vital for you or that’s reasonable. If you do choose a paid service, and you have a health insurance card, then you’ll receive an invoice later so you don’t need to bring money. |
| Chuck: But you’ll have to pay the …what’s called the [Praxisgebühr] of ten euros just for visiting and this needs to be paid every quarter that you visit the doctor. |
| Judith: Yes, the first time in a quarter that you visited the doctor then if you come back later that quarter you can bring the receipt that you already paid and you don’t need to pay again. It’s supposed to discourage people from seeing the doctor for every little woe. |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word is; |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: [Sprechstunde] |
| Chuck: Consultation hour or consultation. |
| Judith: [Sprechstunde, die] and the plural is [Sprechstunden] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [ausfüllen] |
| Chuck: To fill out. |
| Judith: [ausfüllen] and the [aus] splits off. |
| Chuck: Next, |
| Judith: [Bogen] |
| Chuck: Ark, a bow or a sheet of paper. |
| Judith: [Bogen, der] and the plural is [Bögen] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [aufrufen] |
| Chuck: to call up. |
| Judith: [aufrufen] the forms are [Er ruft auf, Er rief auf, Er hat aufgerufen] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Schnupfen] |
| Chuck: Snuffles or head cold. |
| Judith: [Schnupfen, der] |
| Chuck: next. |
| Judith: [entzündet] |
| Chuck: Inflamed. |
| Judith: [entzündet] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [ungewöhnlich] |
| Chuck: Unusual. |
| Judith: [ungewöhnlich] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Erkältung] |
| Chuck: Common cold. |
| Judith: [Erkältung, die], the plural ist Erkältungen. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [verschreiben] |
| Chuck: To prescribe or miswrite. |
| Judith: [verschreiben, Er verschreibt, Er verschrieb, Er hat verschrieben] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Tablette] |
| Chuck: Tablet or pill. |
| Judith: [Tablette, die] and the plural is [Tabletten] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Antibiotikum] |
| Chuck: Antibiotic |
| Judith: [Antibiotikum, das] and the plural is irregular, it’s [Antibiotika] |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: [Patient] |
| Chuck: Patient. |
| Judith: [Patient, der] and the plural is [Patienten] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Fieber] |
| Chuck: Fever. |
| Judith: [Fieber, das] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [leiden] |
| Chuck: To suffer. |
| Judith: [leiden] the forms are [Er leidet, Er litt, Er hat gelitten] and nowadays some people treat is as irregular |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s have a look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first phrase is [Bitte setzen Sie sich kurz ins Wartezimmer] |
| Chuck: Please sit down for a moment in the waiting room. |
| Judith: Yes I wanted to draw your attention to the quotes here [kurz hier] well normally quotes means short but here it´s used for short period of time. And then we should talk about [Wenn es nicht schlimmer wird], |
| Chuck: If it doesn’t get worse, |
| Judith: Yes [schlimmer] is a form that we haven’t seen before and will come up very shortly in the comparative and for now you can just remember that the “er” ending turns [schlimm] |
| Chuck: Dire or bad. |
| Judith: Into [schlimmer] |
| Chuck: more dire or direr or more bad, worse. |
| Judith: Yes, okay one more thing. The doctor speaks of [Rezept] |
| Chuck: You might have encountered this before as a recipe. |
| Judith: Yes but in a medical context, this word translates to prescription. |
| Chuck: In fact sometimes you may hear a German say, “the doctor prescribed me a recipe”. |
| Judith: Yes, it’s hard for Germans to learn. Okay one more thing that is really unusual to hear [Gute Besserung] |
| Chuck: Good improvement. |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: Then you must not get sick very often if you think that it’s very unusual to hear it. |
| Judith: Of course you hear it often when you are sick in Germany or when you are telling somebody that you are sick but I mean for an English person to hear good improvement, how often does that happen?The thing is it’s equivalent to the English get well soon. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is the data plural. Let’s look at the last remaining chapter of German declensions. The dative plural endings. The dialogue contains quite a few of them, as with all plural forms, there is no distinction between the genders so [Männer, Frauen and Kinder] will all receive the same articles and adjectives. |
| Judith: Yes, the key endings for dative plural is “en”. This means that the definite article is [den] as in [den Frauen] and those nouns that decline receive an additional “n” as well as in [den Männern] and [den Kindern]. Finally, adjectives also get the ending [en] no matter if they are stand alone or preceded by an article, because in this case, the key ending matches the bland ending. |
| Chuck: So what does this mean in practice? |
| Judith: Well, you say [bei den netten Männern, bei netten Männern, bei den netten Frauen, bei Frauen, bei den netten Kindern, bei Kindern] there is absolutely no difference, always “en”. |
| Chuck: So when do we use the dative? |
| Judith: The dative is used for example for the indirect object in the sentence [Ich gebe meinem Freund den Hund] |
| Chuck: I gave the dog to my friend. |
| Judith: Yes [meinem Freund] in the indirect object is dative. While [den Hund] is a causative. It’s a direct object. |
| Chuck: Could you even change the order of that on it’s right? |
| Judith: [Ich gebe den Hund meinem Freund] yes you could do it but it sounds less common. |
| Chuck: Okay. |
| Judith: There’s one trick that you can do if you are not sure if something should be dative or a causative, typically people are dative and animals are objects causative. Especially when you have more than one object in the sentence. |
| Chuck: Ah okay. |
| Judith: That’s not the only way that we use the dative, the dative’s also used for locations, for example [Ich sitze in der Kirche] |
| Chuck: I’m sitting in church. |
| Judith: Or [Das Buch ist auf dem Tisch] |
| Chuck: The book is on the table. |
| Judith: Yes careful this is only for locations, as in static locations, not if you have a direction in it. For a direction we use a causative. |
| Chuck: Are there any prepositions that are used, do we know that the data follows it? |
| Judith: Yes, a lot of them actually. Prepositions [aus, bei, mit, nach, von, zu and seit] |
| Chuck: So great whenever I use those prepositions I know it’s going to be dative? |
| Judith: Yes. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Great, well that just about does it for today. Stop by germanpod101.com and pick up the lesson notes. |
| Judith: It has the conversation transcript |
| Chuck: Vocabulary, sample sentences, grammar explanations and the cultural insight sections. |
| Judith: Yes and singing in German really helps you remember. |
| Chuck: But don’t take our word for it please take a look for yourself. |
| Judith: And let us know what you think. |
| Chuck: So we’ll see you next week. |
| Judith: [Also bis nächste Woche]! |
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