Learn the German preterite past tense of verbs and when to use them, opposed to the perfect past tense
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here, intermediate series season three lesson seven. The German Telephone Job from Hell. Hello and welcome to germanpod101.com, the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn German. I'm joined in the studio by. |
| Judith: Hello everyone Judith here. |
| Chuck: In lesson you'll learn how to deal with various telephone situations in German. |
| Judith: Today Mr. Jones is at the office making phone calls to various customers. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Mrs. Bayer, Mr. Jones a new employee and a random person, Mr. Huber. |
| Judith: The speakers don't know each other well therefore they will be speaking formal German. |
| Chuck: Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Telefon: Kein Anschluss unter dieser Nummer. |
| Jones: Oh. |
| Bayer: Was ist los? |
| Jones: Da war eine Computerstimme am Telefon und sagte etwas von Schluss mit der Nummer oder so. |
| Bayer: Ach, Sie meinen „Kein Anschluss unter dieser Nummer“. Das heißt, die Nummer gibt es momentan nicht. |
| Jones: Ah. Okay, na dann probiere ich die nächste Nummer. |
| ... |
| Telefon: Hallo. Hier ist Hans Wurst. Ich bin leider nicht da. Bitte hinterlassen Sie mir eine Nachricht nach dem Piep. |
| Jones: Mensch, heute habe ich kein Glück. Dieses Mal ging ein Anrufbeantworter ran. |
| Bayer: Ach, keine Sorge. Das hatte ich letzte Woche auch ganz oft. |
| Jones: Na gut, aller guten Dinge sind drei. |
| ... |
| Huber: Ja, hallo. Huber hier. |
| Jones: Oh. Ich wollte Herrn Wiese sprechen. |
| Huber: Da haben Sie sich wohl verwählt. Ich habe diese Nummer seit 20 Jahren und einen Herrn Wiese gibt es hier nicht und gab es auch nie. |
| Jones: Oh, dann entschuldigen Sie die Störung. |
| Huber: Kein Problem. |
| ... |
| Jones: Jetzt ist wirklich Schluss mit dem Anrufen. Ich gebe auf. |
| Bayer: Haha, das lief heute ja wirklich nicht gut für Sie. Ich glaube, das Telefon mochte Sie von Anfang an nicht. |
| Jones: Ja, das glaube ich auch! |
| Phone: No connection under this number. |
| Jones: Oh. |
| Bayer: What's up? |
| Jones: There was a computer voice on the telephone and said something of ending the number or something. |
| Bayer: Oh, you mean "No connection under this number". This means that the number currently doesn't exist. |
| Jones: Ah. Okay, well then I'll try the next number. |
| ... |
| Phone: Hello. This is Hans Wurst. Unfortunately I'm not home. Please leave me a message after the beep. |
| Jones: Man, today I'm out of luck. This time an answering machine picked up. |
| Bayer: Ah, don't worry. I also had that a lot last week. |
| Jones: Well, all good things are three. |
| ... |
| Huber: Yes, hello. Huber here. |
| Jones: Oh. I wanted to speak to Mr Wiese. |
| Huber: Then you seem to have misdialed. I have had this number for 20 years and there is no Mr Wiese here and there never has been one either. |
| Jones: Oh, then excuse me for disturbing you. |
| Huber: No problem. |
| ... |
| Jones: Now this really is the end of the calling-around. I give up. |
| Bayer: Haha, today really didn't go well for you. I believe the phone hasn't liked you right from the start. |
| Jones: Yes, I believe so too! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Okay, I think this is the perfect time to talk about those automatic phone messages that you might hear when you call a German number |
| Chuck: Yes, it's really annoying because you can never ask them to repeat themselves or say speak slower. |
| Judith: No, the most annoying part is that it's very formal language and you have no chance of understanding it if you don't recognize the announcement. There are three of these automated messages that you're likely to hear, one is if you dial the wrong number and the number wasn't assigned to anyone. Then you will hear [Kein Anschluss unter dieser Nummer]. |
| Chuck: It's more likely you'll hear [Kein Anschluss unter dieser Nummer] literally 'no connection under this number' or 'this number is not in service' if you tried to call someone who's calling someone else, you'll hear the business signal which also sounds a bit different from the States so be warned. |
| Judith: Usually it is now combines with the message [Der Anschluss ist zurzeit besetzt]. |
| Chuck: Literally 'the connection is occupied at this time', if there's a disruption in network, or if you called a cell phone and the person switched it off as Judith likes to do. |
| Judith: I don't switch my cell phone off, it just dies on me. |
| Chuck: it's because you always forget to charge it. Come on. |
| Judith: Anyway, the message for that is [Der gewünschte Gesprächspartner ist zurzeit nicht erreichbar]. |
| Chuck: Literally 'the desired conversation partner is not reachable at this time'. Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson, the first word we'll look at is... |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: [Anschluss] |
| Chuck: Connection, junction or interface. |
| Judith: [Anschluss, der] and the plural is [Anschlüsse]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Stimme] |
| Chuck: Vote or voice. |
| Judith: [Stimme, die] and the plural is [Stimmen]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Schluss] |
| Chuck: Ending, closure or conclusion. |
| Judith: [Schluss] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [momentan]. |
| Chuck: Momentarily. |
| Judith: [momentan] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [hinterlassen] |
| Chuck: To leave behind. |
| Judith: [hinterlassen] the forms are [Er hinterlässt, Er hinterließ, Er hat hinterlassen]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Nachricht]. |
| Chuck: Message or news item. |
| Judith: [Nachricht, die] and plural is [Nachrichten]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Peep] |
| Chuck: Beep. |
| Judith: [Peep, der] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Glück] |
| Chuck: Luck, good times or happiness. |
| Judith: [Glück, das] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Anrufbeantworter] |
| Chuck: Answering machine or British answer phone. |
| Judith: [Anrufbeantworter, der] and the plural is the same. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [sich verwählen] |
| Chuck: Literally to misdial or to dial a wrong number. |
| Judith: [sich verwählen]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Störung] |
| Chuck: Disruption, disturbance, glitch or jamming. |
| Judith: [Störung, die] and the plural is [Störungen]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [aufgeben]. |
| Chuck: To give up. |
| Judith: [aufgeben] the forms are [Er gibt auf, Er gab auf, Er hat aufgegeben]. |
| 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 [aller guten Dinge sind drei]. |
| Chuck: All good things come in threes. |
| Judith: Then we should look at the word [momentan] this is just a slightly more fancy way of saying [im Moment] finally [rangehen] literally you go at it is a colloquial term for picking up the phone [Keiner geht ran]. |
| Chuck: Nobody's picking up. |
| Judith: And there's one more [Störung] can be used for a variety of circumstances, very often you will hear [Entschuldigen Sie die Störung] this is when someone's apologizing for disturbing you. However the word [Störung] may also show in the display of your German phone if you're trying to call someone and there's a glitch. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The German focus of this lesson is the preterit past tense. We've already seen the perfect past tense but there's a second kind of past tense in German called the praeteritum the preterit past tense. |
| Judith: This the source of forms like [war] or [hatte] which you may have encountered briefly in the beginner lessons. |
| Chuck: Generally the forms of the preterit past tense are rather easy, regular behave as if their stem contain additional te. So [warten] behaves as if it were a verb called [warteten]. |
| Judith: [Ich wartete, Du wartetest, Er wartete, Wir warteten, Ihr wartetet, sie warteten]. |
| Chuck: As you may have noticed there's just one difference, instead of the expected [Er wartetet] we get [Er wartete]. the third person singular does not get the te ending because it would sound silly. |
| Judith: Unfortunately just like the perfect tense, a lot of verbs take an irregular stem. For example [Ich war] |
| Chuck: I was. |
| Judith: [Ich hatte] |
| Chuck: I had. |
| Judith: [Ich ging] |
| Chuck: I went. |
| Judith: [Ich gab] |
| Chuck: I gave. |
| Judith: Also note the form [Es gibt] from [gibt] |
| Chuck: There was. |
| Judith: [Ich lief] |
| Chuck: I ran. |
| Judith: [Ich mochte]. |
| Chuck: I liked. Fortunately any derived verbs such as [weggehen] are still based in the same form as [gehen] so you don't have to learn to just think they're regular verbs. |
| Judith: And since this tense consists of only one word, the [weg] will still split off as will the prefixes of all other separable verbs, if you look in the PDF of the learning center we will always list German less than regular verbs with their three important forms. |
| Chuck: First the he, she or it form of the present tense which will tell you if there's a vowel change or a prefix splitting off. Then the preterit form which will tell you if there's any irregularity with this tense. And finally the perfect tense form which will tell you what the participle looks like and if the verb uses [haben] or [sein]. |
| But Judith, I still don't know when to use the perfect tense and when to use the present past tense. |
| Judith: Well, generally the preterit past tense is mostly used in writing. It sounds a bit stilted in speaking so in speaking we use the perfect past tense. However sometimes it's just too nice to have a short verb instead of something as convoluted as [Ich bin gewesen]. |
| Chuck: I have been. |
| Judith: So for the really common short verbs, we used the preterit past tense even in speaking. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Well that just about does it for today so stop by germanpod101.com and pick up the lesson notes to get your verb conjugation fix. |
| Judith: It has the conversation transcript. |
| Chuck: Vocabulary, sample sentences a grammar explanation. |
| Judith: And a cultural insight section. |
| Chuck: Seeing the German |
| Judith: Really helps you remember faster. |
| 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 see you next time. |
| Judith: [Bis nächstes Mal]! |
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