Learn how to create compound nouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Series Season 2, Lesson 24. Creating compound nouns, [Kellnerkatastrophe und Schweineschnitzel]. Hi, my name is Chuck and I'm joined here by Judith. |
| Judith: [Hallo an alle,] Hello, everyone. Today we have something special prepared for you. |
| Chuck: You’ll learn how to create those really long compound nouns in German. |
| Judith: And the conversation? |
| Chuck: The conversation takes place in the beer garden of a German restaurant between Mike and his German friend. The speakers are friends, therefore they will be speaking informal German. Listeners, don’t forget you can leave us a comment on this lesson. |
| Judith: So if you have a question… |
| Chuck: Or some feedback… |
| Judith: Please leave us a comment… |
| Chuck: It’s very easy to do, just stop by GermanPod101.com… |
| Judith: Click on ‘Comments’, enter your comment and name, and that’s it. |
| Chuck: So we’re looking forward to hearing from you. Alright, let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| D: Weißt du schon, was du bestellst? |
| A: Nein, ich überlege noch... kannst du etwas empfehlen? |
| D: Ausländischen Gästen empfehle ich meistens die Rinderroulade oder ein Schnitzel. Das ist sehr typisches deutsches Essen. |
| A: Hmm. Ich glaube, ich nehme das Schweineschnitzel Hamburger Art, mit Ei und Bratkartoffeln. |
| D: Das ist sehr gut! Ich nehme es auch oft, aber heute habe ich Lust auf etwas Vegetarisches. |
| D: Jetzt müssen wir nur noch den Kellner finden. Mach deine Speisekarte zu, sonst denkt er, dass wir uns noch nicht entschieden haben, und kommt nicht. |
| A: Ah, okay. |
| … |
| D: Hmm, der Kellner ist immer noch nicht zu sehen. |
| A: Was für ein schlechter Service! Können wir ihn nicht rufen? |
| D: Er würde uns nicht hören. Ich werde reingehen und ihn holen. |
| Judith: Und jetzt langsam. |
| D: Weißt du schon, was du bestellst? |
| A: Nein, ich überlege noch... kannst du etwas empfehlen? |
| D: Ausländischen Gästen empfehle ich meistens die Rinderroulade oder ein Schnitzel. Das ist sehr typisches deutsches Essen. |
| A: Hmm. Ich glaube, ich nehme das Schweineschnitzel Hamburger Art, mit Ei und Bratkartoffeln. |
| D: Das ist sehr gut! Ich nehme es auch oft, aber heute habe ich Lust auf etwas Vegetarisches. |
| D: Jetzt müssen wir nur noch den Kellner finden. Mach deine Speisekarte zu, sonst denkt er, dass wir uns noch nicht entschieden haben, und kommt nicht. |
| A: Ah, okay. |
| … |
| D: Hmm, der Kellner ist immer noch nicht zu sehen. |
| A: Was für ein schlechter Service! Können wir ihn nicht rufen? |
| D: Er würde uns nicht hören. Ich werde reingehen und ihn holen. |
| Judith: Jetzt mit Übersetzung. |
| Chuck: Now with the translation. |
| D: Weißt du schon, was du bestellst? |
| D: Do you already know what you are going to order? |
| A: Nein, ich überlege noch... kannst du etwas empfehlen? |
| A: No, I'm still thinking about it... can you recommend something? |
| D: Ausländischen Gästen empfehle ich meistens die Rinderroulade oder ein Schnitzel. Das ist sehr typisches deutsches Essen. |
| D: Most of the time I recommend the beef roulade or an escalope to foreign guests. That is very typical German food. |
| A: Hmm. Ich glaube, ich nehme das Schweineschnitzel Hamburger Art, mit Ei und Bratkartoffeln. |
| A: Hmm. I believe I shall take the pork escalope Hamburg-style with egg and fried potatos. |
| D: Das ist sehr gut! Ich nehme es auch oft, aber heute habe ich Lust auf etwas Vegetarisches. |
| D: That is very good! I often take it as well, but today I'm in the mood for something vegetarian. |
| D: Jetzt müssen wir nur noch den Kellner finden. Mach deine Speisekarte zu, sonst denkt er, dass wir uns noch nicht entschieden haben, und kommt nicht. |
| D: Now we just have to find the waiter. Close your menu, otherwise he will think that we haven't decided yet and won't come. |
| A: Ah, okay. |
| A: Ah, okay. |
| … |
| D: Hmm, der Kellner ist immer noch nicht zu sehen. |
| D: Hmm, the waiter is still nowhere to be seen. |
| A: Was für ein schlechter Service! Können wir ihn nicht rufen? |
| A: What bad service! Can't we call to him? |
| D: Er würde uns nicht hören. Ich werde reingehen und ihn holen. |
| D: He wouldn't hear us. I will go in and fetch him. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Judith: Let’s talk about typical German lunch foods. |
| Chuck: Sure. |
| Judith: The thing is what’s a typical German food most people won’t be able to tell you because it varies a lot by region. For example, the southern German cuisine is much more similar to the one of Austria and Switzerland. |
| Chuck: Oh yeah? Well, some ingredients can be found everywhere, like sausages, mustard, potatoes and cabbage in different forms… I bet you can even think of some other ones too. |
| Judith: Yeah, but as for the cabbage, we have really a lot of types like [Sauerkraut], obviously, red kale [that’s Rotkohl], [Grünkohl] green kale, [Kohlrabi] [Brussel sprouts] … |
| Chuck: Well, let me just name some particularly popular dishes. There’s potato soup, potato salad, potato… Ok, you get the point. But there’s also [Spätzle], it’s a type of noodles. It’s kind of like… I always refer to it as a high class macaroni and cheese. |
| Judith: And there’s [Knödel], that is dumplings made from potatoes. |
| Chuck: Potatoes, did you hear that? |
| Judith: There’s schnitzel and potato pancakes. |
| Chuck: What kind of pancakes? |
| Judith: Potato. |
| Chuck: Oh, when you get sick of potatoes, Germany also has a lot of immigrant food like pizza or döner. Döner is a type of Turkish meat, it’s often in pita with salad. Or you can also get [Gyros]. |
| Judith: Yeah, they can be found anywhere. Pizza and döner places may be more common than traditional German restaurants. |
| Chuck: So let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: First word, [Gast]. |
| Chuck: Guest. |
| Judith: [Gast, Gast] This is masculine, [Der Gast], and the plural is [Gäste]. Next, [Meistens]. |
| Chuck: “Mostly” or “most of the time”. |
| Judith: [Meistens, meistens] Next, [Rind]. |
| Chuck: Cattle. |
| Judith: [Rind, Rind] This is neuter, [Das Rind], and the plural is [Rinder]. Next, [Roulade]. |
| Chuck: Roulade. |
| Judith: [Roulade, Roulade] This is feminine, and the plural is [Rouladen], Next, [Schnitzel]. |
| Chuck: “Escalope” or “breaded steak”. |
| Judith: [Schnitzel, Schnitzel, das Schnitzel] and the plural is the same. Next, [Typisch]. |
| Chuck: Typical or typically. |
| Judith: [Typisch, typisch] Next, [Glauben]. |
| Chuck: To believe. |
| Judith: [Glauben, glauben]. Next, [Schwein]. |
| Chuck: “Pig” or “pork”. |
| Judith: [Schwein, Schwein] This word is neuter and the plural is [Schweine]. Next, [Ei]. |
| Chuck: Egg. |
| Judith: [Ei, Ei, das Ei] and the plural is [Eier]. Next, [Braten]. |
| Chuck: To fry in a pan. |
| Judith: [Braten, braten] And this word is irregular. The present tense is based on [Er brät], past tense [Er briet] or [Er hat gebraten]. Next, [Kartoffel]. |
| Chuck: Potato. |
| Judith: [Kartoffel, Kartoffel, die Kartoffel] feminine, and the plural is [Kartoffeln]. Next, [Vegetarisch]. |
| Chuck: Vegetarian. |
| Judith: [Vegetarisch, vegetarisch] Next, [Rufen]. |
| Chuck: To call. |
| Judith: [Rufen, rufen. Er ruft, Er rief, Er hat gerufen] Next, [Holen]. |
| Chuck: “To fetch” or “bring someone”. |
| Judith: [Holen, holen] |
| 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 look at is [Ausländischen Gästen empfehle ich meistens die Rinderroulade]. |
| Chuck: I usually recommend beef roulade to foreign guests. |
| Judith: The foreign guests are the object here but they are placed at the beginning of the sentence for emphasis. There still can’t be any confusion because of the dative endings. And the other things is [Hamburger Art]. |
| Chuck: “Hamburg style” or “a la Hamburg”. |
| Judith: The ER in [Hamburger] counts as genitive, so [Schnitzel Hamburger Art] is literally “schnitzel of Hamburg style”. |
| Chuck: It’s not really going to be a schnitzel inside of a hamburger. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: So the focus of this lesson is compound nouns. As you’ve seen on plenty of occasions, German nouns are often shoved together. The higher the level of language, the more likely it is you’ll see huge compounds of nouns. But even in everyday language there’s a fair amount of them. |
| Judith: There’s no upper limit as to how many nouns you can put into a single compound noun. However, in everyday language most compounds consist of only two parts, three at maximum. |
| Chuck: Compound nouns enrich the language. However, they’re not as straight forward as you might hope. For one thing, compounds often don’t consist of just two nouns. |
| Judith: There may be a verb stem or preposition prefixes involved. And also in between sounds like [S, ES, N, EN] that are just there for the flow. Plus, the nouns may be singular or plural. |
| Chuck: Another thing is that the semantic relationship between the two nouns can be very different. |
| Judith: For example, [Schweineschnitzel] is definitely a schnitzel made of pork as opposed to a [Kalbschnitzel] which is made of [Calfmeat]. However, [Jägerschnitzel] is most definitely not made of hunter. That would be [Jäger]. It’s a schnitzel hunter-style. |
| Chuck: Yeah, it’s a common joke here that, well, if [Milchschokolade] is made of milk, then what is [Kinderschokolade] made of? But anyway, could you give us some more examples of compound nouns? |
| Judith: [Rinderroulade] In this case you have the plural of [Rind], cattle, and [Roulade] so you get a roulade made of beef. Then [Schweineschnitzel], you have the plural of [Schwein]… |
| Chuck: “Pig” or “pork”. |
| Judith: And [Schnitzel], so you get an escalope made of pork. [Bratkartoffeln] - here you have a verb, well actually the verb stem of [Braten], “to fry in a pan”, and [Kartoffeln], “potatoes”. So you get “potatoes fried in a pan”. And [Nudelsalat] - you have the singular of [Nudel], “noodles” und [Salat], “salad”, so “noodle salad”. |
| Chuck: Also, you’ve almost certainly heard the word [Bundesland]. |
| Judith: [Bundesland] consists of [Bund], “federation”, plus ES for the flow, and [Land], “country”. So “a country that’s federated into a bigger whole, a German state”. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. Premium Members, use the Review Track to perfect your pronunciation. |
| Judith: Available in the Premium section of the website… |
| Chuck: The Learning Center… |
| Judith: And through iTunes via the Premium Feed… |
| Chuck: The Review Track gives you vocabulary and phrases followed by a short pause so that you can repeat the words aloud. |
| Judith: The best way to get good fast. |
| Chuck: Okay. See you next week! |
| Judith: Bis nächste Woche! |
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