Learn about the good things that East Germany has to offer and a prefix to create questions
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Season 4, Lesson 19 – “An Intriguing German Job Offer” |
| Judith: Hi, my name is [*] and I’m joined here by Chuck. |
| Chuck: Hello everyone and welcome back to GermanPod101.com. |
| Judith: What are we learning today? |
| Chuck: In this lesson you’ll learn how to talk to a recruiter. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at the conference. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Joe and [Birke], who’s attending a lecture. |
| Judith: The speakers are strangers therefore they’ll be using formal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Birke: Sie arbeiten nicht gern, wenn Sie in Deutschland sind? Das sollten Sie ändern. |
| Joe: Wozu? Ich bin nie lange hier. Ich möchte meinen Urlaub genießen. |
| Birke: Ich habe mich noch nicht vorgestellt. Mein Name ist Birke Pfarrer, ich arbeite in der Personalabteilung von Berlin Translated. |
| Joe: Ah, angenehm, Sie kennen zu lernen. |
| Birke: Mir hat ihr Vortrag eben wirklich gut gefallen und ich denke, wir könnten Sie gebrauchen. |
| Joe: Entschuldigung...wovon reden Sie? |
| Birke: Ich meine, wir könnten Ihnen vielleicht eine Stelle anbieten. Also natürlich müssten Sie sich noch bewerben, aber ich denke, dass Sie qualifiziert sind. |
| Joe: Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich wieder eine feste Stelle haben oder weiter freiberuflich arbeiten möchte. |
| Birke: Ja, es gibt ein paar Dinge, über die wir sprechen müssten... |
| Joe: Worüber müssen wir sprechen? |
| Birke: Na, zum Beispiel darüber, warum Sie Ihren alten Job aufgegeben haben. Und auch über das Visum und so. |
| Joe: Ja. Woran würde ich bei Ihnen arbeiten? |
| Birke: Hauptsächlich an Webseiten. Wenn es da mal nichts zu tun gibt, können wir sehen, wofür Sie sich sonst interessieren. |
| Joe: Klingt gut. Und ist Ihr Büro in Berlin? |
| Birke: Ja. Die Hauptstelle ist in Berlin und wir haben auch Niederlassungen in Dresden und Nürnberg. |
| Birke: You don't like to work when you're in Germany? You should change that. |
| Joe: What for? I'm never here for long. I'd like to enjoy my vacation. |
| Birke: I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Birke Pfarrer, I work in the personnel department of Berlin Translated. |
| Joe: Ah, pleased to meet you. |
| Birke: I really enjoyed your lecture, and I think we could use you. |
| Joe: Excuse me... what are you talking about? |
| Birke: I think we could possibly offer you a position. Naturally you'd have to apply, but I think that you're qualified. |
| Joe: I'm not sure whether I want a permanent position, or if I want to continue working as a freelancer. |
| Birke: Yes, there are a few things that we would need to discuss... |
| Joe: What do we need to talk about? |
| Birke: Well, for example, why you left your old job. And also about the work visa and things like that. |
| Joe: Yes. What would I work on, with you? |
| Birke: Mainly on websites. If there's nothing to do there, then we can see what else you're interested in. |
| Joe: Sounds good. And is your office in Berlin? |
| Birke: Yes. The head office is in Berlin, and we also have branches in Dresden and Nuremberg. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Chuck: Let’s talk about the East German connection. |
| Judith: Yeah, we mentioned [Dreseden, Nürnberg], Berlin, well a part of it, all of these used to be a part of communist East Germany. What about some good sides of this East Germany? I don’t think they really get much attention these days. |
| Chuck: Well, there’s cheap culture, free education, ship holidays, camps and youth activities. |
| Judith: Yeah and bands like [Karat and the Puddies], lot of ignored goodies. |
| Chuck: And [you can via], a non-religious celebration of achieving adulthood. It’s like confirmation of protestants in church. Still 40 percent of participation in 2000. |
| Judith: Yes, it was a popular thing and we’re totally lacking something like that now, the only way you can celebrate adulthood is if you’re a part of a church. Also, what I found really amazing is there were more women in engineering and math, like they really had 50-50 split at universities for these kinds of subjects. Gender equality was a matter of course. |
| Chuck: And they spoil the chances of [bearing] capitalism. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word we shall see is? |
| Judith: [nie] |
| Chuck: “Never”. |
| Judith: [nie, nie] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Personal] |
| Chuck: “Personnel”. |
| Judith: [Personal, das Personal] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Abteilung] |
| Chuck: “Department”. |
| Judith: [Abteilung, die Abteilung] and the plural is [Abteilungen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [eben] |
| Chuck: “Just, a moment ago” or “indeed”. |
| Judith: [eben] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [gebrauchen] |
| Chuck: “To make use of” or “utilize”. |
| Judith: [gebrauchen, gebrauchen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [anbieten] |
| Chuck: “To offer”. |
| Judith: [anbieten, anbieten] the forms are [Er bietet an, Er bot an, Er hat angeboten] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [sich bewerben] |
| Chuck: “To apply for”. |
| Judith: [sich bewerben, sich bewerben] the forms are [Er bewirbt sich, Er bewarb sich, Er hat sich beworben] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [qualifiziert] |
| Chuck: “Qualified”. |
| Judith: [qualifiziert, qualifiziert] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [aufgeben] |
| Chuck: “To give up”. |
| Judith: [aufgeben, aufgeben] the forms are [Er gibt auf, Er gab auf, Er hat aufgegeben] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Visum] |
| Chuck: “Visa”. |
| Judith: [Visum, das Visum] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [hauptsächlich] |
| Chuck: “Mainly” or “mostly”. |
| Judith: [hauptsächlich, hauptsächlich] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Haupt] |
| Chuck: “Main”. |
| Judith: [Haupt, Haupt] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Niederlassung] |
| Chuck: “Office” or “subsidiary”. |
| Judith: [Niederlassung, die Niederlassung] and the plural is [Niederlassungen]. |
| 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 word we’ll look at closely is [reden]. |
| Chuck: “To talk”. |
| Judith: Because it’s the base word for [die Rede]. |
| Chuck: “The talk” or “the speech”. |
| Judith: Then, we found the form [müssten]. |
| Chuck: “Would have to”. |
| Judith: You know, [müssten] without the “t” means “must”, but [müssten] with extra “t” means “would have to”. Finally, [freiberuflich]. |
| Chuck: “Freelancing”. |
| Judith: It’s an adjective or adverb for [der Freiberufler]. |
| Chuck: “Freelancer”. |
| Judith: A lot of adjectives and adverbs are forms are formed using [-lich]. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is [wo] and [wor]. |
| Judith: In Lesson 17, we already looked the prefix [da], which is used in words like [davon, damit, daran, darüber] and so on. Now, let’s look at the similar case, the prefix [wo]. |
| Chuck: [wo] is the direct equivalent of [da] except it’s used to create question words. The [da] prefix can be translated as “that”, in the [wo] prefix can be translated as “what”. |
| Judith: To form the question words, just use [wo] and any preposition or [wor] with an extra “r” if the preposition starts with a vowel, like [womit]. |
| Chuck: “With what”? |
| Judith: [wofür] |
| Chuck: “For what”? |
| Judith: [wovon] |
| Chuck: “Of what”? |
| Judith: Is a combination of [wo] and [von, woran]. |
| Chuck: “On what”? |
| Judith: Here we have the first one with an “r”, because [an] starts with a vowel, so [woran, woran]. |
| Chuck: [woran] sounds so weird. |
| Judith: Yeah. [woran, of what], “on what” [worüber]. |
| Chuck: “About what” or “above what”. |
| Judith: [woraus] |
| Chuck: “Out of what”? |
| Judith: And so on, and so on. For every [wo] question word, the [da] word provides the answer. So, if you have a very annoying, small kid bugging you, asking lots of questions then you can always answer with the [da] word, like if the question is [womit], the easiest answer is [damit] and if the question is [worüber], the easiest answer is [darüber]. |
| Chuck: Be sure to use the preposition that’s appropriate for the verb. For example, in English you can go by car, but in German it’s [mit dem Auto], so the appropriate question is [womit]. |
| Judith: [Womit fahren Sie zur Arbeit] |
Outro |
| Chuck: [damit]. That just about does it for today. |
| Judith: Listeners, have you ever dreamt of starring in one of our lessons? |
| Chuck: If your answer is “yes”, use the voice recording tool on lessons’ page. |
| Judith: Record your voice with a click of a button. |
| Chuck: Then play it back just as easily. |
| Judith: Then, compare it to the native speakers in the lesson. |
| Chuck: And adjust your pronunciation. |
| Judith: After a few tries, you’ll be speaking better German than Chuck here. |
| Chuck: Hey! |
| Judith: Go to GermanPod101.com and rapidly improve your German pronunciation. |
| Chuck: See you next week! |
| Judith: [Bis nächste Woche]! |
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