Learn a lot of useful German vocabulary and phrases to use at a restaurant in Germany, Austria or the German-speaking part of Switzerland
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: This is Newbie Series Lesson 12. |
| Judith: [Willkommen zurück]. |
| Chuck: Welcome back. I’ve been waiting for this lesson for quite a while and maybe you have too. Today is the big day. Today Michael is going out with Lena. |
| Judith: Nice to see you all excited about a German lesson, but then we at GermanPod101 do try to make things more interesting than your average textbook lesson. Not to mention that the German you’ll learn with us is also so much more authentic. |
| Chuck: And you’re getting valuable advice on German customs and culture. So all the stuff that I’ve lived through for the last 2.5 years, you just get through a podcast. Wish it was that simple for me. So what’s today cultural lesson about? |
| Judith: Today we’re covering ten things you must know when you’re eating out at a restaurant in Germany, and the main things you absolutely must know. If you’re planning to go to Germany, save the PDF to your hard disk now and be sure to re-read this list before going. |
| Chuck: Alright, enough chit chat. Lena’s waiting for me at the café. |
| Judith: Ok, let’s listen in. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Michael Schmidt: Hi Lena, schön dich zu sehen. |
| Lena Wagner: Hallo Michael. |
| Michael Schmidt: Wo möchtest du sitzen? |
| Lena Wagner: Hier ist gut. |
| Michael Schmidt: Okay, lass uns hier sitzen. |
| Staff: Willkommen im Café Antabli. Was möchten Sie trinken? |
| Lena Wagner: Haben Sie Tequila Sunrise? |
| Staff: Nein, es tut mir leid. |
| Lena Wagner: Dann möchte ich bitte die Karte sehen. |
| Staff: Sofort. Hier ist die Karte. |
| Lena Wagner: Danke. |
| Michael Schmidt: Ich hätte gern einen Cocktail Hawaii. |
| Staff: Gerne. |
| Lena Wagner: Und ich eine Apfelschorle. |
| Staff: Kommt sofort. |
| Judith: Now read slowly. |
| Michael Schmidt: Hi Lena, schön dich zu sehen. |
| Lena Wagner: Hallo Michael. |
| Michael Schmidt: Wo möchtest du sitzen? |
| Lena Wagner: Hier ist gut. |
| Michael Schmidt: Okay, lass uns hier sitzen. |
| Staff: Willkommen im Café Antabli. Was möchten Sie trinken? |
| Lena Wagner: Haben Sie Tequila Sunrise? |
| Staff: Nein, es tut mir leid. |
| Lena Wagner: Dann möchte ich bitte die Karte sehen. |
| Staff: Sofort. Hier ist die Karte. |
| Lena Wagner: Danke. |
| Michael Schmidt: Ich hätte gern einen Cocktail Hawaii. |
| Staff: Gerne. |
| Lena Wagner: Und ich eine Apfelschorle. |
| Staff: Kommt sofort. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Judith: Hi Lena, schön dich zu sehen. |
| Chuck: Hi Lena, nice to see you. |
| Judith: Hallo Michael. |
| Chuck: Hi Michael. |
| Judith: Wo möchtest du sitzen? |
| Chuck: Where would you like to sit? |
| Judith: Hier ist gut. |
| Chuck: Here is good. |
| Judith: Okay, lass uns hier sitzen. |
| Chuck: Okay let’s sit here. |
| Judith: Willkommen im Café Antabli. |
| Chuck: Welcome to Café Antabli. |
| Judith: Was möchten Sie trinken? |
| Chuck: What would you like to drink? |
| Judith: Haben Sie Tequila Sunrise? |
| Chuck: Do you have Tequila Sunrise? And note this is formal. |
| Judith: Nein, es tut mir leid. |
| Chuck: No I am sorry. |
| Judith: Dann möchte ich bitte die Karte sehen. |
| Chuck: Then I’d like to see the menu please. |
| Judith: Sofort. |
| Chuck: Right away. |
| Judith: Hier ist die Karte. |
| Chuck: Here is the menu. |
| Judith: Danke. |
| Chuck: Thanks. |
| Judith: Ich hätte gern einen Cocktail Hawaii. |
| Chuck: I would like a Cocktail Hawaii. |
| Judith: Gerne. |
| Chuck: My pleasure. |
| Judith: Und ich eine Apfelschorle. |
| Chuck: And I an Apfelschorle. Apple Juice with mineral water. |
| Judith: Kommt sofort. |
| Chuck: “Coming right away.” |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Chuck: Man, that was a long dialogue. |
| Judith: Yes, but it doesn’t contain more new words than usual. Let’s go through them quickly. |
| Chuck: Really? We know that many words already? |
| Judith: It’s amazing, isn’t it? Real progress. |
| Chuck: Wow. Think I could even be comfortable living in Germany. |
| Judith: Not yet. Listen to the rest of the series. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: The first word is sitzen. |
| Chuck: To sit. |
| Judith: sitzen. |
| Chuck: To sit. |
| Judith: Next, willkommen. |
| Chuck: Welcome. |
| Judith: willkommen. |
| Chuck: Welcome. |
| Judith: For example, [Willkommen in Deutschland]. |
| Chuck: Welcome to Germany. |
| Judith: Next, trinken. |
| Chuck: To drink. |
| Judith: trinken. |
| Chuck: To drink. |
| Judith: Next, es tut mir leid. |
| Chuck: I'm sorry. |
| Judith: es tut mir leid. |
| Chuck: “I'm sorry.” Literally it means “it does me harm”. |
| Judith: [Es tut mir leid] |
| Chuck: “It does me harm”. And note that this is quite a strong phrase to say. |
| Judith: Next, Karte. |
| Chuck: “Menu”, “map” or “card”. |
| Judith: This has a lot of meanings. [Karte] |
| Chuck: “Menu”, “map” or “card”. |
| Judith: Next, sofort. |
| Chuck: “Immediately” or “right away”. |
| Judith: sofort. sofort. |
| Chuck: “Immediately” or “right away”. |
| Chuck: Next, hätte gerne. |
| Chuck: Would like to have. |
| Judith: hätte gerne. |
| Chuck: Would like to have. |
| Judith: Part of this is [Gern], but can also be [Gerne]. |
| Chuck: Gladly. |
| Judith: [Gern] or [Gerne]. |
| Chuck: “Gladly”. This is often translated as “like”. |
| Judith: Alright, that’s enough vocabulary to translate this whole dialogue. |
| Chuck: Ah, that’s pretty amazing. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Judith: Now let’s go over the things you must know when going to a restaurant in Germany. Chuck, what can you tell people? |
| Chuck: Well, first of all, if you go into a restaurant and just wait for someone to seat you, you could be waiting there for quite some time cause it’s not very normal here. You usually just go in, find a table and sit down. |
| Judith: Yeah, except in very fine restaurants. But you’d find a sign telling you to wait there and… |
| Chuck: The one thing that really annoys me is that you just don’t get free water in restaurants here, especially non-carbonated water is really hard to find. At least you get free bread before the meal. Or at least at middle class restaurants. |
| Judith: I would really suggest you try some German food when you’re in Germany. There’s lots of variety and regional specialties, and of course lots of foreign restaurants as well. German food is generally very healthy. Most menu items will involve a generous amount of vegetables and few will involve fries, except if you’re ordering a kid’s meal. |
| Chuck: What do you mean? A lot of the restaurants I go to have fries. |
| Judith: You mean [Imbiss] places: fast food… |
| Chuck: Oh yeah. |
| Judith: Now, one thing you should get used to is that Germans eat with a fork in the left hand and a knife in the right hand. |
| Chuck: And also avoid making noises during and after eating. |
| Judith: Well, I'm not sure if that’s so polite in American places, maybe in China people make a lot of noises to show their appreciation, but in Germany it’s just not done. Try to avoid any kind of noise. |
| Chuck: And also, just like in the States, try to finish your meal because it shows that you have really enjoyed it to your host. |
| Judith: Well, in a restaurant you can’t always do it, of course. They give you a lot of food. It’s important though that if you finish your meal, you should leave the plate somewhat clean. Don’t leave sauce lying around if you can. When you’re finished with your meal and want to pay, wait for the waiter who will give you the bill, and he will either stay there and wait for your money or he will come back to collect it. Don’t just leave the money on the table. And sometimes you may need to go up to the front to pay, or you can choose to go there if you’re paying for a party and you want to be a bit inconspicuous. |
| Chuck: And note that with a tip you don’t leave it on the table like you do in the States, you’ll give it directly to the waiter. And if you want, you don’t say how much you want back, but how much you’re giving. So if the meal costs 18 euros, for example, you would say. Make it 20. |
| Judith: Note that the service is already included in the bill already. And waiters get very decent wages even tips so in Germany you don’t tip as much as in the States. |
| Chuck: If you’re eating alone, you may want to just tip up to the next euro, but with a couple of people, of course, going up and extra euro is usually what’s expected. One thing to be very careful about is if you want to pay by credit card, many restaurants don’t accept credit cards and some even pride themselves in not accepting them, claiming to be more traditional that way. |
| Judith: Well, if you want to absolutely pay by credit card, if you don’t have enough cash on you, then you should really check the restaurant as you enter it if they have any kind of credit card symbols on the door. |
| Chuck: And of course, when in doubt, you can ask when you enter. Oh, and one more thing to note is when you look at the menu, you’ll notice that the prices look more expensive than they really are. That’s because the sales tax is already included in the prices that you’ll see on the menu. |
| Judith: On the bill they have to mark it specially, but in the menu you see what you actually wind up paying, minus the tip. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Judith: Now let’s look at a couple of phrases that we used in this dialogue, so really important ones. When you’re in a restaurant, you will hardly be able to do without hätte gern for example. |
| Chuck: Would like. |
| Judith: Hätte gern. |
| Chuck: Would like. |
| Judith: That is Ich hätte gern. |
| Chuck: I would like. |
| Judith: And similarly to that, you may have to ask haben Sie? |
| Chuck: Do you have…? |
| Judith: Haben Sie? |
| Chuck: Do you have…? |
| Judith: And one more thing is in this dialogue. At the end, the waitress said kommt sofort. |
| Chuck: Coming right away. |
| Judith: This kommt is actually the familiar verb kommen which you already know but so far you only know the forms ich komme, du kommst, Sie kommen. This kommt is actually the third person singular form is the one to use with es or er. He, she, it. Es kommt. |
| Chuck: It comes. |
| Judith: And kommt sofort is just an abbreviation of es kommt sofort. |
| Chuck: It’s coming up right away. |
| Judith: Now this T ending works for a lot of verbs. For example also wohnen. Er wohnt. |
| Chuck: He lives. |
| Judith: Or studieren. Er studiert. |
| Chuck: He studies. |
| Judith: Kennen. Michael kennt Lena. |
| Chuck: Michael knows Lena. |
| Judith: Kaffee machen. Lena macht Kaffee. |
| Chuck: Lena makes coffee. |
| Judith: Note however that for haben, it changes to hat because haben is irregular. For example, Lena hat Hunger. |
| Chuck: Lena is hungry or literally Lena has hunger. |
| Judith: And möchte, könnte, hätte don’t change at all. |
| Chuck: That’s a relief at least. |
| Michael Schmidt: Hi Lena, schön dich zu sehen. |
| Lena Wagner: Hallo Michael. |
| Michael Schmidt: Wo möchtest du sitzen? |
| Lena Wagner: Hier ist gut. |
| Michael Schmidt: Okay, lass uns hier sitzen. |
| Staff: Willkommen im Café Antabli. Was möchten Sie trinken? |
| Lena Wagner: Haben Sie Tequila Sunrise? |
| Staff: Nein, es tut mir leid. |
| Lena Wagner: Dann möchte ich bitte die Karte sehen. |
| Staff: Sofort. Hier ist die Karte. |
| Lena Wagner: Danke. |
| Michael Schmidt: Ich hätte gern einen Cocktail Hawaii. |
| Staff: Gerne. |
| Lena Wagner: Und ich eine Apfelschorle. |
| Staff: Kommt sofort. |
| Judith: Alright, an [Apfelschorle] sounds about great right now. My throat is very dry. |
| Chuck: Yay, time to leave. |
Outro |
| Judith: However, before setting off, I have to stress how important it is to practice. You just learn a lot of German phrases that will be incredibly useful in the restaurant setting. |
| Chuck: Or at a bar, or a club. |
| Judith: And you have to make sure that you still remember these phrases when you actually are talking to a German speaking waiter, otherwise it was all for naught. So be sure to read the lesson notes as a review, and then do the exercises in the Learning Center. |
| Chuck: Yes, mommy. See you next week. |
| Judith: [Bis nächste Woche]. |
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