Learn useful verbs and their conjugations to express like or dislike
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: This is Newbie Series Lesson 14. |
| Judith: [Willkommen zurück]. |
| Chuck: Welcome back, listeners. So what’s today’s topic? |
| Judith: Today’s topic fits very well because Lena and Michael will be talking about music. |
| Chuck: So they’ll discover that both of them are Rammstein fans, and they’ll have a Rammstein wedding and live happily ever after… |
| Judith: I don’t know why but I don’t think so. Let’s just listen. Now, you have to imagine that there’s this song playing in the background and Lena just picks up on it and she asks? |
| DIALOGUE |
| Lena Wagner: Kennst du das Lied? |
| Michael Schmidt: Klar. Du etwa nicht? Das ist das Lied “Männer” von Herbert Grönemeyer. Es ist sehr alt. |
| Lena Wagner: Ah. Magst du Grönemeyer? |
| Michael Schmidt: Meine Eltern hören oft Grönemeyer. Ich höre lieber Die Toten Hosen oder Subway to Sally. Was für Musik magst du? |
| Lena Wagner: Die Toten Hosen sind gut. Aber Subway to Sally mag ich nicht so. Ich höre oft Die Ärzte. |
| Judith: Now read again slowly. |
| Lena Wagner: Kennst du das Lied? |
| Michael Schmidt: Klar. Du etwa nicht? Das ist das Lied “Männer” von Herbert Grönemeyer. Es ist sehr alt. |
| Lena Wagner: Ah. Magst du Grönemeyer? |
| Michael Schmidt: Meine Eltern hören oft Grönemeyer. Ich höre lieber Die Toten Hosen oder Subway to Sally. Was für Musik magst du? |
| Lena Wagner: Die Toten Hosen sind gut. Aber Subway to Sally mag ich nicht so. Ich höre oft Die Ärzte. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Judith: Kennst du das Lied? |
| Chuck: You know that song? |
| Judith: Klar. Du etwa nicht? |
| Chuck: Of course. Don’t you? |
| Judith: Das ist das Lied “Männer” von Herbert Grönemeyer. |
| Chuck: That is the song “Männer” by Herbert Grönemeyer. |
| Judith: Es ist sehr alt. |
| Chuck: It’s very old. |
| Judith: Ah. Magst du Grönemeyer? |
| Chuck: Ah. Do you like Grönemeyer? |
| Judith: Meine Eltern hören oft Grönemeyer. |
| Chuck: My parents often listen to Grönemeyer. |
| Judith: Ich höre lieber Die Toten Hosen oder Subway to Sally. |
| Chuck: I’d rather listen to Die Toten Hosen or Subway to Sally. |
| Judith: Was für Musik magst du? |
| Chuck: What kind of music do you like? |
| Judith: Die Toten Hosen sind gut aber Subway to Sally mag ich nicht so. |
| Chuck: Die Toten Hosen are good but Subway to Sally, I don’t like that much. |
| Judith: Ich höre oft Die Ärzte. |
| Chuck: I often listen to Die Ärzte. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: So what’s your favorite song, Chuck? |
| Chuck: I don't know. Actually, I like a lot of the songs from [Fahrinurlaub]. He’s the previous member of [Die Ärzte]. |
| Judith: I think I like [Die Ärzte] better than the [Fahrinurlaub] solo stuff. |
| Chuck: I definitely am the other way around. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: Anyway, let’s learn some essential words for talking about music in German. The first word is Lied. |
| Chuck: Song. |
| Judith: Lied. |
| Chuck: Song. |
| Judith: Next, klar. |
| Chuck: “Clear” or “of course”. |
| Judith: klar. |
| Chuck: Of course. |
| Judith: Next, etwa. |
| Chuck: “Approximately” or like in a question, “surely not”. |
| Judith: Yeah, like in the question [Magst du etwa Tokyo Hotel?]. “Surely you don’t like Tokyo Hotel?” Next word is alt. |
| Chuck: Old. |
| Judith: alt. |
| Chuck: Old. |
| Judith: Next, Eltern. |
| Chuck: Parents. |
| Judith: Eltern. |
| Chuck: Parents. |
| Judith: This is always plural. Next, hören. |
| Chuck: “To hear” or “listen”. [Sie hören GermanPod101] |
| Judith: Yes. [Hören], “to hear”. Next, lieber. |
| Chuck: “Rather” or “preferably” as in [Ich höre lieber GermanPod101]. |
| Judith: Stop with the advertising. Next, was für. |
| Chuck: What kind of… |
| Judith: In a question, Was für Musik magst du? |
| Chuck: What kind of music do you like? |
| Judith: And this brings us to the next word, Musik. |
| Chuck: Music. |
| Judith: Really easy, isn’t it? [Musik] |
| Chuck: Music. |
| Judith: And finally, the easiest word of the day, so. |
| Chuck: So. |
| Judith: so. |
| Chuck: “So”, but note that that doesn’t work as a conjunction. |
| Judith: The conjunction with “so” like “I'm hungry so I’ll go to a restaurant” would be [Also] in German. |
| Chuck: So it’s still quite simple. |
| Judith: Yeah. You just have to remember this one context. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Judith: Today’s lesson is really all about music, so what kind of cultural point could we have except German music? |
| Chuck: Sounds good. |
| Judith: What do you know about German music? Have you looked at the charts lately? |
| Chuck: Looks like it’s mostly English language music, well, with a few months behind the US and Canada, cause CDs get published here later. |
| Judith: Right now you could find Bon Jovi, for example, or Britney Spears or Madonna, you know, the usual stuff. And also a couple of German singers thrown in. It’s not all English language, but mostly. |
| Chuck: And I’d say that German singers typically sing about half in English and half in German. |
| Judith: You mean half of them sing in English? It could very well be. I didn’t count but they sure are a lot. |
| Chuck: Well, when I watched the German MTV, for example, or Viva I might… I think I hear about half the songs in English and half in German. |
| Judith: Well, they also play English artists to start with. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: Anyway, there are really a lot of German singers singing in English, for example the infamous Modern Talking or the winners of German Idol. And most of Germany’s contributions to that Eurovision song contest. So because of this huge amount of English music in the charts and in the radios, people had the idea of a [Deutschquote], a couple of years ago, that would be a quota for German music. |
| Chuck: I noticed that they had such a law in France and in Quebec. |
| Judith: Yeah, they have to play like… I don't know how many. I think 60 percent or something like that, French-language music. This idea didn’t come through here but a lot of German bands used this attention to gain popularity. There are still a lot of bands that are known locally only, and I won’t even go into the bands that sing in local dialect, like all the ones that sing in the dialect of Cologne in [Kölsch]. There are some really good bands out there but nobody can understand them, or only with difficulty, and I don’t think we’ll be covering them on GermanPod. |
| Chuck: So what are some of the bands you like? |
| Judith: Don’t know. I often don’t listen to German music, I must admit, but for example I like [Wir sind Helden], the popular band. |
| Chuck: That means “we are heroes”. |
| Judith: Yeah. It’s one of those bands that really became famous during this [Deutschquote] debate. |
| Chuck: Yeah, it’s interesting we mention Rammstein a lot but in Germany they’re not that popular anymore. |
| Judith: Well, yeah I think they focus too much on the American market. But of course they still have a lot of people listening to Rammstein in Germany. There are a couple more bands that everybody knows, for example, [Die Ärzte] which me mentioned in the dialogue. They’re like popular alternative, I mean they used to do alternative music and now they go more towards pop. |
| Chuck: I think what I’ve heard of them has been more rock. |
| Judith: Yeah, or rock, pop-rock, yes. I just think the music is kind of nice. And most girls will tell you they like the No Angels, or let’s say a lot of girls, especially the younger ones. They were the product of one of those star-search TV shows. |
| Chuck: Yeah, and another rock band that’s pretty popular is [Sportfreunde Stiller]. |
| Judith: Well, don’t remind me. They crafted one of those songs about the soccer championship and ever since then they’re kind of known for this one song. |
| Chuck: I think it’s just cause your neighbor played it like 20 times a day? |
| Judith: It was crazy, I don’t [want to hear] that song ever again. |
| Chuck: But [the] other songs they have are pretty good. |
| Judith: I don’t know about them, I don’t care to find out. One band that my mom really likes is [Pur]. And I think they’re quite good too, I even went to one of the concerts with her. And [Pur] has been around for 25 years, and from what I’ve seen at the concerts they have a very broad kind of audience, even [Teenies] are among the people that really like them. Basically, anybody who would wear jeans, a bit more women than men, but really big appeal. And then, of course, you have [Silbermond] and [Juli], which also have very nice, melodic music. I listen to them sometimes. |
| Chuck: Yeah, and another older band but a completely different genre would be [Kraftwerk]. They actually were one of the leaders in starting the electronic movement. |
| Judith: I think [Kraftwerk] is now mostly popular with the parent generation. You know, the ones that saw them in concert or something? |
| Chuck: You could also be into people who are more retro or perhaps like video game music. |
| Judith: Maybe. [Ich und Ich] is another band for this kind of audience. Now, there’s two kinds of music that are not quite as common here in Germany as they are in the States. One of them is rap or kind of [inaudible 00:10:48] music, and the other is Christian or soul music, gospels and the like. But there are people that play this kind of music too, and if you are into that, recommend maybe [Xavier Naidoo] for the Christian part, or for the rap fans among you maybe [Sido] or [Bushido], or maybe [Freundeskreis] if you’re into hip hop. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: There’s music of all styles here. |
| Chuck: And if you like to wear black all the time, there’s also quite a lot of goth music here and goth clubs and such. But one thing you won’t find here is modern country. Well, my parents listen to country quite a lot and so I grew up listening to quite a lot of it too. And if you tell someone in Germany that you like country music, they’ll just look at you funny and if they actually put some country music on, then you probably don’t want to be in the room because it’s… all they know is like old country like Dolly Parton or people like that, but they don’t have any idea of the country rock or something like that. |
| Judith: Well, there was this one artist that I noticed that you said were country and we would classify as pop here. |
| Chuck: That’d be Shania Twain? |
| Judith: Yes. |
| Chuck: Well, she’s pretty much considered pop here anyway. |
| Judith: Yeah, that’s what I mean. We just don’t have modern country, it’s considered pop. |
| Chuck: Well, we just don’t have modern country anyway. |
| Judith: Anyway, [Lena mag die Ärzte und Michael mag Subway to Sally ]. Do you think this will cause problems? |
| Chuck: Well, they both like [Die Toten Hosen]. |
| Judith: Maybe that will help, having one band in common. |
| Chuck: What are those bands anyway? Subway to Sally and [Die Toten Hosen]? |
| Judith: Oh, I think we mentioned them. Subway to Sally is one of those goth bands, and [Die Toten Hosen] is like rock. |
| Chuck: Wait, you used the word mag but I don’t think you explained it yet. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Judith: Ok, let’s do that now. Mag is actually, it comes from the verb mögen. So the infinitive is very different from the actual form. Mögen means to like and the forms are ich mag. |
| Chuck: I like. |
| Judith: Du magst. |
| Chuck: You like. |
| Judith: Er mag. |
| Chuck: He likes. |
| Judith: Sie mögen. |
| Chuck: “You (formal) like.” du magst is that like the same as du machst or is it pronounced a little different? |
| Judith: You mean du machst? |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: That would be “you do” and it’s different, of course, because du machst you have the ch sound there. Ch and in du magst there is a G. |
| Chuck: Ok, so it’s very important to pronounce this clearly. |
| Judith: Yes, you should. Well, the context should also explain it. Anyway, you notice that the forms have some similarity to müssen. So let’s compare them again, also as a refresher. Ich muss or ich mag, du musst, du magst, er muss, er mag, Sie müssen or Sie mögen. So notice also that the form completely changes for this formal you part, but for the rest they’re very regular. |
| Chuck: Yeah. Sounds pretty even. Could you give me some examples of that? |
| Judith: Well, there were a couple in this dialogue, but here are a couple more. Magst du Rammstein, Chuck? |
| Chuck: Do you like Rammstein, Chuck? Ja, ich mag Rammstein. |
| Judith: Yeah I like Rammstein and I could say about you, Chuck mag Rammstein. |
| Chuck: Chuck likes Rammstein. |
| Judith: Or if you’re coming to Germany and you’re living with a host family maybe? |
| Chuck: And you like electronic music. |
| Judith: And you’re talking to, like, a father or generally a person at that age, you could ask them mögen Sie Kraftwerk? |
| Chuck: Do you like Kraftwerk? |
| Judith: I think you asked my father once, didn’t you? |
| Chuck: I think so. |
| Judith: He was, like, a bit perplexed. |
| Chuck: But I think the most perplexing I had was when I couldn’t remember the word for power station, and I was mentioning it to my friend in New York and she said [Kraftwerk]? I'm like, “How did you know that word?” She doesn’t speak any German. |
| Judith: Yeah. Well, there is something to be said from learning German from songs, and that is what our new intermediate series will be about. We will be discussing German songs and teaching you what the texts actually mean so you understand your Rammstein or whatever you’re listening to. And incidentally, the first song will be [Männer], the one that launched this whole conversation about music. |
| Chuck: Ok, let’s listen to that dialogue again. |
| Lena Wagner: Kennst du das Lied? |
| Michael Schmidt: Klar. Du etwa nicht? Das ist das Lied “Männer” von Herbert Grönemeyer. Es ist sehr alt. |
| Lena Wagner: Ah. Magst du Grönemeyer? |
| Michael Schmidt: Meine Eltern hören oft Grönemeyer. Ich höre lieber Die Toten Hosen oder Subway to Sally. Was für Musik magst du? |
| Lena Wagner: Die Toten Hosen sind gut. Aber Subway to Sally mag ich nicht so. Ich höre oft Die Ärzte. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Well, now I'm in the mood to listen to music for the rest of the day. |
| Judith: You mean no more work here? |
| Chuck: I mean German music, to practice my German. |
| Judith: Ok, I guess I’ll let you go. |
| Chuck: See you next week. |
| Judith: [Bis nächste Woche]. |
Comments
Hide