Learn how to address several people at once
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 22. |
| Judith: [Willkommen zurück]. |
| Chuck: Welcome back, listeners. I hope you’re all well and ready for another lesson. Well, if you’re not then why did you start playing this? Well, anyway, GermanPod101 helps you improve your German very quickly but it can’t be very effective if you’re only half listening to the podcasts, maybe because you’re worried or you’re doing other tasks in the meanwhile like surfing the internet on your iPhone. |
| Judith: Well, that would distract but there are some things that won’t distract you from your learning. For example, listening to Mozart is even supposed to help you learn better. As you can imagine, having the TV run in the background or maybe playing with the iPhone, or whatever you’re likely to do is not going to help. As for the rest, well, you have to figure it out for yourself, what works for you. I know some people love listening to GermanPod101 while jogging, while driving or commuting somewhere. If it’s not too noisy, commuting would be my favorite learning situation because a long commute is so boring without something to study. |
| Chuck: Well, anyway, to each his own. And GermanPod101 enables you to learn whatever and whenever you want, either with the podcast or the right materials, or both. Sometimes I even like to listen to podcasts while washing dishes. Well, whatever the case… what’s up for today, Judith? |
| Judith: In the last lesson, Lena was buying ingredients for the fruit salad. And now we’re going to skip the preparation and just join Lena as she arrives at that picnic. Michael and his friends have found a very nice spot on the shore of the [Unterbacher See]. |
| Chuck: Sounds nice and relaxing. Let’s see what happens. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Michael Schmidt: Hallo Lena, schön, dass du da bist. |
| Lena Wagner: Hi. Ihr habt einen schönen Platz für das Picknick gefunden. Ja, es ist schön hier am Unterbacher See oder? Man könnte immer hier sitzen. Wer seid ihr alle? |
| Sandra: Ich heiße Sandra. |
| Thomas: Ich bin Thomas. |
| Michael Schmidt: Thomas kommt aus den USA. |
| Thomas: Aus Chicago. Ich studiere Musik in Deutschland. |
| Lena Wagner: Aha. Ich studiere Geschichte. Spielst du auch ein Instrument? |
| Thomas: Ja, ich spiele Saxofon. |
| Daniel: Ich bin Daniel. Vielleicht kennst du meine Seite, www.daniel-knows.de. |
| Michael Schmidt: Daniel arbeitet bei IBM. Er redet immer nur über Computer. |
| Daniel: Das stimmt nicht. Aber wenn du Computerprobleme hast könnte ich dir vielleicht helfen. |
| Judith: Ok, now read slowly. |
| Michael Schmidt: Hallo Lena, schön, dass du da bist. |
| Lena Wagner: Hi. Ihr habt einen schönen Platz für das Picknick gefunden. Ja, es ist schön hier am Unterbacher See oder? Man könnte immer hier sitzen. Wer seid ihr alle? |
| Sandra: Ich heiße Sandra. |
| Thomas: Ich bin Thomas. |
| Michael Schmidt: Thomas kommt aus den USA. |
| Thomas: Aus Chicago. Ich studiere Musik in Deutschland. |
| Lena Wagner: Aha. Ich studiere Geschichte. Spielst du auch ein Instrument? |
| Thomas: Ja, ich spiele Saxofon. |
| Daniel: Ich bin Daniel. Vielleicht kennst du meine Seite, www.daniel-knows.de. |
| Michael Schmidt: Daniel arbeitet bei IBM. Er redet immer nur über Computer. |
| Daniel: Das stimmt nicht. Aber wenn du Computerprobleme hast könnte ich dir vielleicht helfen. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Judith: Hello Lena, schön, dass du da bist. |
| Chuck: Hi Lena, nice that you are here. |
| Judith: Hi. Ihr habt einen schönen Platz für das Picknick gefunden. |
| Chuck: Hi. You found a nice place for a picnic. |
| Judith: Ja, es ist schön hier am Unterbacher See oder? |
| Chuck: Yeah it’s nice here at Unterbacher lake isn’t it? |
| Judith: Man könnte immer hier sitzen. |
| Chuck: You could sit here forever. |
| Judith: Wer seid ihr alle? |
| Chuck: Who are you all? |
| Judith: Ich heiße Sandra. |
| Chuck: I am Sandra. |
| Judith: Ich bin Thomas. |
| Chuck: I am Thomas. |
| Judith: Thomas kommt aus den USA. |
| Chuck: Thomas comes from the USA. |
| Judith: Aus Chicago. Ich studiere Musik in Deutschland. |
| Chuck: From Chicago. I study music in Germany. |
| Judith: Aha, ich studiere Geschichte. |
| Chuck: Aha I study history. |
| Judith: Spielst du auch ein Instrument? |
| Chuck: Do you also play an instrument? |
| Judith: Ja ich spiele Saxofon. |
| Chuck: Yes I play the saxophone. |
| Judith: Ich bin Daniel. Vielleicht kennst du meine Seite, www.daniel-knows.de |
| Chuck: I am Daniel. Maybe you know my website, www.daniel-knows.de |
| Judith: Daniel arbeitet bei IBM. |
| Chuck: Daniel works at IBM. |
| Judith: Er redet immer nur über Computer. |
| Chuck: He always talks about computers. |
| Judith: Das stimmt nicht. |
| Chuck: That’s not true. |
| Judith: Aber wenn du Computerprobleme hast könnte ich dir vielleicht helfen. |
| Chuck: But when you have a computer problem, maybe I could help you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Ok, what do you say? |
| Chuck: I think we need to know the vocabulary, don’t we? |
| Judith: Does that mean you haven’t understood the dialogue yet? |
| Chuck: Well, I understood it but I don't know if all of listeners have. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: Ok. Vocabulary it is. The first word is ihr. |
| Chuck: “Y’all” or “you” plural if you’re not from the south. |
| Judith: ihr. |
| Chuck: “You” plural. |
| Judith: It works like [Wu] in French. |
| Chuck: Or “vosotros” in Spanish for Spain. |
| Judith: Next, Platz. |
| Chuck: “Place” or “space”. |
| Judith: Platz. |
| Chuck: “Place” or “space”. In a town this can also mean “square. |
| Judith: Yes, in the name for one of those squares, you will often find the word [Platz]. |
| Chuck: A really famous one would be [Alexanderplatz] in Berlin. |
| Judith: Yes. The next word is man. |
| Chuck: Notice this is spelled with only one N, “one” or “you”. |
| Judith: man. |
| Chuck: “One” or “you”. |
| Judith: It applies to people in general. The next word is wer. |
| Chuck: Who. |
| Judith: wer. |
| Chuck: Who. |
| Judith: It’s a question word. Next, spielen. |
| Chuck: To play. |
| Judith: spielen. |
| Chuck: To play. |
| Judith: This could be either playing a game or playing an instrument. Next we have vielleicht. |
| Chuck: “Perhaps” or “maybe”. |
| Judith: Vielleicht |
| Chuck: “Perhaps” or “maybe” |
| Judith: Next, Seite. |
| Chuck: Page. |
| Judith: Seite. |
| Chuck: “Page”. It can also mean website. This could also be “side”, couldn’t it? |
| Judith: Yes. So “page”, “side” or “website”. Anyway, this word is feminine, [Die Seite], and the plural is [Seiten]. |
| Chuck: Pages. |
| Judith: Next, bei. |
| Chuck: At. |
| Judith: bei. |
| Chuck: At. |
| Judith: You’d use this when you’re talking about a person or a group. For example, [Bei Markus] means “at Mark’s place”. Ok, next word, reden. |
| Chuck: To talk. |
| Judith: reden. |
| Chuck: To talk. |
| Judith: And you will probably need the word über. |
| Chuck: About. |
| Judith: über. |
| Chuck: “About”, or this can also be “above”. |
| Judith: Yes. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Chuck: Or one thing I think is really cool in German is how you can say [Übermorgen] to be “the day after tomorrow”. |
| Judith: [Übermorgen], yeah. |
| Chuck: That’s uber cool! No, I think only Americans would say that, the nerdy Americans. |
| Judith: Yeah, that’s not German, using uber like that. |
| Chuck: Über has an [Umlaut] in it, right? |
| Judith: Yes, it’s spelled [Über]. |
| Chuck: And how do you know that the U has an [Umlaut ] if you just say [Ü]? |
| Judith: You hear it. [Ü] |
| Chuck: I don’t hear it. What would be the other one? |
| Judith: [U] |
| Chuck: Ah… |
| Judith: When it comes to vowels, they don’t have a special name in German, they’re just pronounced. For example, [A, E, I, O, U], and of course [Ä, Ö, Ü the Umlaut] vowels. So I think this would be a good lesson to talk about spelling in Germany, or rather spelling German words. |
| Chuck: So I’d guess you’d need something other than just the vowels for that, wouldn’t you? |
| Judith: Yeah. Well, some people would use entire words to make it even clearer to distinguish the vowels. For example, when they mean A they would say Anton, or when they mean M they would say Martin. They don’t just say [A] or [M]. So for this you can use any kind of personal name that comes to mind. And others will use words from the international radio operator’s alphabet. This radios operator’s alphabet you’ve probably heard of, goes alpha, bravo, Charlie, delta, foxtrot and so on. And this will work in Germany too, unless of course you need to spell those [Umlaut] vowels. Maybe it’s the most useful to learn as a foreigner because you probably know it already and you can use it in basically any language. |
| Chuck: Yeah, this is most useful over the phone when you don’t have quite good quality when you hear something. |
| Judith: Yeah, but even on the phone you will find that most Germans will just say the names of the letters in German and then you just have to figure out which letter that was. So maybe we should go through the alphabet in German and see what the letters are called, cause they’re not always the same as in English. |
| Chuck: Alright, sounds good. |
| Judith: Well, A you already know, and then B, C, D, E, that’s the one that you already know, that’s E. F, also very common, very obvious for English speakers, but then we don’t say G, we say [G] because in German the pronunciation of the G is actually [G]. |
| Chuck: H. |
| Judith: And then H, yeah, you said it. H. |
| Chuck: I. |
| Judith: Not H. I don't know where you get this from. H, come on, what does that have to do with the letter? H? And then I, and the J, not J, J. K, L, M, N, those three are the same again, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, [W], we don’t say W. W, X, Y, Z. Additionally, we have four letters that are not part of the actual alphabet, that people won’t be singing in the alphabet song, for example, but that are nevertheless useful when spelling words. Those are the three [Umlaut] letters, [Ä,Ö] and [Ü]. And this special letter that looks approximately like a Greek beta… |
| Chuck: Or a weirdly written B. |
| Judith: It’s called [SZ] in German. Or it can also be called [Scharfes S], sharp S. Knowing what the letters of the alphabet are called in German is not just useful for spelling, it’s also useful for acronyms because in German when you encounter an acronym we have to pronounce each letter separately. For example [USA]. |
| Chuck: USA. |
| Judith: Or [IBM]. |
| Chuck: IBM. |
| Judith: They’re some really common German acronyms that you will need to know, and we go through them quickly. One is [PKW]. |
| Chuck: PKW. |
| Judith: It’s [Personenkraftwagen]. |
| Chuck: Car. |
| Judith: It’s a very fancy word if you’ll go through the whole thing, [Personenkraftwagen]. It’s a power vehicle for people, but people don’t even think about it, they just say [PKW] as if it was a word. |
| Chuck: Yeah, you see this more in official texts because if you’re just talking with friends or you just say [Auto]. |
| Judith: Yeah, but one word that you have to use like this is [LKW]. |
| Chuck: LKW. |
| Judith: That stands for [Lastkraftwagen] so it’s the same as before but for loads of goods and it means “a truck”. And actually there’s no different word for trucks in Germany. you always have to say [LKW], you can’t say [Auto]. Another really common acronym is [PLZ]. |
| Chuck: PLZ. |
| Judith: In German, PLZ stands for [Postleitzahl], so guiding number for the postal service and that would be the postal code. [Postleitzahl] is quite long, so on forms especially you will always just see this abbreviation, [PLZ]. |
| Chuck: So it’s pretty much like a zip code. |
| Judith: Yeah. Ok, one more to be sure that you’re not getting in trouble in Germany would be [FKK]. |
| Chuck: FKK. |
| Judith: Stands for [Freikörperkultur]. |
| Chuck: That would be “free body culture”? That’s like nudist beaches, right? |
| Judith: Yes. So if you see this abbreviation, FKK somewhere, you probably don’t want to go to that beach or sauna or whatever. |
| Chuck: Well, unless you’re into that sort of thing, which we’re ok with. We just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into. |
| Judith: That’s right. |
| Chuck: Let’s see. Other abbreviations… [BWL] that means “business as a study subject”, right? |
| Judith: Yes, [Betriebswirtschaftslehre]. The study of how to manage a business. |
| Chuck: Ah, now I see why they abbreviate it. |
| Judith: Yeah, no student would want to say the whole thing. And accordingly [VWL] is [Volkswirtschaftslehre] is Economy. |
| Chuck: What subject was that Thomas studies? |
| Judith: I don’t remember, sorry. |
| Chuck: Let’s see… Alright, let’s just go over the dialogue again to refresh our memory. |
| Judith: Ah, that’s where you’re going. I have you all figured out. You want to skip the grammar today? |
| Chuck: … no, I don’t mean that. I just thought we’d like to go over the dialogue and go home or some- I mean… |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Judith: Let’s do the grammar right now. In this lesson, you have finally encountered the plural “you”. In German it is ihr. |
| Chuck: That’s like the “y’all” in the southern US or the plural “you”, “vous” in French, or “vosotros” in Spanish. So it’s used if you want to talk to several people at the same time. |
| Judith: When you are looking at regular verbs in the present tense, this form is marked by a final T just like the he/she/it form. Ihr kommt, ihr arbeitet, ihr wohnt. It’s just like er kommt, er arbeitet, er wohnt. However there is a difference when dealing with other tenses or other verbs like modal verbs. For könnte and möchte or even the future werden, the ending is still T whereas it’s dropped for the third person singular. For example, we would say ihr könntet. |
| Chuck: You all could. |
| Judith: But it would be er könnte. |
| Chuck: He could. |
| Judith: Ihr möchtet. |
| Chuck: You all would like. |
| Judith: But er möchte. Not er möchtet. |
| Chuck: He would like. |
| Judith: And ihr werdet. |
| Chuck: You all will. |
| Judith: As opposed to er wird. |
| Chuck: He will. |
| Judith: And it’s the same for past tense, ihr wart. |
| Chuck: You all were. |
| Judith: Ihr hattet. |
| Chuck: You all had |
| Judith: For the irregular verbs sein and haben, however, they require completely different forms that you just have to memorize. That is ihr seid. |
| Chuck: You all are. |
| Judith: And ihr habt. |
| Chuck: You all have. |
| Judith: So that’s it, you know all the German personal forms now. |
| Chuck: But wait, didn’t we miss the one thing that we don’t have in English. I think it was man right? |
| Judith: Yes the German word man but that’s not really a problem. It’s the same as the French “on” or in Esperanto, it would be “oni” and in English, it’s “one” or “you”. I don’t see the point. It doesn’t change anything. It’s just the same as the he/she/it in German. The same form that you use for er, you would also use for man. |
| Chuck: Yeah, but I still caught that you forgot it. Ha ha ha. |
| Judith: Ok. Go and gloat if you like. |
| Chuck: Hi hi hi hi hi. Oh, now you’re interested to do your dialogue, I see? |
| Judith: Yeah, why not? I think we’re done for today. |
| Michael Schmidt: Hallo Lena, schön, dass du da bist. |
| Lena Wagner: Hi. Ihr habt einen schönen Platz für das Picknick gefunden. Ja, es ist schön hier am Unterbacher See oder? Man könnte immer hier sitzen. Wer seid ihr alle? |
| Sandra: Ich heiße Sandra. |
| Thomas: Ich bin Thomas. |
| Michael Schmidt: Thomas kommt aus den USA. |
| Thomas: Aus Chicago. Ich studiere Musik in Deutschland. |
| Lena Wagner: Aha. Ich studiere Geschichte. Spielst du auch ein Instrument? |
| Thomas: Ja, ich spiele Saxofon. |
| Daniel: Ich bin Daniel. Vielleicht kennst du meine Seite, www.daniel-knows.de. |
| Michael Schmidt: Daniel arbeitet bei IBM. Er redet immer nur über Computer. |
| Daniel: Das stimmt nicht. Aber wenn du Computerprobleme hast könnte ich dir vielleicht helfen. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Helping with computer problems… Seems like we just had a computer problem in the studio, didn’t we? |
| Judith: Yeah but we’re done with it. |
| Chuck: Yeah. Too bad Daniel wasn’t here to help us. |
| Judith: I think we don’t need Daniel. We have a support department. |
| Chuck: Alright, so if you listeners went into problems with the podcast or the site, please write to contactus [Affeklammer] GermanPod101.com. |
| Judith: [Klammeraffe] you got it wrong. |
| Chuck: Ok. |
| Judith: Contactus@GermanPod101.com |
| Chuck: Or that. |
| Judith: Or just post in the forum. |
| Chuck: There’s also a sub-forum dedicated to technical questions and bugs. |
| Judith: Yeah, so you best post there if you’re going to report a bug. You can also use the forum when you don’t have technical difficulties. For example if you want to practice your German or talk with other listeners. I drop by often too so if you want to discuss anything with me… |
| Chuck: Or if you want to talk with me too… I think I'm interesting too. But anyway, just join the forum on GermanPod101.com. So anyway, I’ll see you guys next week. |
| Judith: [Bis nächste Woche]. |
Comments
Hide