Learn how to talk about existence (there is and there are)
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: This is Newbie Series Lesson 23. |
| Judith: [Willkommen zurück]. |
| Chuck: Welcome back, listeners. Time for another Newbie lesson. So, Judith, what’s today’s lesson about? |
| Judith: Today is a review lesson. We will cover one or two minor issues but mostly just sit back and relax, like Lena who is enjoying her picnic with Michael friends. |
| Chuck: Great. Finally a lesson to my liking. I bet they have beer at that picnic too. Now where can I find some beer around here… |
| Judith: You’re not going to drink while we do this lesson. |
| Chuck: Alright, well let’s listen to the dialogue then. I think Danielle just offered Lena some computer help. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Michael Schmidt: Ich bin sicher ich könnte dir auch helfen Lena. Aber setz dich doch, hier ist noch Platz. |
| Lena Wagner: Danke. Hier ist ein Fruchtsalat für das Picknick. Ich hoffe ihr hattet noch keinen. |
| Michael Schmidt: Nein, wir hatten noch keinen, danke. Wir haben Butterbrote, heiße Würstchen, Nudelsalat, Kuchen. |
| Lena Wagner: Was für Kuchen gibt es denn? |
| Michael Schmidt: Apfelkuchen und Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. |
| Lena Wagner: Mmm. Ich mag Apfelkuchen aber ich liebe Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. |
| Judith: Now read slowly. |
| Michael Schmidt: Ich bin sicher ich könnte dir auch helfen Lena. Aber setz dich doch, hier ist noch Platz. |
| Lena Wagner: Danke. Hier ist ein Fruchtsalat für das Picknick. Ich hoffe ihr hattet noch keinen. |
| Michael Schmidt: Nein, wir hatten noch keinen, danke. Wir haben Butterbrote, heiße Würstchen, Nudelsalat, Kuchen. |
| Lena Wagner: Was für Kuchen gibt es denn? |
| Michael Schmidt: Apfelkuchen und Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. |
| Lena Wagner: Mmm. Ich mag Apfelkuchen aber ich liebe Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. |
| Judith: Ok, now with the translation. |
| Judith: Ich bin sicher ich könnte dir auch helfen Lena. |
| Chuck: I am sure I could also help you, Lena. |
| Judith: Aber setz dich doch. |
| Chuck: But sit down. |
| Judith: Hier ist noch Platz. |
| Chuck: Here is still space. |
| Judith: Danke. Hier ist ein Fruchtsalat für das Picknick. |
| Chuck: Thanks. Here is the fruit salad for the picnic. |
| Judith: Ich hoffe ihr hattet noch keinen. |
| Chuck: I hope you don’t have one yet. |
| Judith: Nein, wir hatten noch keinen, danke. |
| Chuck: No we didn’t have any, thanks. |
| Judith: Wir haben Butterbrote, heiße Würstchen, Nudelsalat, Kuchen. |
| Chuck: We have sandwiches, hot sausages, noodle salad, cakes. |
| Judith: Was für Kuchen gibt es denn? |
| Chuck: What kind of cake is there? |
| Judith: Apfelkuchen und Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. |
| Chuck: Apple cake and black forest cherry cake. |
| Judith: Mmm. Ich mag Apfelkuchen aber ich liebe Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. |
| Chuck: Mmm, I like apple cake, but I love black forest cherry cake. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Judith: Ok, let’s do some vocabulary. |
| Chuck: Alright, sounds good. |
| Judith: The first word for today is sicher. |
| Chuck: “Surely” or “safely”. |
| Judith: sicher. |
| Chuck: “Surely” or “safely”. One phrase you might hear in German is [Sicher ist sicher]. |
| Judith: Yeah. How do you translate though? |
| Chuck: It’s like “sure is sure”, that doesn’t quite work but I guess something like “safety first” is kind of like… but it sounds cooler in German. |
| Judith: Note also that [Sicher] can be translated as an adjective, “sure” or “safe”, because in German there’s no difference between adjectives and adverbs. |
| Chuck: Ja, [Sicher]. |
| Judith: Next, dir. |
| Chuck: To you. |
| Judith: dir. dir. |
| Chuck: To you. |
| Judith: This will be the dative form of [Du], but in the Newbie lesson we don’t focus on grammar much so just memorize that it means “to you”. Next, sich setzen. |
| Chuck: To sit down. |
| Judith: Sich setzen. |
| Chuck: To sit down. |
| Judith: This is reflexive in German, as you can tell by the [Sich], meaning we would literally say “sit down oneself”. I sit down myself, you sit down yourself and so on. |
| Chuck: So [Ich setze mich, Du setze sich]. |
| Judith: [Du setzt dich] yeah. |
| Chuck: [Du setzt dich] yeah. |
| Judith: And the imperative that we had in the dialogue is [Setz dich doch], “sit down yourself”. Next, heiß. |
| Chuck: Hot. |
| Judith: heiß. |
| Chuck: “Hot”. Note that this can also be used to describe women. |
| Judith: Yeah, you would know about that meaning. |
| Chuck: One thing important to be careful about is not to say [Ich bin heiß] cause then it has a bit of a different meaning than “I'm hot” in English. I’ve heard it means that you’re ready for something in the bedroom, to say it in a family-friendly way. Also note that if you actually want to say that you’re hot because the room is too warm, for example, then you would say [Mir ist heiß]. |
| Judith: That’s right. In German it’s always [Mir]. [Mir ist kalt, Mir ist heiß] |
| Chuck: Just remember [Mir ist] if you’re cold or hot and you’ll be fine. |
| Judith: Ok. The next word is Nudel. |
| Chuck: That would be “noodle”. |
| Judith: Nudel. |
| Chuck: Noodle. |
| Judith: It’s feminine, and the plural is [Nudeln]. |
| Chuck: Note that that’s [Nudeln] in German. |
| Judith: Yes, we spell it phonetically. In this lesson’s text, we have the word [Nudelsalat]. |
| Chuck: Noodle salad. |
| Judith: So in German when you have a combination like noodle salad or fruit salad or the like, then it’s spelled as one word. Next, Kuchen. |
| Chuck: Cake. |
| Judith: Kuchen. |
| Chuck: “Cake”. But wait, isn’t that the plural form? |
| Judith: No, the plural is the same. |
| Chuck: Oh. |
| Judith: Because it ends in EN, remember the rule? We talked about it the other day. When a word ends in ER or EN or EL, then the plural is always the same. |
| Chuck: It’s really simple and easy. |
| Judith: So [Der Kuchen]. Next, Es gibt. |
| Chuck: “There is” or “there are”. |
| Judith: Es gibt. |
| Chuck: “There is” or “there are”. |
| Judith: We’ll briefly touch upon this in the grammar section. Next, lieben. |
| Chuck: To love. |
| Judith: lieben. |
| Chuck: To love. |
| Judith: Alright, that’s it for the vocabulary. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Chuck: Uh, wait. There’s still something that I find a bit strange in the dialogue here. |
| Judith: Why? |
| Chuck: Why is Daniel offering her to eat dessert first before they have the meal? |
| Judith: Because at a picnic you don’t really have a meal, I mean you just have these things laying around and you take whatever you’re in the mood for. |
| Chuck: So you just eat dessert first? |
| Judith: If you want… I mean it’s cake, it’s not desert. It’s tea and it’s tea time. I think they decided to meet at 4 o’clock, no? That would be perfect time for tea. |
| Chuck: Ah, yeah. You and your strange concept of tea. |
| Judith: Come on. |
| Chuck: I guess the British have that too, don’t they? |
| Judith: Yeah. Actually in German it’s not tea, it’s coffee, but for translation I always say tea. |
| Chuck: Alright. |
| Judith: So let’s look at some of the German cakes. Do you have a favorite? |
| Chuck: I have to admit I like [Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte] quite a lot. |
| Judith: This would be translated as the black forest cherry cake and it’s one of Germany’s most famous cakes. No bakery can avoid featuring this cake occasionally, if not all the time. |
| Chuck: Thanks goodness. |
| Judith: The cake is originally from the Black Forest area in the very South-West of Germany, and it’s very yummy. |
| Chuck: Where I used to live, I can get it even more often. Down in [Heilbronn]. |
| Judith: Oh, here you can get it at every good bakery too… I mean, it’s a national cake really now. Everywhere in Germany you can get it, everywhere it’s famous. I think it’s even famous in the States, more or less… I mean compared to the other German cakes. |
| Chuck: Yeah, it’s probably the most famous German cake there. |
| Judith: And most of the time this cake will contain a little bit of [Kirschwasser], it’s cherry water. |
| Chuck: But notice that quite often cake come with alcohol in them. |
| Judith: Yeah, but never enough to have to worry about it. It’s just the taste of it. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: Like here in this black forest cake, I think, it involves one or two spoons full of [Kirschwasser], but on a big cake, you know, it doesn’t have any influence, and after the baking the alcohol is not potent anymore anyway. Anyway, let’s talk about more family-friendly cake and that would be the [Donauwelle]. |
| Chuck: There’s non-family-friendly cakes? |
| Judith: I'm just saying cause of the alcohol. The [Donauwelle] is also really famous here in Germany. It literally means “the wave of the Danube”, the Danube is a big river here in Europe. And this cake involves chocolate, vanilla, cherries and buttercream, and it has a very distinct look because it’s a kind of wave form, hence the name. So if you’d like to try baking an authentic German cake but you don’t feel up to something as complicated as the Black Forest cherry cake, then this cake might be for you. Also very popular fruit cakes in summer. And according to Chuck, they’re not the same as American fruit cakes or fruit pies. Cause I made him one and he said it wasn’t cake. |
| Chuck: I said it wasn’t pie. I said I wanted a strawberry pie and you made me some weird strawberry thing that you said was cake. |
| Judith: Hey, it was yummy. It was normal, German strawberry cake, the most obvious one. |
| Chuck: She won’t make me anymore. |
| Judith: You know, in German we don’t have this distinction, cake or pie, we just have [Kuchen] or [Torte]. You know [Kuchen] is a plain kind of thing that you might be eating more often, and [Torte] is something really fancy like this Black Forest cherry cake, involving chocolate and cream, and maybe marzipan. |
| Chuck: It would be an example of like a famous [Torte]. |
| Judith: Well, you already said it, [Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte]. |
| Chuck: Oh yeah. Are there any other ones? Like maybe not from Germany? |
| Judith: Well, for example, [Sachertorte]. That’s from Austria. And it was created by the [Sacher Hotel] in Vienna. Nobody really knows what goes into it because the recipe is really close-guarded secret, but it’s a very chocolatey kind of cake. And now it is so famous that many bakeries in Germany will offer their German of the [Sachertorte] as well. |
| Chuck: I hear it’s quite expensive, isn’t it? |
| Judith: Yeah, if you want to buy a big cake like this and import it from the real Sacher hotel, it will cost you about 40 euros plus shipping. |
| Chuck: Shipping a cake? |
| Judith: Well, best get it from the local bakery, of course, but then you don’t have an authentic [Sachertorte]. |
| Chuck: Ah, ok. |
| Judith: Cause nobody knows what the recipe is. They’re just guessing it or creating something that might be resemblingit it. |
| Chuck: So if you live States and you want a [Sachertorte] shipped to you, then you’ll end up paying, what, around like 75 euros I guess, right? |
| Judith: Yeah, probably. You don’t need to calculate. I mean I think if you’re in Vienna it’s definitely something to try out. Go to this hotel and try out the famous cake, but otherwise I don't know, just… Eat a chocolate cake. I mean, American chocolate cakes are very yummy too, you know? I really like them because German chocolate cakes are usually not as sweet or rich as the American equivalents. |
| Chuck: Yeah, you had a bit of trouble with all that sugar in that American cake you ate yesterday, didn’t you? |
| Judith: Ey, don’t remind me, it was so yummy I just had to eat it. |
| Chuck: It’s also interesting here that you would never drink milk with the cake, in Germany, because it’s just… it’s not so chocolatey that you feel you absolutely need something like milk to neutralize it. |
| Judith: It’s kind of bad if you have to neutralize what you’re eating. |
| Chuck: Oh, you like Indian food and say [Nan], right? spice. It’s like the same thing, I guess. |
| Judith: Only in America. But I love those cakes. Anyway, if you would like to try out baking some of these German cakes, you can check out this lesson’s PDF and we’re posting some links to good recipes there. This is just one of the many advantages of having a subscription, even a basic subscription. |
| Chuck: So, wait, one more question. What would you typically drink with cake? |
| Judith: Well, a lot of people drink coffee, and the kids drink juice. |
| Chuck: Ah, ok. Maybe tea as well? |
| Judith: Rarely. |
| Chuck: Ok. Alright, so I'm going to go out and grab some cake cause I think it’s really yummy. |
| Judith: Nope, you’re not going anywhere. We haven’t done the grammar yet. |
| Chuck: That’s another good reason to go out and eat some cake. Don’t you want some, Judith? I could go get you some while you do the grammar. |
| Judith: You can get me some afterwards, after we’re done with this lesson. |
| Chuck: I guess that works too. |
| Judith: Grammar this time is really nothing to run away from. I'm only doing this section because the boss always insists that we always have a grammar section, but really these things are nothing big, nothing particularly new. |
| Chuck: Ah, now I see how it is. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Judith: So first thing that you could call grammar is this new expression that you saw in the vocabulary. It’s es gibt. |
| Chuck: Literally that means “it gives”, but in English you’d say “there is” or “there are”. |
| Judith: So it may take some getting used to saying es gibt when you’re thinking “there is” but at least in German you don’t have to consider whether the object of this expression is singular or plural. |
| Chuck: And the other nice thing is if you want to make it into a question you just change the words, just like in English. You would say give this. |
| Judith: Yes. This is the first really easy part and the second really easy part is the word kein, which you saw in the dialogue and it’s not a new vocabulary item but I’d still like you to look closely and notice that in German, kein is enough to make a sentence negative whereas in English, you would usually need the word not as well. For example, in German, the sentence, Wir haben kein Bier mehr. |
| Chuck: We don’t have any beer anymore. |
| Why do you have to use such depressing examples? It’s really sad. How can a German place not have any more beer? |
| Judith: Well, I'm thinking maybe a private house where people have been finishing off a couple of six packs in the course of an evening, and then suddenly they say [Wir haben kein Bier mehr]. And then everybody leaves. |
| Chuck: Ok, I guess that’s fair enough. |
| Judith: But before you make a comment about leaving again, let’s just go over the dialogue and then you can leave. |
| Chuck: Yay! I mean I'm so sad to finish our lesson. I have to go. |
| Judith: Ok. |
| Michael Schmidt: Ich bin sicher ich könnte dir auch helfen Lena. Aber setz dich doch, hier ist noch Platz. |
| Lena Wagner: Danke. Hier ist ein Fruchtsalat für das Picknick. Ich hoffe ihr hattet noch keinen. |
| Michael Schmidt: Nein, wir hatten noch keinen, danke. Wir haben Butterbrote, heiße Würstchen, Nudelsalat, Kuchen. |
| Lena Wagner: Was für Kuchen gibt es denn? |
| Michael Schmidt: Apfelkuchen und Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. |
| Lena Wagner: Mmm. Ich mag Apfelkuchen aber ich liebe Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. |
Outro |
| Chuck: You’re making me hungry now. |
| Judith: I'm hungry too now. I'm going to go for some German cake. I think you volunteered to get it for me. |
| Chuck: Did I? I thought that was when I… ok. |
| Judith: Are you coming along? |
| Chuck: Alright, sure. I guess that way we can get out of the studio at least. |
| Judith: And be sure to join me again tomorrow for our Intermediate lesson. You will like it. We’re featuring a drinking song. |
| Chuck: Really? Ok, I’ll see you tomorrow, or rather next week. |
| Judith: [Bis nächste Woche]. |
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