F: German Survival Phrases. Lesson 22, Getting Around Germany. When traveling short or even long distances in Germany, the bus can be a cheap way of getting there. In today’s lesson, we are going to work on getting a ticket. In today’s lesson, we will use Munich as our destination. In German, Munich is called [München]. This city is located in the Southeastern part of Germany and is well known for the Oktoberfest. In German, a ticket to Munich please is [Eine Fahrkarte nach München, bitte] Let’s break it down by syllable. [Eine Fahrkarte nach München, bitte] Now let’s hear it once again [Eine Fahrkarte nach München, bitte] The first word [eine] means [a, one] or one for feminine words. Let’s break down this word and hear it one more time. [eine] This is followed by [Fahrkarte] which in German is a ticket for transportation [Fahrkarte] So to recap here, we have [eine Fahrkarte] Literally this means a ticket. So let’s take a look at the next word [nach] which means to [nach] Then we have [München] which as we’ve already said is the German name of Munich. You can put any city name here or even the name of any stop. Finally we have the word [bitte] which you may already recognize from previous lessons. It means please. Let’s break it down [bitte] So altogether we have [Eine Fahrkarte nach München, bitte] Literally this means a ticket to Munich please. Now if you want to buy more than one ticket, for example if you wanted to buy two tickets, you can accomplish this by saying [Zwei Fahrkarten nach München, bitte] let’s break it down by syllable [Zwei Fahrkarten nach München, bitte] Now let’s hear it once again [Zwei Fahrkarten nach München, bitte] Notice that we simply substitute [eine] 1 with [zwei] meaning 2 and then we use the plural form [Fahrkarten] instead of [Fahrkarte] just add an n. When you buy 3, 4 or even more tickets, this doesn’t change anymore. It’s still [Fahrkarten]. Bus tickets in Germany are first come first serve. So you may sit anywhere in the bus. If all seats are taken, you will have to stand. Not that the elderly get preferential treatment. So if you are young and healthy, people may expect you to offer your seat to an elderly passenger if the bus is full. Now you may also need to ask how much is the ticket to your desired destination. For this example, we will use the same destination as above. In German, how much is the ticket to Munich is [Was kostet eine Fahrkarte nach München] Let’s break it down by syllable [Was kostet eine Fahrkarte nach München] Now let’s use once again [Was kostet eine Fahrkarte nach München] This is almost the same as what you heard before except we added [Was kostet] how much is, to the beginning of a phrase. You can use this phrase to buy a ticket at a ticket office or also from a bus driver. In fact, it’s even good when you are buying a train ticket or a subway ticket because train and subway tickets are also called [Fahrkarte]. In Germany, it’s common to take the bus within a city or from one city to a neighboring town. It’s less common to travel long distance by bus because trains are much faster and more comfortable. Long distance buses are typically cheaper though. We will discuss traveling by train in a later lesson. |
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