Learn how to ride the rails
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| M: Hello and welcome to German Survival Phrases brought to you by germanpod101.com, this course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Germany. You will be surprised at how far a little German will go. Now before we jump in, remember to stop by germanpod101.com and there you will find the accompanying PDF and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. |
| F: German Survival Phrases. Lesson 25, Riding the Train in Germany, part 3. |
| M: In this final installment of the Riding the Rail series, we will show you how to get on the subway. In Germany, taking the subway is one of the best choices you can make to get around and reach all the important parts of the larger city like Hamburg, Berlin or Munich. Today we are going to cover how to get on the subway. As you have learned in the previous lessons, in Germany, you can buy tickets at the ticket office or at vending machines located at subway entrances. Normally in Germany, tickets for buses, trams, subway and long distance destinations are all different and cannot be used in other means of transportation but there are some exceptions. If you buy a city ticket to Germany’s capital Berlin you actually might save some money because you can also use it on the subway. Please don’t get confused because in Germany, trains in subways don’t share the same tracks. In fact, the local service is provided by the subway, buses and trams. Instead trains provide the long range commutes, the ones between larger cities and in between urban regions. So now let’s go and see how to get our subway ticket. As you can remember from the previous lessons covering how to get a bus or a train ticket, we can accomplish this by asking, excuse me, a subway ticket please. [Entschuldigung, ein U-Bahnticket, bitte] Let’s break down this phrase and hear it once again [Entschuldigung, ein U-Bahnticket, bitte] So as you can see, this sentence doesn’t change that much from the one we covered in lesson 24 apart from the word [U-Bahn] subway which we add to the sentence. The additional [Entschuldigung] excuse me in the beginning of the phrase is used when being polite at the ticket office. So you have [Entschuldigung] excuse me [Entschuldigung]. Then we have [ein] a [ein] Next is [U-Bahn] which in English means subway. It’s the short form of the word [Untergrundbahn] literally translated as underground train but it will be translated as subway or metro. Let’s break down this word by syllable and hear it one more time [U-Bahn] This is followed by ticket which is ticket. And then we have the usual [bitte] please. So altogether we have [Entschuldigung, ein U-Bahnticket, bitte] Literally this means, excuse me a subway ticket please. Our location for today’s lesson will be Berlin [Berlin] which covers Germany’s most extensive underground system, online subway lines are marked by different colors. For example, the line U2 is red while U4 is yellow. Let’s imagine you need to go from Alexanderplatz to Pankow and you need to ask what line you have to take to get there, you can accomplish this by asking excuse me, what line do I need to take for Pankow [Entschuldigung, mit welcher Linie komme ich nach Pankow] Let’s break this phrase down by syllable and hear it one more time. [Entschuldigung, mit welcher Linie komme ich nach Pankow] Let’s see the sentence word by word. First you have the usual [Entschuldigung] excuse me followed by [mit] which in English is by [mit] Then we have [welcher Linie] which in German is, what line. This is made up by [welcher] what followed by the word [Linie] line. Let’s break down these words and hear them one more time [welcher Linie] Then you have [komme ich] made up by the verb [komme] first singular person of the present tense of the verb [kommen] to come or to get to followed by the personal pronoun, first singular person [ich] I. As you can see, we don’t use the literal translation for the expression, do I need which in German in this case is conveyed by [komme]. Let’s break down these words and hear them once again [komme ich] and [komme ich] Finally you have [nach Pankow] Here we find [nach] to and finally the destination Pankow. Let’s break down these words and hear the whole sentence one more time [nach Pankow] And now the sentence [Entschuldigung, mit welche Linie komme ich nach Pankow] Literally this means excuse me, by what line come I to Pankow. It is translated as excuse me, what line do I need to take to Pankow. The possible answer to your question could be [Sie müssen die rote Linie nehmen] You need to take the red line. This phrase starts with the capitalized [Sie] which is you in the formal level of speech followed by [müssen] must [müssen] and [müssen] Then we have [die rote Linie] the red line. The first word die is the article for feminine nouns. It’s followed by [rote] red and the feminine noun [Linie] line [die rote Linie] Lastly, we have the infinitive of the verb [nehmen] to take. Let’s break it down by syllable and hear it one more time. [nehmen] Altogether we have [Sie müssen die rote Linie nehmen] This literally means you must the red line to take and it is translated as you need to take the red line. |
| Okay to close our today’s lesson, we’d like you to practice what you’ve just learned. I provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you are responsible for shouting it out aloud. You have a few seconds before I give you the answer. So [Viel Glück] which means good luck in German. Excuse me, a subway ticket please [Entschuldigung, ein U-Bahnticket, bitte] Excuse me, what line do I need to take for Pankow [Entschuldigung, mit welcher Linie komme ich nach Pankow]. You need to take the red line [Sie müssen die rote Linie nehmen] That’s going to do it for today. |
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