Learn to say you don't understand something
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.
| 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 7, Can you speak English? In today’s lesson, we will cover another really important phrase. Can you speak English? Using this phrase as opposed to just speaking English at someone is important for many reasons. For one, if the party you are speaking to doesn’t understand English, at least they would be able to understand what you are asking. Furthermore it shows lot of respect to show that you took the effort to learn even a little bit of the language and for these reasons and many more, we are going to cover this phrase. In German, can you speak English is [Sprechen Sie Englisch?] Let’s break it down by syllable [Sprechen Sie Englisch?] Now let’s hear it once again [Sprechen Sie Englisch] The first word [Sprechen] means to speak. Let’s break down this word and hear it one more time. [Sprechen] This is followed by [Sie] which in English is you. [Sie] Let’s take a look at the next word [Englisch] which means English [Englisch] So altogether we have [Sprechen Sie Englisch?] Literally this means speak you English. Now let’s try a different language. How about French? Can you speak French? [Sprechen Sie Französisch] The word for French is [Französisch] Let’s break down this word and hear it one more time [Französisch] Here just the word for the language changes. The rest is the same. Nowadays in Germany, English is studied at schools. So the number of people who know English is increasing. However there are still many people who don’t speak English. Let’s talk a little bit about how to use these phrases. Let’s say that you are in Frankfurt and you want to go to Berlin, you need to find out how much the ticket costs and when the train leaves but you don’t know how to ask these things in German. Now you can ask anyone if they speak English. Let’s try it [Sprechen Sie Englisch?] and once more [Sprechen Sie Englisch?] It’s good to remember that many Germans do have at least basic grasp of English. So feel free to ask. They are more than willing to help. |
| M: 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. |
| F: Can you speak English [Sprechen Sie Englisch?] Can you speak French? [Sprechen Sie Französisch?] |
| M: That’s going to do it for today. |
Comments
Hide