Learn how to use correct German word order for longer sentences
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Upper Beginner season 1, Lesson #13 German Festivals, Times and Places. Hello and welcome back to germanpod101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn German. I am joined in the studio by |
| Judith: Hello everyone. Judith here. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you learn how to use correct German word order for longer sentences. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place in Munich in front of the Olympic tower. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Joe and the clerk at the entrance of the Tower. |
| Judith: The speakers are in a business relationship. Therefore they will be speaking formal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Kassiererin: Guten Tag. |
| Joe: Hallo, ich möchte gerne auf den Olympiaturm gehen. |
| Kassiererin: Hoch gehen können Sie nicht. Sie können nur mit dem Aufzug zur Plattform fahren. |
| Joe: Ach so. Dann fahre ich natürlich mit dem Aufzug. Wie viel kostet der Eintritt? |
| Kassiererin: Für einen Erwachsenen kostet der Eintritt 4,50 Euro. |
| Joe: Okay. Sagen Sie, wie hoch ist der Turm eigentlich? |
| Kassiererin: Der Turm ist fast 292 Meter hoch. Aber die Plattform ist nur 190 Meter hoch. |
| Joe: Oh, wow. Das ist ganz schön hoch. |
| Kassiererin: Ja….Und Sie haben Glück. Sie müssen heute nicht lange in der Schlange warten. |
| Joe: Oh, super. |
| Kassiererin: Und Sie können auf dem Turm auch ohne Fernglas sehr weit gucken. |
| Joe: Hmm, ist das sonst nicht so? |
| Kassiererin: Na ja, manchmal hat man oben wegen den Wolken nicht so eine gute Aussicht. |
| Joe: Oh gut, dass ich heute hier bin! |
| Kassiererin: Ja, das stimmt. Aber kommen Sie doch morgen wieder hier her. |
| Joe: Äh, wieso das? |
| Kassiererin: Morgen ist draußen den ganzen Tag lang ein Fest. |
| Joe: Oh, klasse. Dann komme ich natürlich morgen noch mal hier her! |
| Cashier: Good day. |
| Joe: Hello, I would like to do up the Olympic Tower. |
| Cashier: You can't go up there. You can only take the elevator to the platform. |
| Joe: Ah, I see. Then I'll take the elevator of course. How much is the entrance fee? |
| Cashier: For an adult, entrance costs 4 Euros and 50 cents. |
| Joe: Okay. How tall is the tower, actually? |
| Cashier: The tower is almost 292 meters tall. But the platform is only 190 meters tall. |
| Joe: Oh, wow. That's really quite tall. |
| Cashier: Yes, and you're in luck. Today you don't have to wait long in the line-up. |
| Joe: Oh, super. |
| Cashier: And you can also see quite far in the tower without using binoculars. |
| Joe: Hmm, is that not the case on other days? |
| Cashier: Yes, sometimes you don't have such a good view, because of cloud cover. |
| Joe: Oh, good thing I'm here today! |
| Cashier: Yes, that's right. But come here tomorrow again. |
| Joe: Oh? Why's that? |
| Cashier: Tomorrow there's a festival outside for the whole day. |
| Joe: Oh, great! Then of course I'll come here again tomorrow! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Okay let’s talk about festivals in Germany. Apart from the world famous Oktoberfest, there are also other festivals taking place in Germany. |
| Chuck: Really? I don’t know if I believe you. |
| Judith: Well you know, every city has some kind of Oktoberfest thing but yeah there are others. There is even the German saying Man muss die Feste feiern wie sie fallen. |
| Chuck: You have to celebrate festive days as they come up. So don’t let them put ______ (0:00:58) prevent you from enjoying them. |
| Judith: Kirmes is the name of the most popular recurring festival. It’s a moving carnival with rides, skill games and lots of unhealthy food. |
| Chuck: Don’t call it carnival though because the German word Karneval refers to that merry season around mardi gras’ when everyone dresses up and let’s out their inner jokester. |
| Judith: One festival that’s pretty uniquely German are the Christmas markets. Every city has one of those and they are really beautiful. In fact, they are the only thing that keeps me in country when days get cold in December. |
| Chuck: It is worthwhile getting cold if you can warm up with some mulled wine and stroll along those beautifully decorated stands and buy some handmade ornaments or hand-woven gloves or eat some nice warm sausage. |
| Judith: The atmosphere is unmatched. If you are in Germany in December, do check out the local Christmas market. |
| Chuck: Or go straight to one of the famous ones like in Nürnberg, Erfurt, Dresden, Aachen and so on. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word is |
| Judith: Aufzug. |
| Chuck: Elevator. |
| Judith: Aufzug. Aufzug. Der Aufzug and the plural is Aufzüge. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Plattform. |
| Chuck: Platform. |
| Judith: Plattform. Plattform. Die Plattform and the plural is Plattformen. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Erwachener. |
| Chuck: Adult man. |
| Judith: Erwachsener. Erwachsener. Der Erwachsene and the plural is Erwachsene. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Eigentlich. |
| Chuck: Actually. |
| Judith: Eigentlich. Eigentlich. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Fast. |
| Chuck: Almost. |
| Judith: Fast. Fast. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Ohne. |
| Chuck: Without. |
| Judith: Ohne. Ohne. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Fernglas. |
| Chuck: Binoculars or telescope. |
| Judith: Fernglas. Fernglas. Das Fernglas and the plural is Ferngläser. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Weit. |
| Chuck: Far or wide. |
| Judith: Weit. Weit. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Oben. |
| Chuck: At the top or on top. |
| Judith: Oben. Oben. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Wegen. |
| Chuck: Because of |
| Judith: Wegen. Wegen. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Wolke. |
| Chuck: Cloud. |
| Judith: Wolke. Wolke. Die Wolke and the plural is Wolken. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Her. |
| Chuck: To here. |
| Judith: Her. Her. |
| Chuck: Next |
| Judith: Fest. |
| Chuck: Festival or party. |
| Judith: Fest. Fest. Das Fest and the plural is Feste. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first phrase is wegen den Wolken. |
| Chuck: Due to clouds. |
| Judith: Wegen is a preposition that is either used with the genitive or the dative. Hence you might hear wegen den Wolken or wegen der Wolken. The trend is towards the dative. So wegen den Wolken. And the other thing I wanted to draw your attention to is den ganzen Tag lang. |
| Chuck: All day long. |
| Judith: You always say something lang and this means for something. For example, drei Tage lang. |
| Chuck: For 3 days. |
| Judith: Ein Jahr lang. |
| Chuck: For a year. |
| Judith: Drei Monate lang. |
| Chuck: For 3 months. |
| Judith: And so on. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is the word order of adverbials. Let’s look at the word order rules for adverbials today. The most typical word order is to have the descriptions of place and time right after the verb that is in the third position before the direct object even. |
| Judith: An example for this would be Ich gebe ihm heute in München seine Fahrkarte. |
| Chuck: I am giving his ticket to him in Munich today. Look closely the indirect object cannot be separated from the verb but right after that with the time and the place and then finally the direct object. |
| Judith: Note that in German, you would typically place the time before the place. So first heute and then in München. Ich gebe ihm heute in München seine Fahrkarte. |
| Chuck: It is possible and quite common to move the time to the beginning of the sentence though. |
| Judith: Yeah you could say Heute gebe ich ihm in München seine Fahrkarte. You could also say In München gebe ich ihm heute seine Fahrkarte. But that would place a stress on the place. Do that if you want to avoid confusion about which city you are going. |
| Chuck: If you have an adverbial of manner, so you are saying how you are doing something, that should go in between the time and the place. |
| Judith: For example, Ich fahre heute mit dem Zug nach München. |
| Chuck: Instead of words for place and time, you should also place adverbs and particles like gerne or doch in these positions. |
| Judith: They should go in the same slot as the time. So you’d say In München gebe ich ihm doch seine Fahrkarte or Ich fahre gerne mit dem Zug nach München. |
| Chuck: Now what about other adverbs? I have never seen words like nur or fast or ganz in that place. |
| Judith: Yeah these adverbs only make sense in front of a word that they qualify. For example, you’d say nur 50m, fast Zuhause or ganz schön. So these words are obviously not subject to the word order rules. |
| Chuck: Now you should go to the lesson PDF because we posted a summary of the most common word orders there. |
| Judith: Really helpful. A complete sentence diagram with slots for everything you might want to put in there. |
| Chuck: That should be a valuable reference when you are cooking up sentences of your own. |
| Judith: So don’t forget to get the PDF from germanpod101.com |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. Okay some of our listeners already know about the most powerful tool in germanpod101.com |
| Judith: Line by line audio. |
| Chuck: The perfect tool for rapidly improving listening comprehension. |
| Judith: By listening to lines of the conversation again and again. |
| Chuck: Listen until every word and syllable becomes clear. |
| Judith: Listen to the dialogue in bite size sentences |
| Chuck: And understand it all. |
| Judith: Try the line by line audio at germanpod101.com. |
| Chuck: So see you next week. |
| Judith: Also, bis nächste Woche. |
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