Learn to use one of two definite articles
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here, Upper-Beginner Season 2, Lesson 10 - A hectic German schedule. Hello and welcome to GermanPod101.com. The fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn German. |
| Judith: I’m Judith and thanks again for being here with us for this Upper-Beginner Season 2 lesson. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about what you do all week. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at a German café. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Paul and Sarah, who are there to celebrate Chuck’s birthday. |
| Judith: The speakers are classmates, therefore they’ll be speaking informal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Sarah: Hallo Paul! Schön, dass du auch da bist! |
| Paul: Hallo Sarah! Wo sind die anderen? |
| Sarah: Sie sind drinnen und suchen sich ihren Kuchen aus. |
| Paul: Ah. Und du? |
| Sarah: Ich esse heute keinen Kuchen, ich mache Diät. |
| Paul: Du kannst doch nicht zu einer Geburtstagsfeier kommen und Diät machen! |
| Sarah: Doch, wieso nicht? Es geht doch nicht ums Essen. Es geht darum, dass man sich schön unterhält. |
| Paul: Wo wir schon beim Thema Unterhalten sind; wann hast du mal Zeit, mit mir Spanisch und Englisch zu üben? |
| Sarah: Hmm... |
| Paul: Vielleicht morgen Abend? |
| Sarah: Montagabends treffe ich mich schon mit einem deutschen Tandempartner, er ist Angestellter und hat sonst nie Zeit. |
| Paul: Dann Dienstag? |
| Sarah: Am Dienstag gehe ich immer schwimmen, mittwochs spiele ich Schach und donnerstags habe ich Karate... |
| Paul: Du machst Karate? |
| Sarah: Ja, ich bin in einem Verein. |
| Paul: Muss ich Angst vor dir haben? |
| Judith: Now it’s slowly. |
| Sarah: Hallo Paul! Schön, dass du auch da bist! |
| Paul: Hallo Sarah! Wo sind die anderen? |
| Sarah: Sie sind drinnen und suchen sich ihren Kuchen aus. |
| Paul: Ah. Und du? |
| Sarah: Ich esse heute keinen Kuchen, ich mache Diät. |
| Paul: Du kannst doch nicht zu einer Geburtstagsfeier kommen und Diät machen! |
| Sarah: Doch, wieso nicht? Es geht doch nicht ums Essen. Es geht darum, dass man sich schön unterhält. |
| Paul: Wo wir schon beim Thema Unterhalten sind; wann hast du mal Zeit, mit mir Spanisch und Englisch zu üben? |
| Sarah: Hmm... |
| Paul: Vielleicht morgen Abend? |
| Sarah: Montagabends treffe ich mich schon mit einem deutschen Tandempartner, er ist Angestellter und hat sonst nie Zeit. |
| Paul: Dann Dienstag? |
| Sarah: Am Dienstag gehe ich immer schwimmen, mittwochs spiele ich Schach und donnerstags habe ich Karate... |
| Paul: Du machst Karate? |
| Sarah: Ja, ich bin in einem Verein. |
| Paul: Muss ich Angst vor dir haben? |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Sarah: Hallo Paul! Schön, dass du auch da bist! |
| Sarah: Hello Paul! It's nice that you're here too. |
| Paul: Hallo Sarah! Wo sind die anderen? |
| Paul: Hello Sarah! Where are the others? |
| Sarah: Sie sind drinnen und suchen sich ihren Kuchen aus. |
| Sarah: They're inside and are picking out their cake. |
| Paul: Ah. Und du? |
| Paul: Ah. And you? |
| Sarah: Ich esse heute keinen Kuchen, ich mache Diät. |
| Sarah: I'm not eating any cake today, I'm on a diet. |
| Paul: Du kannst doch nicht zu einer Geburtstagsfeier kommen und Diät machen! |
| Paul: You just can't come to a birthday party and be on a diet! |
| Sarah: Doch, wieso nicht? Es geht doch nicht ums Essen. Es geht darum, dass man sich schön unterhält. |
| Sarah: Sure I can, why not? It's not really about the food. It's about having nice conversation. |
| Paul: Wo wir schon beim Thema Unterhalten sind; wann hast du mal Zeit, mit mir Spanisch und Englisch zu üben? |
| Paul: While we're on the topic of conversation...when do you have time to practice Spanish and English with me? |
| Sarah: Hmm... |
| Sarah: Hmm… |
| Paul: Vielleicht morgen Abend? |
| Paul: Maybe tomorrow evening? |
| Sarah: Montagabends treffe ich mich schon mit einem deutschen Tandempartner, er ist Angestellter und hat sonst nie Zeit. |
| Sarah: Monday evenings I'm already meeting with a German language exchange partner. He's got a job and doesn't have time otherwise. |
| Paul: Dann Dienstag? |
| Paul: Then Tuesday? |
| Sarah: Am Dienstag gehe ich immer schwimmen, mittwochs spiele ich Schach und donnerstags habe ich Karate... |
| Sarah: On Tuesday I always go swimming, Wednesdays I play chess, and Thursdays I have karate… |
| Paul: Du machst Karate? |
| Paul: You do karate? |
| Sarah: Ja, ich bin in einem Verein. |
| Sarah: Yes, I'm in a club. |
| Paul: Muss ich Angst vor dir haben? |
| Paul: Do I need to be afraid of you? |
| Chuck: Now we talk about something else to be afraid of, German cuisine. |
| Judith: That’s not to be afraid of. |
| Chuck: Just kidding. |
| Judith: It’s not all that different from American cuisine. You know, we have a lot of potatoes, a lot of meat, heavy sauces and the like. The only thing different is that people don’t have hamburgers or fries nearly as often as Americans. |
| Chuck: What’s also different is that every meal, and I mean really every meal, is accompanied by vegetables or salad. Also, portion sizes tend to be less. You’ll even notice that sometimes you’ll see Germans abroad that’ll always ask for a salad on the side. |
| Judith: Only if they learned the hard way that they’re not going to get any vegetables otherwise. German cuisine is not any less fattening than American cuisine, but because of these differences in how people eat there’s still a lot less obese people in Germany. An easy way to tell is by looking at the clothing section of any store. Any size beyond XL is usually not available, you have to go to a specialty store for that. |
| Chuck: The major danger for your diet in German is the beer. Beer contains a lot of calories and older men usually support a [Bierbauch], “beer belly”. |
| Judith: On the plus side, there are no free refills of sugary drinks. |
| Chuck: That’s not a plus side. |
| Judith: Well, if you’re on a diet that is. |
| Chuck: Ok, fine. |
| Judith: The standard drink size is just 11 ounces, I mean 0,3 liters and the national drink is not cola but [Apfelschorle]. Now, if you know [Apfelschorle],[Apfelschorle] is apple juice mixed with mineral water. It’s quite healthy. It contains only half the calories of apple juice. |
| Chuck: In English it’s called apple spritzer, but you’ll only find that as translations of menus here. In terms of dessert, Germany is a lot less dangerous than the States, cause the desserts here tend to contain less sugar and less fat. |
| Judith: But they still can't possibly be called healthy. So if you want to diet, you should skip them anyway. |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word we shall see is. |
| Judith: Drinnen |
| Chuck: Inside. |
| Judith: [Drinnen, drinnen] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Aussuchen] |
| Chuck: To select. |
| Judith: [Aussuchen, aussuchen] and the [Aus] splits off. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Diät] |
| Chuck: Diet. |
| Judith: [Diät, Diät, die Diät] and the plural is [Diäten]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Wieso] |
| Chuck: Why. |
| Judith: [Wieso, wieso] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Sich unterhalten] |
| Chuck: To have a conversation of entertain each other. |
| Judith: [Sich unterhalten, sich unterhalten] This is a vowel-changing verb so we get [Er unterhält sich]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Montag] |
| Chuck: Monday. |
| Judith: [Montag, Montag, der Montag] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Angestellter] |
| Chuck: Employee. |
| Judith: [Angestellter, Angestellter, der Angestellte] and the plural is [Angestellte]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Nie] |
| Chuck: Never. |
| Judith: [Nie, nie] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Dienstag] |
| Chuck: Tuesday. |
| Judith: [Dienstag, Dienstag, der Dienstag] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Schwimmen] |
| Chuck: To swim. |
| Judith: [Schwimmen, schwimmen] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Schach] |
| Chuck: Chess. |
| Judith: [Schach, Schach] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Donnerstag] |
| Chuck: Thursday. |
| Judith: [Donnerstag, Donnerstag, der Donnerstag] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Verein] |
| Chuck: Club. |
| Judith: [Verein, Verein, der Verein] and the plural is [Vereine]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Angst] |
| Chuck: “Fear”, “anxiety” or “angst”. |
| Judith: [Angst, Angst, die Angst] and the plural is [Ängste]. |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Judith: The phrase word we'll look at is [Es geht um], this means “it is about”. Also, [Um] as we saw in the dialogue is a combination of [Um] and [Das], colloquially of course. This combination does not exist in writing. And [Darum] means “about that”. All of this is related to [Um]. Then we have the phrase [Am Dienstag]. It’s the same as [Dienstags], just like [Am morgen] is the same as [Morgens], [Am Abend] is the same as [Abends]. Can you see the pattern? Finally, [Doch] and [Doch nicht] are used to make assertions here. Like [Du kannst doch nicht zu einer Geburtstagsfeier kommen und Diät machen]. And Sarah replies [Doch]. |
| Chuck: Yes, I can. |
| Judith: [Es geht doch nicht ums Essen] Asserts that birthday parties are not about the food. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is [Ein] or [Der] or “nothing”. |
| Judith: Let’s have a closer look at when [Ein] or [Eine] is used as opposed to using [Der, die, das] or as opposed to not using anything. |
| Chuck: A lot of it is similar to English but not everything. |
| Judith: Like in English, the indefinite article [Ein] or [Eine] is used when we start introducing an object. If we already mentioned the object before, we use the definite article [Der, die, das] instead. |
| Chuck: Also [Ein, eine] is not used for any specific instance of an object, not for James’ toaster but only toasters in general or some toaster. |
| Judith: If you want to buy a toaster then we use [Einen Toaster, Ich möchte einen Toaster kaufen]. But if you want to buy the toaster with the white plastic, then it’s [Den Toaster]. |
| Chuck: So as soon as you have details, the indefinite article is replaced by the definite article. What about cases where we don’t have any article? |
| Judith: Well, in today’s dialogue we had [Ich spiele Schach, Er ist Angestellter] and we may also have said [Ich esse Kuchen]. |
| Chuck: There’s not article of any kind here. |
| Judith: Yes. In the case of chess and cake, this is because we’re referring to something that can't be counted. If you were to say “I'm eating a piece of cake”, then you can count the number of pieces, but the word “cake” itself is very vague. If you say [Ich esse Kuchen], we don’t know how much cake you’re eating, just as if you’re saying [Ich spiele Schach]. |
| Chuck: We don’t know how many games of chess you’re playing. Right. But what about the case of “he’s an employee”? |
| Judith: Yes, this case is the hardest because it doesn’t correspond to English. We say [Er ist Angestellter] without the [Ein]. Actually, it’s the same issue as with “I am a Berliner”. You know that Kennedy was wrong to say [Ich bin ein Berliner], he should have left out the [Ein]. This is because of a German rule about people. When using words for professions, nationalities, believers of religion or the like, we leave out the “Ein”. That’s just the way it is. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. |
| Judith: Listeners, looking for a cheat sheet to memorize German vocabulary? Have you checked out our video vocab series? |
| Chuck: These themed video lessons combine visual cues with the voices of native speakers. |
| Judith: Just another effective method of learning and retaining thousands of vocabulary words. |
| Chuck: Visit Germanpod101.com |
| Judith: Click on the video lessons tab. |
| Chuck: And hit play. |
| Judith: It’s that easy. |
| Chuck: Don’t take our word for it. |
| Judith: Try it for yourself, at Germanpod101.com. |
| Chuck: Ok, see you next week. |
| Judith: Ok, dann bis nächste Woche. |
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