Learn ordinal numbers in German and the types of schools after primary school
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here, Upper-Beginner Season 2, Lesson 4 - A German numbers game. Hello and welcome to GermanPod101.com, where we study modern German in a fun, educational fomat. |
| Juditz: So brush up on the German that you have learned long ago or start learning today. |
| Chuck: Thanks for being here with us for today Judith! What are we looking at today? |
| Judith: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to understand your teacher in the classroom. |
| Chuck: This conversation takes place at a German language school in Berlin. |
| Judith: The conversation is between [Frau Weber], that is the teacher, and two students, Paul and Chuck. |
| Chuck: The speakers respect each other, therefore they’ll be speaking formal German. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Frau Weber: Guten Morgen! |
| Klasse: Guten Morgen, Frau Weber! |
| Frau Weber: Heute möchte ich mit Ihnen über das Wetter sprechen. Wie ist das Wetter heute? |
| Paul Martens: Es ist warm und die Sonne scheint. |
| Frau Weber: Ja, es ist nicht nur warm, es ist sogar heiß. Wir haben 30 Grad. |
| Frau Weber: Im Buch gibt es eine schöne Übung zum Thema Wetter. Schlagen Sie bitte die Seite 57 auf. Wir machen die erste Übung. Die Aufgabe ist es, die richtigen Wörter einzusetzen. |
| Chuck: Entschuldigung, welche Seite sollen wir aufschlagen? Können Sie das bitte wiederholen? |
| Frau Weber: Ja, Seite 57, Übung eins. |
| ... (später) |
| Frau Weber: So, jetzt haben wir keine Zeit mehr, aber gucken Sie sich die Vokabeln noch einmal zu Hause an. Am dritten Oktober ist ein Feiertag und am vierten Oktober schreiben wir eine Klassenarbeit. |
| Pau: Ist die ganze Klassenarbeit nur über das Thema Wetter? |
| Frau Weber: Nein, Sie brauchen auch die Vokabeln zum Thema Essen. Lesen Sie die Texte dazu noch einmal. Und machen Sie zu Hause vielleicht noch mal die Übungen zur Zukunft. |
| Judith: Now it’s slowly. |
| Frau Weber: Guten Morgen! |
| Klasse: Guten Morgen, Frau Weber! |
| Frau Weber: Heute möchte ich mit Ihnen über das Wetter sprechen. Wie ist das Wetter heute? |
| Paul Martens: Es ist warm und die Sonne scheint. |
| Frau Weber: Ja, es ist nicht nur warm, es ist sogar heiß. Wir haben 30 Grad. |
| Frau Weber: Im Buch gibt es eine schöne Übung zum Thema Wetter. Schlagen Sie bitte die Seite 57 auf. Wir machen die erste Übung. Die Aufgabe ist es, die richtigen Wörter einzusetzen. |
| Chuck: Entschuldigung, welche Seite sollen wir aufschlagen? Können Sie das bitte wiederholen? |
| Frau Weber: Ja, Seite 57, Übung eins. |
| ... (später) |
| Frau Weber: So, jetzt haben wir keine Zeit mehr, aber gucken Sie sich die Vokabeln noch einmal zu Hause an. Am dritten Oktober ist ein Feiertag und am vierten Oktober schreiben wir eine Klassenarbeit. |
| Pau: Ist die ganze Klassenarbeit nur über das Thema Wetter? |
| Frau Weber: Nein, Sie brauchen auch die Vokabeln zum Thema Essen. Lesen Sie die Texte dazu noch einmal. Und machen Sie zu Hause vielleicht noch mal die Übungen zur Zukunft. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Frau Weber: Guten Morgen! |
| Mrs. Weber: Good morning! |
| Klasse: Guten Morgen, Frau Weber! |
| Class: Good morning, Mrs. Weber! |
| Frau Weber: Heute möchte ich mit Ihnen über das Wetter sprechen. Wie ist das Wetter heute? |
| Mrs. Weber: Today I'd like to speak with you about the weather. How is the weather today? |
| Paul Martens: Es ist warm und die Sonne scheint. |
| Paul Martens: It's warm and the sun is shining. |
| Frau Weber: Ja, es ist nicht nur warm, es ist sogar heiß. Wir haben 30 Grad. |
| Mrs. Weber: Yes, it's not only warm, it's even hot. It's 30 degrees. |
| Frau Weber: Im Buch gibt es eine schöne Übung zum Thema Wetter. Schlagen Sie bitte die Seite 57 auf. Wir machen die erste Übung. Die Aufgabe ist es, die richtigen Wörter einzusetzen. |
| Mrs. Weber: In the book there's a nice exercise on the topic of weather. Please turn to page 57. We'll do the first exercise. The task is to fill in the correct words. |
| Chuck: Entschuldigung, welche Seite sollen wir aufschlagen? Können Sie das bitte wiederholen? |
| Chuck: Sorry, which page should we turn to? Could you repeat that please? |
| Frau Weber: Ja, Seite 57, Übung eins. |
| Mrs. Weber: Yes, page 57, exercise 1. |
| ... (später) |
| ... (later) |
| Frau Weber: So, jetzt haben wir keine Zeit mehr, aber gucken Sie sich die Vokabeln noch einmal zu Hause an. Am dritten Oktober ist ein Feiertag und am vierten Oktober schreiben wir eine Klassenarbeit. |
| Mrs. Weber: So, now we don't have any time left, but look over the vocabulary again at home. There's a holiday on the 3rd of October, and on the 4th of October we'll write a test. |
| Pau: Ist die ganze Klassenarbeit nur über das Thema Wetter? |
| Paul: Is the whole test just about the topic of weather? |
| Frau Weber: Nein, Sie brauchen auch die Vokabeln zum Thema Essen. Lesen Sie die Texte dazu noch einmal. Und machen Sie zu Hause vielleicht noch mal die Übungen zur Zukunft. |
| Mrs. Weber: No, you also need the vocabulary for food. Read the texts about that once more. And maybe do the exercises about the future again at home. |
| CULTURAL INSIGHTS |
| Judith: Alright, maybe it’s time to talk a bit about the German school system because we’ve been talking about the school situation a lot and I don’t think we ever covered this. |
| Chuck: Alright, sounds good. In Germany, kids enter primary school at the age of six or seven. Primary school lasts four years. Before that they have preschool or what? Kindergarten? |
| Judith: Yeah, but as far as I know it’s not mandatory. You can have kindergarten from the age of three and basically they just play until last year when they actually might learn something. |
| Chuck: So how many years is that? Such as one year as in the States? |
| Judith: I said kindergarten from three years old, so that’s three years and then last year they may learn something that would be useful. So primary school four years, after that there’re basically three different types of secondary school. There is Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium. [Gymnasium] takes nine years, while the other schools are only six years, and upon graduation you get a certificate called the [Abitur]. The certificate is the only entrance requirement for studying at any German university. |
| Chuck: The advantage of this system is that classes are more homogenous and expectations are more suited to the students. |
| Judith: Like, at the [Hauptschule], the pace of learning is rather slow and teachers spend a lot of time explaining things and repeating themselves. |
| Chuck: Whereas at the [Gymnasium], the pace of learning is fast and students are expected to figure out a lot of things on their own as well. |
| Judith: Another advantage is that the schools can better prepare people for the future career. For example, at the [Realschule] you may learn how to apply a certain math formula in everyday life, but at the [Gymnasium] you learn how to prove it right or wrong. |
| Chuck: Basically the [Gymnasium] teaches you scientific methods, whereas the other types of schools have a more practical focus. Still, when there’s high unemployment, many jobs are only open to people with the [Abitur]. Unfortunately though there is a disadvantage that we’re trying to tell good students from bad students quite early and people could change. |
| Judith: Yes. Or maybe they develop a work habit, some work ethic. So if they get worse, they may be forced to repeat a year and if that doesn’t help, they may be forced to attend a different type of school. |
| Chuck: If they get better, they can switch to a better type of school, but it is an immense amount of work to catch up to the class due to the different curriculums. |
| Judith: Because of this, Germany now also have the [Gesamtschule]. |
| Chuck: Comprehensive school. |
| Judith: This allows people to take more advanced classes where they can and more basic classes where they can’t. The [Gesamtschule] can also give you the [Abitur] certificate, but in practice companies don’t value it as much. |
| Chuck: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word we shall see is. |
| Judith: [Wetter] |
| Chuck: Weather. |
| Judith: [Wetter, Wetter, das Wetter] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Warm] |
| Chuck: Warm. |
| Judith: [Warm, warm] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Sogar] |
| Chuck: Even. |
| Judith: [Sogar, sogar] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Heiß] |
| Chuck: Hot. |
| Judith: [Heiß, heiß] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Grad] |
| Chuck: Degrees. |
| Judith: [Grad, Grad] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Thema] |
| Chuck: “Topic” or “theme”. |
| Judith: [Thema, Thema, das Thema] and the plural is [Themen]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Aufschlagen] |
| Chuck: “To break open” or “open a book”. |
| Judith: [Aufschlagen, aufschlagen] The form is [Er schlägt auf] so a vowel-changing verb and the [Auf] splits off. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Aufgabe] |
| Chuck: “Task”, “assignment”, “mission” or “resignation”. |
| Judith: [Aufgabe, Aufgabe, die Aufgabe] and the plural is [Aufgaben]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Wort] |
| Chuck: Word. |
| Judith: [Wort, Wort, das Wort] and the plural is either [Wörter] or [Worte]. [Wörter] if you’re talking about single words and [Worte] if you’re talking about a citation. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Einsetzen] |
| Chuck: “To put in” or “fill in”. |
| Judith: [Einsetzen, einsetzen] and the [Ein] splits off. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Wiederholen] |
| Chuck: To repeat. |
| Judith: [Wiederholen, wiederholen] |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Feier] |
| Chuck: “Celebration” or “party”. |
| Judith: [Feier, Feier, die Feier] and the plural is [Feiern]. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Angucken] |
| Chuck: “To watch” or “look at”. |
| Judith: [Angucken, angucken] and the [An] splits off. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: [Zukunft] |
| Chuck: Future. |
| Judith: [Zukunft, Zukunft, die Zukunft] |
| 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 word we’ll look at is [Aufschlagen]. |
| Chuck: To open a page. |
| Judith: [Schlagen] itself means “to hit someone”, so [Aufschlagen] literally means “to hit open”. Then we have [Einsetzen]. |
| Chuck: “To fill in” or “put in”. |
| Judith: [Setzen] is “to put down” so [Einsetzen] “to put in” maybe. And [Angucken]. |
| Chuck: To look at. |
| Judith: [Gucken] is “to look”, [Angucken] “to look at”. |
| Chuck: And notice that it's spelled with a G. |
| Judith: Yes, this was the hardest word for me to learn in German spelling. I always had trouble spelling it because it does sound like a K but it’s spelled with a G. Then a compound noun, [Der Feiertag]. |
| Chuck: Holiday. |
| Judith: It’s a combination of [Feier]. |
| Chuck: Celebration. |
| Judith: And [Tag]. |
| Chuck: Day. |
| Judith: So a festive day or a holiday. Finally, [Die Klassenarbeit]. |
| Chuck: That’s a less obvious combination. [Klasse] means “class” and [Arbeit] means “work”, but [Klassenarbeit] refers to a written exam. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Judith: The focus of this lesson is ordinal numbers. |
| Chuck: Today you’ve seen some ordinal numbers. Ordinal numbers are numbers like first, second, third, instead of one, two, three. |
| Judith: In German, these numbers end in [Ter] in the base form. First is [Erster], third is [Dritter], but all the others are regular. Just take the German number and add [Ter], so you get [Zweiter, vierter, fünfter, sechster, siebter]. I guess that’s the shortcut as for [Siebzig]. We don’t say [Siebenter], we say [Siebter, achter, neunter] and so on. |
| Chuck: These are also written as 2. 4. 5. and so on, with the dot indicating that it’s an ordinal number. So to read a date, just say the ordinal number for the day and then you could say another ordinal number for the month. |
| Judith: Or you could say the month name, 1st of April would be [Erster April] or [Erster vierter]. |
| Chuck: 01.04. Note that the number will come before the month. Now, the problem is that when you want to say the “on the 1st of April” you need the dative. That means two changes. |
| Judith: One is that the [Der] changes to [Dem]. And this sets off a chain reaction because [An] and [Dem] melt together to form [Am]. The other change is that the adjective suddenly ends in EN and ordinal numbers behave just like adjectives, so the correct form is [Am ersten April] or [Am ersten vierten]. |
| Chuck: Fortunately, all month names are masculine singular so you don’t have to worry about any other changes. Oh, by the way, the same thing happens with [Von] and [Bis zu], “from” and “to”. |
| Judith: You have to say [Vom ersten bis zum dritten April]. [Vom sechsten August bis jetzt]. Ich lerne die Vokabeln bis zum vierten Oktober. |
| Chuck: I'll study the vocabulary until the 4th of October. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Well, that just about does it for today. |
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| Chuck: We hope you enjoyed this lesson. See you next week. |
| Judith: Wir hoffen euch hat diese Lektion gefallen. Bis nächste Woche. |
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