Learn about colloquial German
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here, Absolute Beginner, Season 2, Lesson 20, One Too Many German Beers. Hello and welcome back to GermanPod101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn German. I’m joined in the studio by... |
| Judith: Hello, everyone. Judith here. |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to understand colloquial German. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at the pub in Berlin. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Paul and Sarah. |
| Judith: The speakers are friends therefore they will be speaking informal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to this conversation. |
| DIALOGUES |
| Chuck: Ahh, da kommt die Kellnerin wieder. |
| Judith: Zwei Berliner Pilsener. |
| Chuck: Danke. … Prost! |
| Judith: Prost! |
| Chuck: Mhmm, lecker! Ich lieb' deutsches Bier. |
| Judith: Yeah, Ja, ich mag's auch sehr gern. |
| Chuck: 'Tschuldigung! Noch 'n Bier bitte! |
| Judith: Kommt sofort. |
| Chuck: Für mich lieber kein Bier mehr. Ich nehm' 'ne Cola. |
| Judith: Warum? |
| Chuck: Ich fühl' mich nich' so gut. |
| Judith: Oh. |
| Chuck: Und morgen früh hab' ich Unterricht. |
| Judith: Ich ja auch. Von zwei Bier werd' ich nich' blau. |
| Judith: Now, with the translation. |
| Judith: Ahh, da kommt die Kellnerin wieder. |
| Chuck: Ah, there’s comes the waitress again. |
| Judith: Zwei Berliner Pilsener. |
| Chuck: Two Berliner Pilsner. |
| Judith: Danke. … Prost! |
| Chuck: Thanks. Cheers. |
| Judith: Prost! |
| Chuck: Cheers. |
| Judith: Mhmm, lecker! Ich lieb' deutsches Bier. |
| Chuck: Tasty. I love German beer. |
| Judith: Ja, ich mag's auch sehr gern. |
| Chuck: Yes, I like it a lot, too. |
| Judith: 'Tschuldigung! Noch 'n Bier bitte! |
| Chuck: Excuse me. Another beer, please. |
| Judith: Kommt sofort. |
| Chuck: Coming right up. |
| Judith: Für mich lieber kein Bier mehr. |
| Chuck: I’d rather not have any more beer. |
| Judith: Ich nehm' 'ne Cola. |
| Chuck: I’ll take a cola. |
| Judith: Warum? |
| Chuck: Why? |
| Judith: Ich fühl' mich nich' so gut. |
| Chuck: I don’t feel so good. |
| Judith: Oh. |
| Chuck: Oh. |
| Judith: Und morgen früh hab' ich Unterricht. |
| Chuck: And tomorrow morning I have class. |
| Judith: Ich ja auch. Von zwei Bier werd' ich nich' blau. |
| Chuck: Me, too. I’m not going to get drunk from two beers. |
| Judith: Egal |
| Chuck: Whatever. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: All right, finally, it’s time to talk about beer. |
| Chuck: Yey. |
| Judith: It’s something that Germans miss abroad, obviously. |
| Chuck: Don’t I need some beer in order to talk about it properly? |
| Judith: No, I don’t think so. So, what do you know about beer in Germany? |
| Chuck: It’s yummy. |
| Judith: Obviously. There are lots of brands of beer in Germany and there are different types like pilsner, alt, lager export, dark beer, strong beer. |
| Chuck: There are also mixes, for example, radler is beer with lemonade and beware of what they called Berliner Weisse. |
| Judith: Normally, Weisse is a Bavarian style wheat beer, but Berliner Weisse usually comes, say, in syrup. |
| Chuck: German beer is typically 5% alcohol. You’ll note that’s weaker than Belgium beer. |
| Judith: And it goes well with hearty foods, not so common with fancy foods, but fancy foods people prefer wine. |
| Chuck: There is quite a high consumption, some people drink 6 or 7 in the course of an evening and the per capita yearly consumption is among the highest in the world. Oh, one more thing also to notice is that often when you order beer in a restaurant or a bar, you’ll actually get the proper glass for that type of beer. |
| Judith: Yes, of course. |
| Chuck: Like from the same company. |
| Judith: And of course, Bavaria is the heartland of beer consumption. |
| Chuck: Learn more from the advanced audio blog Series 1, Lesson 4, all about beer even though your German is probably not god enough to understand this audio blog, you can read the translation in the PDF and compare it to the German text. In any case, it can’t hurt. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is... |
| Judith: wieder |
| Chuck: Again. |
| Judith: wieder |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Prost |
| Chuck: Cheers. |
| Judith: Prost |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: lecker |
| Chuck: Yummy or delicious. |
| Judith: lecker |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: lieben |
| Chuck: To love. |
| Judith: lieben |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: sofort |
| Chuck: Immediate or right away. |
| Judith: sofort |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: mehr |
| Chuck: More. |
| Judith: mehr |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: fühlen |
| Chuck: To feel. |
| Judith: fühlen |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Unterricht |
| Chuck: Instruction or class. |
| Judith: Unterricht. This word is masculine, der Unterricht. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: blau |
| Chuck: Blue. |
| Judith: blau |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: egal |
| Chuck: Does it matter? |
| Judith: egal |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| 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 look at is „Deutsch“. |
| Chuck: German. |
| Judith: It’s not just the name of the language, it’s also an adjective. As an adjective, it just spelled with a small letter and it acquires the typical adjective endings as in „deutsches Bier“.Then we shouldn’t cut „mehr“ |
| Chuck: Normally, means more. |
| Judith: Yeah, but in a negative sentence, it means not anymore. For example, „es gibt kein Bier mehr“ |
| Chuck: There’s no beer anymore, or they’re out of beer. |
| Judith: Then „fühlen“ is like „treffen“ and that it comes with an extra pronoun. We literally say, “I feel me good” instead of “I feel good”, Ich fühle mich gut. |
| Chuck: Since German uses the same word for morning and for tomorrow, I bet some of you have wondered how to say tomorrow morning. Well, it’s not „Morgen Morgen“, instead we say „Morgen früh“ as an early tomorrow. |
| Judith: Yes, „Morgen früh“. And then „blau“ is a special case. It doesn’t just mean blue, it’s also a slang for drunk. |
| Chuck: But unlike English, it can’t mean “sad.” |
| Judith: Yes. If you say I’m blue, in German, “Ich bin blau.” that means, I’m drunk. It doesn’t mean I’m sad. It can also mean I’m blue, literally, but it’s unlikely. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus for this lesson is colloquial German. |
| Judith: Today, I want us to look at the cases where a spoken German and written German don’t match up. Quite apart from any of dialects and social act there are some things that can be noticed across Germany and across all generations. |
| Chuck: For example, the final E of verb forms is almost always dropped if the verb stem is short. |
| Judith: People will say “ich denk'” and not “ich denke”, “ich nehm'” and not “ich nehme”, “ich hab'” and not “ich habe” and so on. |
| Chuck: When writing down this form, for example, in song lyrics or transcription of speech, Germans typically indicate this missing E with an apostrophe in its place. |
| Judith: The apostrophe is also used when the E of S is missing in phrases like “Wie geht's?” or “Ich mag's auch”. S is very often shortened. |
| Chuck: For „ein“, „eine“, „einen“ and related forms, the EI is dropped. |
| Judith: Yeah, this leaves „'n“ for „ein“ „'ne“ and for „eine“, „'nen“ for „einen“ Also “Etwas” is shortened to “was”. |
| Chuck: Also the final T is often replaced by just a longer S sound as in the second person singular forms like “hast”, “willst”, “or nimmst” |
| Judith: Yes, only when there’s ST at the ending. So, instead of “hast” we say du hass, du wills, du nimms and the final T in nischt is also dropped in many parts of Germany. However, other parts pronounce it “nischt”,or , that’s where Chuck learned his German. There’s also “nisch” or “nech” When staying in Germany, you should probably adopt whatever is most common in your area. |
| Chuck: Or actually where I lived when I first came to Germany, they always said “net” instead. |
| Judith: Yes another possibility. |
| Chuck: These are really the most conservative things one can say about colloquial German. The rest depends in the dialect of the person you’re talking to, their age, and of course, well, how many beers they’ve had. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. |
| Judith: Listeners, can you understand German TV shows, movies or songs? |
| Chuck: How about friends’ or loved ones’ conversations in German? |
| Judith: If you want to know what’s going on, we have a tool to help. |
| Chuck: Line by line audio. |
| Judith: Listen to the lesson conversations line by line and learn to understand natural German fast. |
| Chuck: It’s simple, really. |
| Judith: With the click of a button, listen to each line of the conversation. |
| Chuck: Listen again and again and tune your ear to natural German. |
| Judith: Rapidly understand natural German with this powerful tool. |
| Chuck: Find this feature on the Lesson page under Premium Member Resources at GermanPod101.com. We hope you like these lessons. I think I’ll have to go grab me a beer now. |
| Chuck:We hope you like these lessons. See you next week! |
| Judith:Wir hoffen, ihr mögt diese Lektionen. Bis nächste Woche! |
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