Learn a few tips to avoid jet lag and some of German adjectives and adverbs
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Intermediate Season 4, Lesson 11 – “Will There be Presentations in Klingon at This German Conference?” |
| Judith: Hi, my name is [Judith] and I’m joined here by Chuck. |
| Chuck: Hello everyone and welcome back to GermanPod101.com. What are we learning today? |
| Judith: In this lesson you’ll learn how to discuss about a conference that you’re going to. |
| Chuck: The conversation takes place at night, out in Berlin. |
| Judith: The conversation is between Joe and [Anke]. They’re friends therefore they’ll be speaking informal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Joe: (gähnt) Jetzt bin ich wirklich müde. |
| Anke: Echt? Aber es ist doch erst 10 Uhr! |
| Joe: Ja, es ist sicher Jetlag. Ich freue mich jetzt auf mein Bett. Ich werde bestimmt gut schlafen. |
| Anke: Na dann bringe ich dich jetzt zurück zum Hotel. |
| Joe: Danke. Es war ein wirklich schöner Abend. |
| Anke: Was hast du morgen vor? |
| Joe: Die Konferenz natürlich. |
| Anke: Ah, ja, wann fängt die an? |
| Joe: Morgens um 10 Uhr ist die Eröffnung, aber vielleicht komme ich ein bisschen später, damit ich ausschlafen kann. |
| Anke: Die Reden zur Eröffnung sind meistens äußerst langweilig. Die kannst du ruhig verpassen. |
| Joe: Wirklich? Bist du sicher? |
| Anke: Ich kenne keine Ausnahme, zumindest nicht hier in Deutschland. Zur Eröffnung einer Konferenz gibt es immer langweilige Reden. Die Regierung und die Sponsoren, alle wollen sie etwas sagen, und die meisten reden sehr lang. |
| Joe: Lange Reden sind nichts für mich. Dann schlafe ich morgen einfach aus und gehe nach dem Mittagessen zu den wirklich guten Vorträgen. |
| Anke: Auf welcher Sprache sind die Vorträge? |
| Joe: Das ist gemischt. Viele sind auf Englisch, aber es gibt auch welche auf Deutsch. |
| Anke: Keine auf Klingonisch? |
| Joe: Klingonisch??? ... Ach so, weil ich ein bisschen Klingonisch spreche? Nein, keine Vorträge auf Klingonisch, haha. |
| Joe: (yawning) Now I'm really tired. |
| Anke: Really? But it's only 10 o'clock! |
| Joe: Yes, it's certainly jet lag. I'm looking forward to my bed now. I'll certainly sleep well. |
| Anke: Then I'll bring you back to your hotel now. |
| Joe: Thanks. It was a really nice evening. |
| Anke: What are you planning for tomorrow? |
| Joe: The conference, of course. |
| Anke: Oh yeah, when is it starting? |
| Joe: The official opening is in the morning at 10 o'clock, but maybe I'll come a bit later so that I can sleep in. |
| Anke: The opening speeches are mostly extremely boring. You can calmly skip them. |
| Joe: Really? Are you sure? |
| Anke: I can't think of any exceptions, at least not here in Germany. At the openings of conferences there are always boring speeches. The government and the sponsors, they all want to say something, and most of them talk for a long time. |
| Joe: Long speeches are not my thing. Then I'll just sleep in and go after lunch to the really good talks. |
| Anke: What language are the talks in? |
| Joe: It's mixed. Many are in English, but there are also some in German. |
| Anke: None in Klingon? |
| Joe: Klingon??? ... Ahh, because I speak a little bit of Klingon? No, no talks in Klingon, haha. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: Well, Joe certainly seems to be out of it. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: Though being up to ten hours if you’re coming from across from the Atlantic. |
| Chuck: Yeah, how about we give some tips about jet lag? |
| Judith: Yeah, that sounds useful. One thing is that you should try to sleep at regular hours, so stay up as long as you can. |
| Chuck: Yeah. |
| Judith: Unless you arrive in early morning, in which you can sleep in until ten or so. |
| Chuck: Yeah, use the excitement of being abroad to keep you awake. |
| Judith: Yeah, I noticed that when I first came to Montreal, it was also my first time outside of Europe and I wasn’t able to sleep. I mean, I was not even remotely tired because I was like “Wow”! |
| Chuck: Try to have meals at the local times, eating will tell your body when it’s supposed to be awake. |
| Judith: Yes, whenever you eat something, your body knows that will have to stay awake for a while. And a last thing is that you shouldn’t drink alcohol within 48 hours of landing, but do drink a lot of water. |
| Chuck: You might want to use coffee, tea or cocktails to stay awake, but keep in mind that the caffeine only warns out after six hours. That means it’s kind of productive drinks if you want to get a goodnight rest sometime soon. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word we shall see is? |
| Judith: [Bett] |
| Chuck: “Bed”. |
| Judith: [Bett, das Bett] and the plural is [Betten] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Eröffnung] |
| Chuck: “Opening” or “opening ceremony”. |
| Judith: [Eröffnung, die Eröffnung] and the plural is [Eröffnungen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [ausschlafen] |
| Chuck: “To sleep in”. |
| Judith: [ausschlafen, ausschlafen] and the [aus] splits off and it’s a vowel changing verb so [Er schläft aus]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Rede] |
| Chuck: “Speech”. |
| Judith: [Rede, die Rede] and the plural is [Reden]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [äußerst] |
| Chuck: “Extremely”. |
| Judith: [äußerst, äußerst] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [verpassen] |
| Chuck: “To miss” as in a schedule connection. |
| Judith: [verpassen, verpassen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Ausnahme] |
| Chuck: “Exception”. |
| Judith: Ausnahme, die Ausnahme] and the plural is [Ausnahmen]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Regierung] |
| Chuck: “Government”. |
| Judith: [Regierung, die Regierung] and the plural is [Regierungen]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Sponsor] |
| Chuck: “Sponsor”. |
| Judith: [Sponsor, der Sponsor] and the plural is [Sponsoren]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Vortrag] |
| Chuck: “Lecture”. |
| Judith: [Vortrag, der Vortrag] and the plural is [Vorträge]. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [mischen] |
| Chuck: “To mix” or “shuffle”. |
| Judith: [mischen, mischen] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first word we’ll look at is the [die] in [Wann fängt die an] it’s a reference to [die Eröffnung] in spoken German, it’s possible to say [die] instead of [sie] and [der] instead of [er]. However, if you do this for people it’s not polite, you shouldn’t do to their face. Then, we should look at [das Mittagessen]. |
| Chuck: It’s a combination of [Mittag], which means “noon” and [Essen] “meal”, so this means “lunch”. |
| Judith: [Das Mittagessen] |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is adjectives and adverbs. |
| Judith: As we’ve seen before, German adjectives have to adopt various endings when they’re combined with a noun. German adverbs do not have a special ending. |
| Chuck: What’s the difference between an adjective and an adverb? |
| Judith: Well, in English adverbs typically end up in [ly], however “well” is also an adverb, where “good” is the corresponding adjective. In German, the adverb is typically the same as the adjective, so Germans have a lot of troubles with the concept of adverbs when learning English. |
| Chuck: Yes. Also, the concept does not seem completely transposable, because in English any word in a sentence with “be” is an adjective. |
| Judith: Indeed. So, in German it should require different endings, shouldn’t it? In Romans languages, these adjectives actually do get different endings as if they were placed next to a noun. Except in German, they are attributed to adverbs, so they are unchangeable. |
| Chuck: Can you give us an example? |
| Judith: Yes. Compare the word [langsam] in this context. First, we have classical adjective [die langsame, alte Frau geht die Treppe rauf]. |
| Chuck: “The slow old woman walks up the stairs.” |
| Judith: And in French it would be [la lente, vieille femme monte les escaliers], so the [lente] you hear has a feminine ending. Then, compare this to the classical adverb [die alte Frau geht langsam geht die Treppe rauf.] |
| Chuck: “The old woman slowly walks up the stairs.” |
| Judith: [La vieille femme monte les escaliers lentement] – adverb. So first is good. But now, the case where German and English and French are completely different: [Die alte Frau ist langsam]. |
| Chuck: “The old woman is slow.” |
| Judith: [La vieille femme est lente], so you see, in French we have the adjective ending [lente] and in English we also have an adjective, because “slow” and not “slowly” but in German is [langsam], the adverb. It doesn’t have any special ending. So, to summarize, if an adjective is before a noun then it gets special endings like [langsame, langsamer, langsamen], whatever. But if it’s anywhere else in the sentence, then it doesn’t get any endings. |
Outro |
| Chuck: That just about does it for today. |
| Judith: Attention iPhone, iPod and iPad users! |
| Chuck: Listen, tap and swipe your way to fluency with our German language apps. |
| Judith: Grow your vocabulary and practice on the go with our German language applications! |
| Chuck: Fun and easy to use, German apps are available on iTunes! |
| Judith: Visit our iPhone page on GermanPod101.com/iPhone to learn more. |
| Chuck: Okay, see you next week! |
| Judith: [Ok, dann bis nächste Woche!] |
Comments
HideHattet Ihr schon einmal die Gelegenheit einen Vortrag auf Deutsch zu hören?
Have you ever had the chance to listen to a speech in German?
Hallo robert groulx,
You are very welcome. 😇
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Good luck with your language studies.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Levente
Team GermanPod101.com
thnks for the lesson
my favorite words are Wirklich? Bist du sicher?
robert
Hi Dina,
Thank you for your suggestion!👍
We are constantly trying to improve our site and we
couldn't do it half as efficiently without the feedback from
interested learners like yourself.
I will pass your message on to our team for further consideration.
Thanks again.
If you have any other questions, please let us know.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Hi Reinhard,
Thank you for your reply.
I've been learningJapanese with Peter Galanter following Japanesepod101.com from absolute beginner to upper intermediate for almost 2 years, he found a great way to balance that. All lessons of beginner serious follow the same style you do here, but by intermediate level both comments and lessons audios are both in English and Japanese and even more in Japanese. So it's not boring for learners at the actual intermediate level, but since English is still there even beginners don't have issues with understanding.
I believe, it's also fair to assume that if people go for intermediate level, their language skills provably already better than those of beginners.
It would take more time on your side, but it's super helpful.
Thank you,
Dina
Hi Dina,
Thank you for your feedback!👍
Regarding your question:
I thought the same thing at first but the problem with that is, we
don't know the level of every single learner reading these comments.
Especially when it is about grammar, we need to make sure everyone will benefit
from what is being explained.
Thanks again.
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Ich bin nie in einer Konferenz auf Deutsch gewesen, aber wenn ich eine Chance habe, würde ich das sehr gerne tun.
P.S.:
Warum antwortet Ihr auf Englisch wenn die Kommentaren in Deutsch gesendet wurden?
Ich glaube, es würde auch große Motivation für uns, wenn Ihr auf Deutsch antwortet.
Hi Myg,
Thank you for your comment.
You enjoyed these lectures, I take it. You are back "to school"😉
studying German.
Best of luck with that.
If you have any further questions, please let us know.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Ich hätte in Schule ein paar Vortrag auf Deutsch gehört, aber nur ungefähr zwanzig oder dreißig Minuten. Hat deutschen Konferenzen auch Verkaufers als manchmal amerikanischen so tun?
Hi Dale,
Who knows, it migth be very interesting ;)
Thank you for writing, your German was fine!
Regards,
Katrin
Team GermanPod101.com
Klingonische Sprache? Wirklich? Was für ein Konferenz ist es? Ich denke es wird ein langweilige Konferenz!
Klingon language? Really? What kind of conference is it? I think it will be a boring conference.