Learn about separable verbs and what German bookstores have to offer
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Absolute Beginner Season 2, Lesson 14; Going out Carrying German Books. |
| Judith: Hello, everyone. I’m Judith, and welcome to GermanPod101.com. |
| Chuck: With us you’ll learn to speak German with fun and effective lessons. |
| Judith: We also provide you with cultural insights. |
| Chuck: And tips you won’t find in a textbook. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about your hobbies. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at a German language school during class. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between four classmates; Sarah, Chuck, Angelina and Paul. They are still playing the Two Lies and One Truth game. Sarah will start by making three statements, only one of which is true and the others have to guess which one it is. |
| Judith: Later, Paul also makes some statements and the others have to guess which one of his is true. The speakers are classmates. Therefore, they will be speaking informal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUES |
| Judith: Okay... Das ist nicht einfach... Entweder gehe ich jeden Abend aus, oder ich trinke keinen Alkohol, oder ich fahre morgen weg. |
| Chuck: Was? Du gehst jeden Abend aus aber du trinkst keinen Alkohol?? |
| Judith: Nein, du verstehst das falsch. ENTWEDER sie geht jeden Abend aus ODER sie trinkt keinen Alkohol. |
| Chuck: Ich glaube sie geht jeden Abend aus. Ist das richtig? |
| Judith: Ja |
| Chuck: Zu einfach. |
| Judith: Sag du etwas, Paul. |
| Chuck: Hmm... Entweder gebe ich viel Geld für Bücher aus, oder ich habe kein Handy, oder ich lerne jeden Abend Vokabeln. |
| Judith: Du sprichst gut Deutsch,du lernst jeden Abend Vokabeln. |
| Chuck: Was? Nein. Ich lerne viel, aber nicht jeden Tag. Ich möchte auch ausgehen. |
| Judith: Vielleicht gibst du viel Geld für Bücher aus? |
| Chuck: Ja, das ist richtig. |
| Judith: Now with the translation. |
| Judith: Okay... Das ist nicht einfach... Entweder gehe ich jeden Abend aus, oder ich trinke keinen Alkohol, oder ich fahre morgen weg. |
| Chuck: Okay. This is not easy, either I go out every evening, or I don’t drink any alcohol, or I’m departing tomorrow. |
| Judith: Was? Du gehst jeden Abend aus aber du trinkst keinen Alkohol?? |
| Chuck: What, you go out every evening but you don’t drink any alcohol. |
| Judith: Nein, du verstehst das falsch. ENTWEDER sie geht jeden Abend aus ODER sie trinkt keinen Alkohol. |
| Chuck: No. You’re understanding it wrong. Either she goes out every evening or she doesn’t drink any alcohol. |
| Judith: Ich glaube sie geht jeden Abend aus. Ist das richtig? |
| Chuck: I think she goes out every evening, is that right? |
| Judith: Ja. |
| Chuck: Yes. |
| Judith: Zu einfach. |
| Chuck: Too easy. |
| Judith: Sag du etwas, Paul. |
| Chuck: You say something Paul. |
| Judith: Hmm... Entweder gebe ich viel Geld für Bücher aus, oder ich habe kein Handy, oder ich lerne jeden Abend Vokabeln. |
| Chuck: Hmm, either I spend a lot of money on books or I have no cell phone or I study vocabulary every evening. |
| Judith: Du sprichst gut Deutsch,du lernst jeden Abend Vokabeln. |
| Chuck: You speak German well. You study vocabulary every night. |
| Judith: Was? Nein. Ich lerne viel, aber nicht jeden Tag. Ich möchte auch ausgehen. |
| Chuck: What? No. I study a lot but not every night. I also like to go out. |
| Judith: Vielleicht gibst du viel Geld für Bücher aus? |
| Chuck: Maybe you spend a lot of money on books. |
| Judith: Ja, das ist richtig. |
| Chuck: Yes, that’s correct. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Judith: All right. Now this lesson gives me the perfect excuse to be talking about books. |
| Chuck: No, not that. |
| Judith: Books and bookstores to be precise. German bookstores are not so nice as American ones because there’s usually no place to sit down or no place to get water or no cafeteria. They’re pretty much set on just selling books. |
| Chuck: I think that’s going to change with places to sit down. I’m seeing more and more places that have places to sit down but it’s really not as common as in the States. |
| Judith: Yeah. And this is Berlin with the innovation stalwarts. So I think in most German towns you’re still out of luck. |
| Chuck: Yeah. And one thing you’ll notice that you don’t have to sit in the book store forever until Judith finishes looking at all the books. |
| Judith: Hey, stop it. I’m not bringing out your dirty laundry. Anyway, most German bookstores only have German books or a very small selection of English books. And there was one type of book that is a lot more popular here that in the USA. Those are books that propose to teach you general knowledge or how to behave. It might indicate that Germans are more afraid of making a fool of themselves by appearing stupid or uncultured. |
| Chuck: Also note that audio books are quite popular, also audio books for foreign language learning. Also, Germans really value their books. They show them off in their living room. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is. |
| Judith: Abend |
| Chuck: Evening. |
| Judith: Abend and the plural isAbends. |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: ausgehen |
| Chuck: To go out. |
| Judith: ausgehen |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: trinken |
| Chuck: To drink. |
| Judith: trinken |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Alkohol |
| Chuck: Alcohol. |
| Judith: Alkohol |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: wegfahren |
| Chuck: To go away in a vehicle. |
| Judith: wegfahren |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: morgen |
| Chuck: Tomorrow. |
| Judith: morgen |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: verstehen |
| Chuck: To understand. |
| Judith: verstehen |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: richtig |
| Chuck: Correct or really. |
| Judith: richtig |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: sagen |
| Chuck: To say. |
| Judith: sagen |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: ausgeben |
| Chuck: To spend, as in money. |
| Judith: ausgeben |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Geld |
| Chuck: Money. |
| Judith: Geld |
| Chuck: Next. |
| Judith: Buch |
| Chuck: Book. |
| Judith: Buch and the plural is Bücher. |
| 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 to look at is morgen. There’s a difference between morgen and der Morgen. der Morgen means “the morning” but the adverb „morgen“ means “tomorrow”. It’s not strange that these words should be related. In English, the word tomorrow contains „morrow“. |
| Chuck: „morrow“. What’s that? |
| Judith: „morrow“, means “morning” in old or poetic English. |
| Chuck: Oh okay. |
| Judith: In German, pay attention if „morgen“ is used with an article or not. Without an article, it means “tomorrow”. |
| Chuck: So what does it mean with an article then? |
| Judith: With an article it means “some morning” einige Morgen “some morning.” Also, I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that „Bücher“ is the plural of „Buch”. As such, „Bücher“ means “books”. Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for German words to acquire an Umlaut in their plural form. And finally, we should talk about the three ways that „zu“ can be used. The first is when indicating a direction like „zum Supermarkt“ . |
| Chuck: To the supermarket. |
| Judith: Or „zur Schule“ . |
| Chuck: To school. |
| Judith: The second is with infinitives like „zu gehen“. |
| Chuck: To go. |
| Judith: Or „zu lernen“. |
| Chuck: To learn. |
| Judith: The third use which we have seen in this lesson’s dialogue is with adjectives. There it means „too“ with a double o. For example „zu einfach“. |
| Chuck: Too easy. |
| Judith: „zu kompliziert“ |
| Chuck: Too complicated. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The focus of this lesson is separable verbs. A separable verb or a splitting verb is one that splits in two at the slightest provocation. For example, „ausgehen“ means “to go out”. |
| Judith: In the infinitive, it’s one word as you can also see in the phrase „Ich möchte ausgehen“. |
| Chuck: I want to go out. |
| Judith: However, when it’s conjugated, the „ausgehen“ splits off and positions itself at the end of a sentence „aus“ |
| Chuck: The prefix „aus“ is the direct equivalent of the English „out“ in to go out. You could think of German as saying to I’ll go if you want. „wegfahren“ , to drive away would be to away drive then. |
| Judith: Just keep in mind that the prefix is attached for the infinitive but when you do anything else with verb, the prefix splits off and move to the end of the sentence. |
| Chuck: Some verbs don’t have direct English equivalents like go out or drive away though or they could mean something else. |
| Judith: For example, „ausgeben“ |
| Chuck: To spend, as in money. |
| Judith: Yes. But literally, it would suggest to “give out,” which it doesn’t mean. There is also „aussprechen“ |
| Chuck: To pronounce. |
| Judith: Yeah. Literally, to “speak out” but it means “to pronounce.” |
| Chuck: It’s always the same prefix as it splits off. And there is a limited number of them. Once you get the hang of it, it’s not really difficult, just a little bit annoying. |
| Judith: Yeah. We shall see a lot more separable verbs. They are really common in German. |
| Chuck: Yeah. Also note that verbs can be vowel changing and separable at the same time. |
| Judith: For example, „wegfahren“.„fahren“ is vowel changing verb. For example, we say „er fährt“. |
| Chuck: He drives. |
| Judith: And that means that „wegfahren“ must behave in the same way „er fährt weg“. |
| Chuck: He drives away. If there’s anything special with the verb, if it changes its vowel or its prefix splits off, we’ll then give you the he, she or it form in the vocabulary. This one form is enough to know. |
Outro |
| Chuck: Well, that’s just about does it for today. Not enough time, I know. |
| Judith: You’re very busy. |
| Chuck: We know, and that’s why we have one-click lesson downloads on iTunes. |
| Judith: Subscribe in iTunes. |
| Chuck: All free materials will be automatically downloaded for each new lesson as they become available. |
| Judith: Basic and premium members get all access to bonus lesson materials as well. |
| Chuck: Save time, spend more time studying. |
| Judith: Never worry about missing another lesson again. |
| Chuck: Go to iTunes, search for the phrase GermanPod101.com and click subscribe. So see you next week. |
| Judith: Also, bis nächste Woche! |
15 Comments
HideHello Andrei,
Thank you for your feedback.
It is from speaker to speaker individually different in which order
they say this. Grammatically both are correct. You could turn the order of those words around in both
sentences, and it would not really change the meaning:
"Entweder ich gehe jeden Abend aus..." , "ENTWEDER geht sie jeden Abend aus".
If there is a difference then one of emphasis: a person might try to put more emphasis
on ich/sie or on "ausgehen".😉
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Dear GermanPod101 team,
I noticed that in the sentence: "Entweder gehe ich jeden Abend aus, oder ich ...." the verb "gehe" is on the second position, but in the sentence: "ENTWEDER sie geht jeden Abend aus ODRDER..." the verb "get" is on the third position. Can you explain this, please?
Thanks!
Hi Stefan,
The normal word order in a sentence can change if other
components besides subject, verb and object are added. In some of these
cases the subject may end up behind the verb.
For example: Heute gehe ich ins Kino. "ich" can be placed behind "gehe" because
heute was added at the beginning of the sentence. "heute" was probably placed at the
beginning of this sentence to emphasize it. You could also say: Ich gehe heute ins Kino.
"entweder" is a disjunctive conjunction and the same rule as above applies: the subject can
be placed behind the verb after "entweder".
However, the sentence "Entweder ich gebe viel Geld für Bücher aus, oder ..." would also be okay.
Thank you.
If you have any further questions, please let us know.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Hi,
I have a question on this line in the dialogue "Hmm... Entweder gebe ich viel Geld für Bücher aus, oder ich habe kein Handy, oder ich lerne jeden Abend Vokabeln."
Why does "gebe" appear before "ich" in the "Entweder gebe ich viel Geld für Bücher aus" but the rests of the sentence begin with "ich"?
Hi Soraya,
Thanks for your comments and sorry for getting
back so late.
I didn't even know Bewegungskrankheit until I read your
comment. I am sorry to hear that.
By the way, please allow me to make a few minor changes to your sentence:
Die Deutschen haben in der Regel Bewegungskrankheit nicht! ? Ich habe sie. So kann ich Buecher/Bücher auf der Reise nicht lesen.
If you have any further questions, please let us know.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Die Deutschen nicht haben Bewegungskrankheit! ? ich habe es.So ich kann Bucher in der Reise nicht Lesen.
ich geniessen Horen Deutches liebe zeigen Menschen anderer ihre Bucher.
Hi Mohamed,
exactly, you use dative when saying "Wir werden auf der Terasse grillen." As it is "die Terasse", it changes to "auf DER Terasse". "der Asphalt", auf DEN Asphalt, another example for masc. nooun "der Hund", you also say "auf den Hund". I hope it is more plausible now.
Jennifer
Team Germanpod
Hallo! In the exapnsion sentences "Wir werden auf der Terrasse grillen". So I understood that after AUF we use Dative, is that correct?
Yet I heard this song that had "Auf den Asphalt" !! I am confused :/
Hi Julian,
No problem!
Regards,
Katrin
Team GermanPod101.com