Dialogue

Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Chuck: Chuck here. Absolute Beginner Season 2, Lesson 6, How’s Your German Today?
Judith: Hi. My name is Judith and I’m joined here by Chuck.
Chuck: Hello everyone and welcome back to GermanPod101.com.
Judith: What are we learning today?
Chuck: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to make small talk in German.
Judith: This conversation takes place at Paul’s host family after he’s done registering for the German classes.
Chuck: The conversation is between Paul and Mrs. Snyder.
Judith: The speakers don’t know each other well, therefore, they’ll be speaking formal German.
Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation.
DIALOGUES
Judith: Hallo, Herr Martens! Willkommen!
Chuck: Ähmm, hallo! Wie geht es Ihnen, Frau Schneider?! How do…
Judith: Mir geht es gut, danke, und Ihnen?
Chuck: … Auch gut, danke.
Judith: Sind Sie müde?
Chuck: Nicht sehr müde, nein.
Judith: Sehr gut.
Judith: And now slowly.
Judith: Hallo, Herr Martens! Willkommen!
Chuck: Ähmm, hallo! Wie geht es Ihnen, Frau Schneider?! How do…
Judith: Mir geht es gut, danke, und Ihnen?
Chuck: … Auch gut, danke.
Judith: Sind Sie müde?
Chuck: Nicht sehr müde, nein.
Judith: Sehr gut.
Judith: Now with the translation.
Judith: Hallo, Herr Martens! Willkommen!
Chuck: Hello, Mr. Martens. Welcome.
Judith: Ähmm, hallo! Wie geht es Ihnen, Frau Schneider?! How do...
Chuck: Um, hello. How are you, Mrs. Snyder? How do...
Judith: Mir geht es gut, danke, und Ihnen?
Chuck: I’m good, thanks. And you?
Judith: … Auch gut, danke.
Chuck: Also good .Thanks.
Judith: Sind Sie müde?
Chuck: Are you tired?
Judith: Nicht sehr müde, nein.
Chuck: Not very tired, no.
Judith: Sehr gut.
Chuck: Very good.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Chuck: Let’s talk about some things that people need to know when they’re, you know.
Judith: Coming to Germany?
Chuck: Um, I’m talking about small talk.
Judith: Okay. What do you want to say?
Chuck: Well, I noticed that there’s a lot less small talk in, um, Germany, well specially in professional relationships.
Judith: Yeah, when you’re doing business with someone there’s not that much, well, unless you’re a businessman or something. And even among friends I think there’s more small talk in the states like there’s more talk about the weather especially.
Chuck: Um-hum. Yeah.
Judith: And also another thing I noticed that for example in this conversation that we just heard in today’s dialogue, Paul said how are you and he immediately started saying something else but in Germany if someone says how are you, well, the German equivalent Wie geht es Ihnen, this is a start to hear everything that’s going on in people’s lives so don’t just talk on and don’t be surprised if the answer is really long.
Chuck: Um-hum. Among friends the news or the political situation can easily come up as a topic of discussion. It’s not taboo. And generally, you’ll expect everyone to be up to date with the basics of current events.
Judith: Yeah, but religion is a taboo. You’re not supposed to be talking about this. It’s for everyone’s private thing.
VOCAB LIST
Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is?
Judith: hallo
Chuck: Hello.
Judith: hallo
Chuck: Next.
Judith: Herr
Chuck: Mister or lord.
Judith: Herr
Chuck: Next.
Judith: Frau
Chuck: Miss or woman.
Judith: Frau
Chuck: Next.
Judith: gehen
Chuck: To go or to walk.
Judith: gehen
Chuck: Next.
Judith: es
Chuck: It.
Judith: es
Chuck: Next.
Judith: Ihnen
Chuck: To you, formal.
Judith: Ihnen
Chuck: Next.
Judith: mir
Chuck: To me.
Judith: mir
Chuck: Next.
Judith: gut
Chuck: Good.
Judith: gut
Chuck: Next.
Judith: müde
Chuck: Tired.
Judith: müde
Chuck: Next.
Judith: sehr
Chuck: Very.
Judith: sehr
Chuck: Next.
Judith: Willkommen
Chuck:Welcome
Judith:Willkommen
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some the words and phrases from this lesson.
Judith: The first word we’ll look at is „mir“.
Chuck: To me.
Judith: It’s a special form of the word „ich“ or I. In English, I changes to me when it’s the object of sentence as in I get a present but you give a present to me. It’s the same idea in German. „Ihnen“ is the same thing but for „Sie“ that is for the formal you. As „Sie“ means they, „Ihnen“ also means to them. Both „mir“ and „Ihnen“ only come up when they are the object of a sentence.
Chuck: Oh, and also don’t expect to find any logic behind the phrase „Wie geht es Ihnen?“. I mean it means, “How are you?” Well, it literally means, “How goes it to you?” Doesn’t really makes sense.
Judith: Yeah. Maybe it’s related to asking, “How’s it going?” But that doesn’t explain the “to you” part. To go is not supposed to have an object. Anyway, this is an idiom and you will come across a number of idioms when learning languages. The only thing you can do is to learn them by heart and use them frequently.

Lesson focus

Chuck: The focus of this lesson are question-word-questions and question tags.
Judith: In the second lesson, we already saw how to create yes or no questions in German. Just pull up the verb to the front like „Lernen Sie Deutsch?“ instead of the affirmation „Sie lernen Deutsch.“.
Chuck: To make question-word-question just add a question word in front of this. So the order is first the question word then the verb and then anything else.
Judith: For example, "Wie lernen Sie Deutsch?".
Chuck: How do you study German?
Judith: Was lernen Sie?
Chuck: What do you study?
Judith: Wer lernt Deutsch?
Chuck: Who studies German? We’ll learn lots of question words in time. You don’t have to memorize these right away.
Judith: Anyway, in this lesson we saw „Wie geht es Ihnen?“.
Chuck: How goes it to you or normally how are you?
Judith: This is a question-word-question. „Wie“ is the question word, „geht“ is the verb and then comes the rest. As a yes or no question, more simply you could just cut off the „wie“ and ask „Geht es Ihnen gut?“
Chuck: Does it good to you? Are you fine?
Judith: Even more simply, you can make a statement and then add „oder?“ to ask for confirmation like „Sie lernen Deutsch, oder?“
Chuck: You’re studying German, right?
Judith: Or „Paul ist nicht Engländer, oder?“
Chuck: Paul is not English, is he?
Judith: This is called a question tag.
Chuck: Finally, another type of question tag is "And you?" This is really, really useful because its spares you the trouble of forming a question. You just say something about yourself and then add "and you?"
Judith: In German this will normally be „und Sie?“. In less formal situations, you’d use „und du?“
Chuck: In today’s dialogue, we’ve seen „und Ihnen?“ meaning “and to you” that’s because the sentence literally says it goes well to me. And the implied question is “And how goes it to you?” That’s why you have „und Ihnen?“ here. However in almost all other cases you want to say „und Sie?“. That’s just about does it for today.
Judith: Want a free way to build your German vocabulary?
Chuck: Of course. Follow our German word of the day at GermanPod101.com
Judith: See and hear the word of the day.
Chuck: Plus sample phrases and sentences.
Judith: Get these daily vocabulary alerts on Facebook, Twitter and GermanPod101.com blog.
Chuck: And add this widget to your own website or blog. They’re available in 35 languages.
Judith: Get these easy instructions at GermanPod101.com/german-phrases.

Outro

Chuck: We hope you enjoyed this lesson. See you next week.

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