Learn about how to talk about the weather
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Frank: Hi everyone! I'm Frank. |
| Gina: And I’m Gina. Welcome back to GermanPod101.com. This is Absolute Beginner, Season 3, Lesson 16. Are You Going to Let the German Weather Interrupt Your Plans? |
| Frank: In this lesson, you'll learn about the verbs sollen and sollten, meaning “should”. |
| Gina: This conversation takes place at Kate’s host family's home. |
| Frank: The conversation is between Kate and Mrs. Kirsche, her German host. |
| Gina: The speakers don't know each other well, so they'll be using formal German. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Frau Kirsche: Was haben Sie heute noch vor, Kate? |
| Kate: Ich möchte heute etwas von der Stadt sehen, und heute Abend werde ich mit einer neuen Freundin in den International Pub gehen. |
| Frau Kirsche: Schön! Aber es soll heute regnen. Werden Sie trotzdem die Stadt besichtigen? |
| Kate: Es regnet noch nicht. Die Sonne scheint. |
| Frau Kirsche: Das werden wir später sehen. Morgen soll es auf jeden Fall schön werden. |
| Kate: Vielleicht sollten wir morgen zusammen in die Stadt fahren. |
| Frau Kirsche: Ah, das klingt gut. |
| Gina: Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Frau Kirsche: Was haben Sie heute noch vor, Kate? |
| Kate: Ich möchte heute etwas von der Stadt sehen, und heute Abend werde ich mit einer neuen Freundin in den International Pub gehen. |
| Frau Kirsche: Schön! Aber es soll heute regnen. Werden Sie trotzdem die Stadt besichtigen? |
| Kate: Es regnet noch nicht. Die Sonne scheint. |
| Frau Kirsche: Das werden wir später sehen. Morgen soll es auf jeden Fall schön werden. |
| Kate: Vielleicht sollten wir morgen zusammen in die Stadt fahren. |
| Frau Kirsche: Ah, das klingt gut. |
| Gina: Now, let's hear it with English translation. |
| Frau Kirsche: Was haben Sie heute noch vor, Kate? |
| Gina: What are your plans for today, Kate? |
| Kate: Ich möchte heute etwas von der Stadt sehen, und heute Abend werde ich mit einer neuen Freundin in den International Pub gehen. |
| Gina: Today, I’d like to see a bit of the town, and tonight I’m going to the International Pub with my new friend. |
| Frau Kirsche: Schön! Aber es soll heute regnen. Werden Sie trotzdem die Stadt besichtigen? |
| Gina: Great! But it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. Will you still go sightseeing in town regardless? |
| Kate: Es regnet noch nicht. Die Sonne scheint. |
| Gina: It’s not raining yet. The sun is shining. |
| Frau Kirsche: Das werden wir später sehen. Morgen soll es auf jeden Fall schön werden. |
| Gina: We’ll see later. In any case, tomorrow it’s supposed to be great weather. |
| Kate: Vielleicht sollten wir morgen zusammen in die Stadt fahren. |
| Gina: Maybe we should go into town together tomorrow. |
| Frau Kirsche: Ah, das klingt gut. |
| Gina: Ah, that sounds good. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Frank: Let’s talk a bit about the weather in Germany, das Wetter. |
| Gina: Well, the weather in Germany depends on the region. Like in the other countries of Central Europe, cool and cloudy weather dominates. |
| Frank: The weather in the northern part of Germany is influenced by winds from the North Sea most of the time. So, temperatures over 28 Celsius in the summer… |
| Gina: That’s eighty-two Fahrenheit... |
| Frank: …and below zero degrees in winter... |
| Gina: …which is thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit... |
| Frank: ...are really uncommon. |
| Gina: If you want to do winter sports during Christmas time, you either have to visit the southern part of Germany or go to one of those new indoor skiing centers that have become very popular in recent years in the northern parts of Germany. |
| Frank: There are four distinct seasons. Spring is generally around ten degrees Celsius. |
| Gina: ...which is fifty degrees Fahrenheit. |
| Frank: Autumn is the same, except rainier, and can sometimes bring storms. |
| Gina: Extreme weather phenomena such as hurricanes have been virtually unknown in Germany until recently. |
| Frank: Floods may happen along major rivers, but forest fires and earthquakes are not a concern for Germans. |
| Gina: That’s good! Ok, now let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Gina: The first word we shall see is... |
| Frank: sehen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to see |
| Frank: sehen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: sehen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: schön [natural native speed] |
| Gina: nice, pretty |
| Frank: schön [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: schön [natural native speed] |
| Frank: sollen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: shall, supposed to |
| Frank: sollen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: sollen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: regnen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to rain |
| Frank: regnen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: regnen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: trotzdem [natural native speed] |
| Gina: despite that, anyway |
| Frank: trotzdem [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: trotzdem [natural native speed] |
| Frank: besichtigen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to tour; to inspect |
| Frank: besichtigen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: besichtigen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Sonne [natural native speed] |
| Gina: sun |
| Frank: Sonne [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Sonne [natural native speed] |
| Frank: scheinen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to shine, to seem |
| Frank: scheinen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: scheinen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: später [natural native speed] |
| Gina: later |
| Frank: später [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: später [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Fall [natural native speed] |
| Gina: case, fall |
| Frank: Fall [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Fall [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase we'll look at is |
| Frank: heute noch. |
| Gina: This means “for the rest of the day”, specifically referring to today. It is used to talk about timeframes, in particular, plans. |
| Frank: heute, or “today”, is able to move around the sentence, as long as it borders phrases and doesn’t separate verbs from their subjects. |
| Gina: And there are many contexts in which you’ll see this. Let’s name a few. |
| Frank: heute Nacht |
| Gina: “tonight”. |
| Frank: Then we have heute Morgen |
| Gina: “this morning” - and there’s another one that means exactly the same thing. |
| Frank: That’s heute frueh |
| Gina: It also means “this morning”. |
| Frank: heute Vormittag |
| Gina: “this morning”, after breakfast time. |
| Frank: heute Nachmittag |
| Gina: “this afternoon” |
| Frank: And finally heute Abend |
| Gina: “this evening”, tonight before bedtime. |
| Frank: Okay. The next words we’ll look at are Freund and Freundin. |
| Gina: The male and female versions of “friend” in German. |
| Frank: Yeah. In German, the gender generally has to be indicated. |
| Gina: Fortunately, it's not very difficult. Just add “-IN” to the ends of most words. This works for professions, nationalities, and so on. |
| Frank: And the last expression we’ll look at is "in any case", in German auf jeden Fall. |
| Gina: It is almost an exact translation from English, so this should not give you any trouble. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Frank: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the two verbs sollen and sollten, meaning ‘Should’. |
| Gina: Let’s take a look at the first one. |
| Frank: The first one is sollen. It’s a modal verb. |
| Gina: German modal verbs behave almost exactly like regular verbs. There are just two changes. The “I” and the “he/she” or “it” forms are both just the verb stem. |
| Frank: Soll in this case. Instead of the expected ich solle and er sollt, you get ich soll and er soll. |
| Gina: Let’s have a quick rundown of the conjugation. |
| Frank: ich soll |
| Gina: “I should”; “I’m supposed to” |
| Frank: du sollst |
| Gina: “you should”; “you’re supposed to.” This is the informal second person singular. |
| Frank: er soll |
| Gina: “he should”; “he’s supposed to” |
| Frank: sie soll |
| Gina: “she should”; “she’s supposed to” |
| Frank: es soll |
| Gina: “it should”; “it’s supposed to” |
| Frank: wir sollen |
| Gina: “we should”; “we’re supposed to” |
| Frank: ihr sollt |
| Gina: “you should”; “you’re supposed to” |
| Frank: sie sollen |
| Gina: “they should”; “they’re supposed to” |
| Frank: Sie sollen |
| Gina: “you should”; “you’re supposed to”. This is the second person, polite form. |
| Frank: So you can see that sollen is used to talk about things you have to do. For example, Meine Eltern sagen, ich soll heute viel lernen. |
| Gina: “My parents say I should study a lot today.” This can sound a little direct, however. |
| Frank: German has a way around this to soften the blow! |
| Gina: When saying what somebody else should do, it's more polite to use the conditional form... |
| Frank: ...which is sollte. Just add an extra "TE" to create sollte, like er sollte gehen. |
| Gina: “He should go.” |
| Frank: Without knowing the conditional tense, you can just conjugate sollte the same as sollen. The endings are the same in this case. |
| Gina: There's one final use we should mention now. |
| Frank: es soll is also used for "it's supposed to" |
| Gina: particularly when talking about the weather. Please gives us an example, Frank! |
| Frank: Morgen soll die Sonne scheinen. |
| Gina: “Tomorrow, the sun is supposed to shine.” |
| Frank: This makes sollen unavoidable when talking about a weather report. Definitely remember this verb. It’s going to come in handy. |
Outro |
| Gina: Listeners, looking for a cheat sheet to memorizing German vocabulary? |
| Frank: have you checked out our Video Vocab series? |
| Gina: These themed video lessons combine visual cues with the voices of native speakers. |
| Frank: Just another effective method of learning and retaining thousands of vocabulary words. |
| Gina: Go to GermanPod101.com... |
| Frank: ...click on the Video Lessons tab... |
| Gina: ...and hit play! |
| Frank: It's that easy. |
| Gina: But don't take our word for it. |
| Frank: Try it for yourself at GermanPod101.com |
| Gina: Well, that does it for this lesson! Make sure to check the lesson notes, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Frank: Thanks for listening. Also, bis zum nächstes Mal! |
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