Learn how to form questions and question tags using a formal conversation as an example
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina: Hi everyone! I’m Gina, and welcome back to GermanPod101.com. This is Absolute Beginner Season 3, Lesson 6 - How’s Your German Today? |
| Frank: Hi everyone, wilkommen! My name is Frank. |
| Gina: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use question words and question tags. |
| Frank: This conversation takes place at Kate’s host family’s house, after she’s registered for her German classes at the language school. |
| Gina: The conversation is between Kate and Frau Kirsche. |
| Frank: Since they don’t know each other very well, they’ll be using formal German. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Frau Kirsch: Hallo Kate! Willkommen! |
| Kate: Ähmm, hallo! Wie geht es Ihnen, Frau Kirsch?! |
| Frau Kirsch: Mir geht es gut, danke, und Ihnen? |
| Kate: ... Auch gut, danke. |
| Frau Kirsch: Sind Sie müde? |
| Kate: Nicht sehr müde, nein. |
| Frau Kirsch: Sehr gut. |
| Gina: Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Frau Kirsch: Hallo Kate! Willkommen! |
| Kate: Ähmm, hallo! Wie geht es Ihnen, Frau Kirsch?! |
| Frau Kirsch: Mir geht es gut, danke, und Ihnen? |
| Kate: ... Auch gut, danke. |
| Frau Kirsch: Sind Sie müde? |
| Kate: Nicht sehr müde, nein. |
| Frau Kirsch: Sehr gut. |
| Gina: Now, let's hear it with English translation. |
| Frau Kirsch: Hallo Kate! Willkommen! |
| Gina: Hello, Kate! Welcome! |
| Kate: Ähmm, hallo! Wie geht es Ihnen, Frau Kirsch?! |
| Gina: Ah, hello! How are you, Ms. Kirsch? |
| Frau Kirsch: Mir geht es gut, danke, und Ihnen? |
| Gina: I'm well, thank you and you? |
| Kate: ... Auch gut, danke. |
| Gina: ... Also good, thank you. |
| Frau Kirsch: Sind Sie müde? |
| Gina: Are you tired? |
| Kate: Nicht sehr müde, nein. |
| Gina: Not so tired, no. |
| Frau Kirsch: Sehr gut. |
| Gina: Very good. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina: So, Frank, how are you doing? |
| Frank: Es geht mir gut, danke und dir? |
| Gina: I’m good, thank you! The weather’s not too great, but I’m good! |
| Frank: Hmm...why are you talking about the weather? |
| Gina: I’m making small talk! It’s typical for us Brits to talk about the weather! However, I noticed that there’s a lot less small talk in Germany, especially in professional situations! |
| Frank: Yeah, when you’re doing business with someone there’s not that much. Well, unless you’re a businessman or something. |
| Gina: And even among friends, I think there’s less small talk than in Britain. |
| Frank: Also, in the dialogue Kate asked “how are you?” and she immediately started talking about something else. |
| Gina: In Germany, when someone asks “how are you?”, it’s how we find out everything that’s going on in people’s lives. |
| Frank: And they may carry on, so don’t be surprised if the answer is really long. |
| Gina: That’s right. It’s a very genuine question - Germans don’t beat about the bush - they mean what they say, and they get straight to the point. Right Frank? |
| Frank: Yeah, I guess that’s true. We’re known for our directness and efficient ways of doing things! |
| Gina: Among friends, the news or politics are common topics of discussion. It’s not taboo. And generally, people are expected to keep up with current affairs as a part of common conversation. |
| Frank: Yeah, but religion is taboo. Generally it's avoided due to the trouble it causes in the world. Religion is therefore considered a private thing. |
| Gabriella: Ok, now let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Gabriella: The first word we shall see is… |
| Frank: hallo [natural native speed] |
| Gina: hello, hello (on the phone) |
| Frank: hallo [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: hallo [natural native speed] |
| Frank: sehr [natural native speed] |
| Gina: very |
| Frank: sehr [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: sehr [natural native speed] |
| Frank: müde [natural native speed] |
| Gina: tired |
| Frank: müde [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank : müde [natural native speed] |
| Frank: gut [natural native speed] |
| Gina: good |
| Frank: gut [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: gut [natural native speed] |
| Frank: mir [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to me |
| Frank: mir [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: mir [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Ihnen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to you (formal) |
| Frank: Ihnen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Ihnen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: es [natural native speed] |
| Gina: it |
| Frank: es [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: es [natural native speed] |
| Frank: gehen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: to go, to walk |
| Frank: gehen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: gehen [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Frau [natural native speed] |
| Gina: Ms., woman |
| Frank: Frau [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Frau [natural native speed] |
| Frank: Willkommen [natural native speed] |
| Gina: welcome |
| Frank: Willkommen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Frank: Willkommen [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. |
| Frank: The first word we will look at is hallo. |
| Gina: Firstly, it is used as a common informal greeting as opposed to more formal greetings like: |
| Frank: Guten Morgen |
| Gina: “good morning” |
| Frank: Guten Tag |
| Gina: “good day”, and so on. |
| Frank: But hallo also has another meaning, when someone is trying to get someone’s attention and feels ignored. In this case, they may also say hallo with an optional hint of added sarcasm. hallo (slow) |
| Gina: In this situation, it is used to get someone’s attention and in other words remind the other person "I am here." |
| Frank: Okay, our next word is mir. |
| Gina: “to me”. |
| Frank: It’s a special form of the word ich or “I”. |
| Gina: In English, “I” changes to “me” when it’s the object of the sentence as in “I get a present”, and “you give a present to me”. It’s the same idea in German. |
| Frank: Ihnen is the same thing, but it's used for Sie, which is the formal “you”. And since sie written in lowercase means “they”, Ihnen also means “to them”. Both mir and Ihnen only come up when they're the object of a sentence. |
| Gina: Oh, and also don’t expect to find any logic behind the phrase... |
| Frank: Wie geht es Ihnen? |
| Gina: It means, “How are you?” but literally is, “How goes it to you?” |
| Frank: Yeah. But that doesn’t explain the “to you” part. This is an German idiom. |
| Gina: So just remember it as it is. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to form question-word questions and question tags. |
| Frank: In lesson 3, we already saw how to create yes-no questions in German. Just put the verb in the front, like Lernen Sie Deutsch? instead of the affirmation, Sie lernen Deutsch. |
| Gina: To make question-word questions, just add a question word in front, then the verb, and then anything else. Can you give us an example? |
| Frank: Wie lernen Sie Deutsch? |
| Gina: “How do you study German?” |
| Frank: Was lernen Sie? |
| Gina: “What do you study?” |
| Frank: Wer lernt Deutsch? |
| Gina: “Who studies German?” |
| Frank: There are lots of question words in German and most of them start with “w”! |
| Gina: Okay. Let’s see them! What’s the first one? |
| Frank: Warum? |
| Gina: “why” |
| Frank: Repeat after me, listeners. warum (slow). |
| Gina: Next up is… |
| Frank: wohin? |
| Gina: “where” |
| Frank: It is a combination of wo and hin meaning “where” and “to”. Try it, listeners - wohin (slow). |
| Gina: Okay, what do we have next? |
| Frank: wer |
| Gina: “who”! |
| Frank: wer (slow). |
| Gina: Next is... |
| Frank: wem. |
| Gina: It is equivalent to the English “whom”. |
| Frank: wem (slow). |
| Gina: Okay, and what’s the word for “what” in German? |
| Frank: was, was (slow) |
| Gina: And next up is? |
| Frank: wieso |
| Gina: This one means “how come” and is used just like in English, often as a stand-alone question. |
| Frank: wieso (slow) |
| Gina: Okay, next we have the German for “where”... |
| Frank: wo, wo (slow) |
| Gina: for example? |
| Frank: Wo ist das? |
| Gina: “where is it?” Okay, what’s the next question word? |
| Frank: Welche, Welche (slow) |
| Gina: This means “which,” and can be used with the noun it's referring to. Can you give us an example? |
| Frank: welches Buch? |
| Gina: “Which book?” BUT! When you want to say “which one” in German, you just say... |
| Frank: “welche” with the correct gender ending for the noun you're referring to. German doesn’t have a separate word for “one” in this construction. |
| Gina: Okay, and how do we say “when” in German? |
| Frank: Wann. Wann (slow) |
| Gina: And the last one is... |
| Frank: wie, wie (slow) |
| Gina: Which means “how.” |
| Frank: Wie spät ist es? |
| Gina: “What time is it?” Or literally, “how late is it?” Okay, that's all of the question words! What’s next Frank? |
| Frank: Now we want to talk about question tags. An even more simple way to make a question is to make a statement and then add oder? to ask for confirmation, like in Sie lernen Deutsch, oder? |
| Gina: “You’re studying German, right?” |
| Frank: This is called a question tag. |
| Gina: Finally, another type of question tag is "And you?" |
| Frank: In German, this will normally be und Sie? In less formal situations, you’d use und du? |
Outro |
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| Gina: That’s all for this lesson! We hope you enjoyed it. |
| Frank: Wir hoffen, euch hat diese Lektion gefallen. We hope you enjoyed it! |
| Gina: Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Frank: Tschüss! |
Comments
HideHello Listeners! Let's practice asking questions in German.
Hi Emelyne,
Thank you for posting.
Not only the questions, the answers too.
Well done! 👍😉
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Wo bist du?
Ich bin zu Hause.
Wann wollt ihr ins Kino gehen?
Wir wollen morgen ins Kino gehen.
Wie lang lernst du schon Deutsch?
Ich lerne schon ein Jahr lang Deutsch.
Hi Yağmur,
Thank you for posting.
Good work! 👍
Here are a few little corrections:
B: Ich lerne seit letztem April Deutsch.
B: Ich lerne Deutsch weil es ist eine wichtige Sprache in der Informationstechnik ist und ich liebe deutsche Rap-Musik / ich liebe es deutsche Rap-Musik zu hören! 😉
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
A: Seit wann lernen Sie Deutsch?
B: Ich lerne seit letzt April Deutsch.
A: Wo lernen Sie Deutsch?
B: Ich lerne Deutsch bei Germanpod101.com
A: Warum lernen Sie Deutsch?
B: Ich lerne Deutsch, denn es ist eine wichtig langue in die Informationstechnik und Ich liebe Deutschrap Musik hören!
Sind diese Fragen und Antworten korrekt? 😇
Hi Jasper,
Thank you for posting.
When we use "werden" in order to refer to what is going
to happen, it is used as an auxiliary verb and will therefore
be followed by a main verb.
"Großmutter wird wütend": Grandma is getting angry.
But:
"Großmutter wird wütend werden/sein": Grandma is going to get/be angry. 😉
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
How to know what is going on and what is going to happen ,
Like if I say "Großmutter wird wütend" how do I know if it means grandma will rage or will get angry OR grandma is getting furious .
Hi Somy,
Thank you for your feedback.
👍😉
If you ever have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Sehr gut
Hello Kirill & Onkar,
Thank you for your feedback! Nice to see that there is
a bit of communication between our learners going on.😉
@ Kirill:
Onkar's explanation is quite interesting. I would like to add that
"Guten Tag" is accusative and "Guter Tag" is nominative.
@ Onkar:
Thank you for your help, and sorry I forgot to congratulate you yesterday
to the test you passed. Well done! 👍
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards,
Reinhard
Team GermanPod101.com
Entschuldigen sie
*Kirill
My Damn auto correct keyboard
I forgot to say hi krill 🤦🏻♂️🙋🏻♂️
Guter tag is just name of song by alpha male , and you know how they change the name of songs for copyright concerns , so that's why they changed it from guten tag to guter tag ,
And secondly ,guten tag means " good day " . It's greeting which can be used all day but usually used in mid day , guten means 'good' , tag means 'day'.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Onkar
Hello, what is the difference between guten Tag and guter Tag ?
Hi Gloria,
You are right. German is difficult to learn, there are articles, many rules and then the umlauts!!
But nevertheless it´s worth learning it!
Please let me know if you have any questions!
Cheers,
Jennifer
Team Germanpod101.com
Warum ist die deutsche Grammatick so schwierig? (Why is German grammar so difficult?)
Hi Yat,
Thank you for writing!
It's "Und Sie lernen Deutsch?" and "Die Frau geht in die Bücherei." Well done, though!
Regards,
Katrin
Team GermanPod101.com
Hello German Pod,
Correct me if I'm wrong, In question tag & grammar.
a). Und sie lernen Deutsch?
b). Die frau gehen die Bucherei.
Thank you,
YAT :sunglasses: