Colloquial German

Dietlinde Hatherall, Glyn Hatherall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317306634
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Lingue

Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and spoken German. No prior knowledge of the language is required.

What makes this new edition of Colloquial German your best choice in personal language learning?

• Interactive – lots of exercises for regular practice.
• Clear – concise grammar notes.
• Practical – useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide.
• Complete – including answer key and reference section.

Audio material to accompany the course is available to download freely in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

1 Tee oder Kaffee?

A first taste of German

Language activities

• 'hello' and 'please'
• choosing and paying
• 'goodbye'and'thank you'

Language focus

• patterns and phrases
• nouns and verbs
• 'I' and 'you'
• numbers 1 to 10, 20 to 90, and prices

Learning strategies

• spotting patterns
• guessing meanings
• listening efficiently
• using a glossary

Text 1A Tee . . .

(Audio 1; 18)

Montagvormittag¹

The setting You decide on impulse to take a five-day, non-package, do-it-yourself break in Berlin, leaving home on a Sunday and arriving on Monday morning at the Hauptbahnhof, the main railway station. Your first objective is the Kurfürstendamm, a broad boulevard, with its irresistible cafés. You enter the most spacious and comfortable café you have ever encountered and take a seat. The waitress approaches. . .

The dialogue The waitress greets you with the words ‘Good day’ and you simply repeat. She asks you what you want. You choose tea – and you don’t want it with lemon but with milk. The waitress then asks you something which you surmise might imply ‘Can I get you a thick slice of gateau covered in cream?’, so to be on the safe side you politely say ‘no’. The tea you hope you have ordered actually does arrive! You now even feel confident enough to ask for the bill and, like a native, to round up the price stated (= 2,60) to the nearest whole euro. You give the waitress a ten euro note and get seven euros change. You finish your tea, saying goodbye as you leave.

KELLNERIN:² Guten Tag!

SIE:³ Guten Tag!

KELLNERIN: Bitte schön?

SIE: Tee, bitte.⁴

KELLNERIN: Mit⁵ Zitrone?

SIE: Nein, mit Milch, bitte.

KELLNERIN: Ja. Möchten Sie sonst noch etwas?⁶

SIE: Nein, danke.

KELLNERIN: Bitte⁷ schön! Tee mit Milch.

SIE: Danke schon! Ich möchte bitte zahlen.⁸

KELLNERIN: Zwei Euro sechzig,⁹ bitte.

SIE: Drei Euro. [you hand over a ten-euro note]

KELLNERIN: Danke sehr! Und sieben Euro zurück.¹⁰

SIE: Danke schön!¹¹

SIE: Auf Wiedersehen!

KELLNERIN: Auf Wiedersehen!

A full English version of Text 1A is provided in the Translations section at the back of the book, but it’s best to do Übung 1A before you go there.

Notes

1 ‘Monday morning’, literally: ‘pre-midday’

2the -in ending of this word is the equivalent of ‘-ess’ in ‘waitress’. ‘Waiter’ = Kellner

3 ‘You’

4 here Bitte! means ‘please’. Immediately above, Bitte? is essentially an invitation for you to speak

5 ‘with’

6 ‘would you like anything else?’

7 yet another use of Bitte! It is also used, as here, when giving something to someone

8 ‘I would like to pay’

9 € 2,60

10 literally: ‘back’, i.e. ‘change, in return’

11 schön and sehr are completely interchangeable (and optional) with Danke and Bitte

Übung 1A

Once you feel fairly familiar with Text 1A, try writing down – from memory – the German equivalents from the Text of the following English phrases. In many cases, the equivalents are not word-for-word translations. When you have finished, check back with the Text before proceeding to the Key to exercises (see box below).

1. Hello!
2. Can I take your order?
3. Tea, please.
4. With lemon?
5. With milk, please.
6. Would you like anything else?
7. No thank you.
8. I would like to pay, please.
9. Two euros sixty.
10. Three euros.
11. And seven euros change.
12. Goodbye!

The symbol

is a TASK symbol. Whenever you reach it, do something! Sometimes the paragraph immediately following the exercise gives answers to the questions; more often the answers are given in the Key to exercises in the back of the book. Wherever the answers are, to gain full benefit from the course, you need to stop at every task symbol, do the exercise following it, and only then move on.

The symbol

is the KEY symbol. Whenever it follows the task symbol it means that our answers to the exercise are printed in the Key to exercises section at the back of the book.

Numbers and prices

A firm grasp of numbers in German is one of the most useful things to take with you on a first visit to a German-speaking country. It’s helpful to be able to say numbers, but particularly to understand them – and to understand them when spoken quickly under adverse acoustic conditions: in banks, shops, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, museums, art galleries, swimming pools, railway, bus and petrol stations, at airports, on the phone, etc.

The normal way to write a sum of money in euros, using figures, is € 1,60 or 1,60 €. The way to say this ...