Gretchen Strauch: Okay. That's my name.
I have the ridiculously German name of
Gretchen Strauch, which is something
I have yet to learn to pronounce quite right to German satisfaction.
I worked at Rick Steves for a long time, but before that, I'd lived
in Germany for a few years and a few months in Switzerland as well.
My German is not perfect, it's far from it.
Actually, that's the point today is that trying
in German is way more important than not trying.
German speakers are incredibly, maybe surprisingly,
forgiving of people who make any attempt in German.
I would know, because I have been attempting and
failing to speak perfect German for quite a while now.
One of the main things I want to stress today is that
German is so much easier. As English speakers, it's so much
easier for us to speak enough German to get by for the most
basic things in German speaking countries than it seems.
I can't stress that enough.
I might find myself saying Germans, but German is
spoken not just in Germany, it's also spoken--
Students: Switzerland.
Gretchen Strauch: Switzerland,yes. Priced at Switzerland.
What else do they speak in Switzerland?
French, Italian, and there's a fourth one.
The fourth language of Switzerland is Romansh which is about a
blend between Swiss German and Italian that sounds half and half.
You have to be pretty far off the beaten track to hear Romansh spoken.
I'm going to focus on, of course, German today.
Not talk too much about Swiss German, but Swiss
German is a really pretty different language.
It's about as different from standard German
as, I would say maybe, Scott English is.
If you've been to the highlands of Scotland,
you know how hard it is to understand.
We have that joke about British people and
Americans being separated by a common
language, but it's not just an accent,
right? Completely different, words, rhythm.
German speakers from, especially Northern Germany, have
an extremely hard time understanding Swiss people.
Fortunately, Swiss people all learned Swiss German, but they also
learn rock old German German, but they would call it written German.
Germans would call it High German.
Swiss people are like, "Whoa, what's that make us?"
[laughter]
You ask for written German if you wanted
to ask for help in written German.
Someone said Switzerland, Germany, what's the third one?
Student: Austria?
Gretchen Strauch: Austria.
Yes.
Lots of good reasons to bother, and of course, it's fun.
Anyone know how to say "good" in German? Gut, yes.
Anyone knows how to say "bad"?
Student: Schlecht
Gretchen Strauch: Schlecht.
We've got bad and then German's got schlecht.
[laughter]
It sounds bad. Right? It's so fun.
You can really lay into words like that,
right? I think German's also fun, so hopefully
I can also dispel the sense that German
is difficult or un-fun or maybe mean.
Sometimes I hear that German speakers are rude.
I would say direct.
That's not how it feels to us.
We did hello, I heard Guten Tag.
That would be pretty much just in
Germany and not even in all of Germany.
Anyone know other ways to say hello?
Student: Hallo.
Gretchen Strauch: Hallo, yes.
"Wie geht es" would be "how are you?" But, yes.
Grüss Gott, yes.
Where would they say that?
Student: Austria?
Gretchen Strauch: Austria, yes.
Grüss Gott, so I'll say it and you say it.
Grüss Gott.
Students: Grüss Gott.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes.
It means, technically, "Godly greetings" but
there's not necessarily religious overtones.
You could just say Grüss, if you want and you don't want to say Grüss Gott.
One more time, I'll say it and you say it.
Grüss Gott.
Students: Grüss Gott
Gretchen Strauch: How about in Switzerland, how
do they say hello in Switzerland? Grüetzi.
[laughter]
I'll do it again and you do it.
Grüetzi.
Students: Grüetzi.
Gretchen Strauch: Grüetzi.
Students: Grüetzi.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes.
You can't overdo it.
I've been practicing this for years because
the three years I've spent in Germany, I
actually lived right on the Swiss border,
like across the street from the border. When
it was time to go jogging, I put my passport
on my shoe and I cross the border hoping
that I could say Grüetzi, just well enough
that they wouldn't know I was a local.
"Goodbye"?
Students: Auf Wiedersehen.
Gretchen Strauch: Auf Wiedersehen.
Also a less formal-- I know, what are all
those letters? I'll say it and you say it.
Tschüß.
Students: Tschüß
Gretchen Strauch: Tschüß
Students: Tschüß
Gretchen Strauch: Almost sounds like kiss, Tschüß.
In terms of words, basic words that we share in common, either
the exact same word or something similar. Students: Beer?
Gretchen Strauch: Beer. Yes.
Students: Ring?
Gretchen Strauch: Ring.
Yes, I didn't even thought of that one.
Students: House?
Gretchen Strauch: House. Yes.
I got them up here.
Mann.
Haus.
Winter, exact same, but pronounced differrently.
Sommer. Mutter. Vater. Bruder, for brother. Freund.
Wasser is a lot a like for water. You can probably think of those.
Sometimes we think, "Well, I didn't know that
the German word for winter is winter." At least
if you saw it, you'd think, "That probably means
winter." That's one of the main things I want
you to remember today is that if you see a word
in German that looks like a word in English,
you're pretty safe in assuming that it means
what you think it means what you hope it means.
Most of the time, a word in German that looks just like a word
in English means the same thing or something pretty close.
We pull a lot from Latin or Romanic languages,
at least from French more than German does.
Which means that we have a much higher vocabulary.
There's a lot of examples where we have--
For example, we have one word for cow,
which is related to the German word and
one word for the cow that you eat, beef.
Cow comes from German and beef from French.
In German, you tend to just have one word for things.
When you've meant of make a compound thing,
German does a better job of just putting
words together. We have a separate word for
glove, but in German this is a Handschuh.
A Handschuh.
If you see or hear the word Handschuh and you think, "This
a Handschuh?" What would that mean? Gloves, I guess.
You'd be right.
You can make a lot of smart guesses.
For example, we've also got different words for
lunch, dinner. Anyone know the German word for lunch?
Student: Mittagessen
Gretchen Strauch: Mittagessen.
Yes.
Midday food.
Makes sense.
You don't have to learn the word for lunch, you'd probably learn the
word for midday because it's noon, and you can figure that out.
Mit-tag.
If you happen to know the word for day, tag.
If you had heard or learn the word for food, essen, then you
could say, "Mittagessen, I guess I do know the word for lunch."
Dinner is Abendessen, evening food.
Makes sense.
It's a lot easier than we think.
Another thing that I absolutely love about German is that a lot of
words-- If I do this in English a little bit, but more than English.
In German, a lot of words that sound
alike, actually have similar meanings.
The word for key is Schlüssel.
The word for castle is Schloss.
The word for closed is geschlossen.
To lock something with a key is to abschließen.
You can abschließen your Schloss and it'll be geschlossen.
[laughter]
You can make guesses just based on how
words sound if they sound like a word you
know or a word that you had to learn
yesterday for some travel related reason.
It's also a very onomatopoeic language.
The word for cut, Schnitt.
Haarschnitt, haircut.
It sounds like it, right? Schnitt.
I mean cut kind of sounds like that, but Schnitt, that's good.
The point I want to make about why it is easier. German is
phonetic, it has pronunciation rules and it always follows them.
We'll work on that right now, and then you're good.
English, what a mess.
German, so easy.
The vowels are pretty much similar,
especially if you are familiar with how it's
pronounced in other non-English, European
language, French, Italian, Spanish.
Some of this will be pretty familiar. I'll say it and you say it.
The sound for the letter "A" is "ah".
Students: "Ah".
Gretchen Strauch: Easy.
As in Mann, for man.
Wasser. Students: Wasser. Gretchen Strauch: Das.
Students: Das.
Gretchen Strauch: One of the many words for "the".
The word for "day"?
Students: Tag.
Gretchen Strauch: Tag.
What we call a letter "E", German would call
the letter, I'll say it and you say it, "eh".
Students: "Eh".
Gretchen Strauch: It's really close to the sound ey, like say.
We put a ey in it, it's a really flat sound, eh.
Should that distinction bother you? No.
Should you think about it? Don't worry about it.
Eh.
The word for thank you is danke.
We tend to say "danka", I do too because
I get lazy but technically, it's danke.
The word for "tea", how will you pronounce tea but t-e-e is Tee.
One "e", two e's together, same sound.
Danke, Tee, S-e-e?
Students: See
Gretchen Strauch: See.
Which means sea or lake.
What we call "I", they call "ee".
Pretty straight forward.
We use that sound "ee" for "I" in a lot of
English too, but it's always "ee" by itself.
The word for I in itself is ich.
If you've heard it before ish or ich, it just depends
on what part of German speaking you're from.
Same thing, O is always, oddly enough, O.
Same thing.
We think how complicated is that, except two o's together, also oh.
The movie about the guys in the submarine is Das Boot.
Das Boot.
Yes, there is no movie called Das Boot, unless someone
has made one about shoes that I don't know about.
[laughter]
The word for emergency looks like, not fall,
kind of like the opposite of an emergency.
This is one of the few examples of a word meaning
where what you would guess it means is really
different, and it's worth knowing that one, especially
because, safety signs and things like that.
It looks like not fall but it's pronounced Notfall.
I'll say it, you say it.
Notfall.
Students: Notfall.
Gretchen Strauch: It means emergency.
Yes, Notfall.
U is pronounced U and never U.
O is oh and never uh.
The word for good is?
Students: Gut.
Gretchen Strauch: Gut.
The country south of Florida?
Students: Cuba.
Gretchen Strauch: Cuba.
Okay, umlauts, this is the fun part.
Okay, all of those sounds are sounds we have in English.
It's really just resisting the urge to say,
"uh" when we see U and or to say, "ee"
when we see two E's together. Fortunately,
this one we have in English as well.
We have this sound.
So A with an umlaut is just like the E in men.
So A with an umlaut would be ä.
Students: Ä
Gretchen Strauch: Not like "ay" like E in danke, but ä.
So one man is ein Mann; two men, Männer.
I'll say it, then you say it, Männer.
Students: Männer. Gretchen Strauch: That's easy, it's just like English.
Man, men, right? The plural for apple.
One Apfel, two Äpfel.
Students: Äpfel.
Gretchen Strauch: Good.
That was really good. I'll say it, and you say it.
Äpfel.
Students: Äpfel.
Gretchen Strauch: O with an umlaut, we don't have this
sound in English, but it's not too hard for us to make.
You can think of it as an O with the pressed lips.
Let's try this.
We know this word from dankeschön.
Students: Schön.
Gretchen Strauch: Schön.
It almost sounds like there's an R in it, right? The author, Göthe.
It sounds like I'm saying Gurte with an R, but
it's actually G-O-E or G-O, umlaut-T-H-E.
The word for beautiful or pretty, I'll say it, you say it.
Schön.
Students: Schön.
Gretchen Strauch: Schön.
It's important that you say schön and not schon.
That means actually.
Schon means actually, schön means pretty.
Completely different meanings.
These umlauts matter. It's not like, say, an accent in Spanish
which helps you know where to put the emphasis on a word.
These umlauts aren't decorations, they're not for emphasis.
This is a different letter, and it changes the pronunciation.
Laut is like loud and so um is to change something.
Umlaut means it's changing the sound.
That's what these are there for. Of course, it's a
different letter, it's going to change the meaning.
In this case, it changed the meaning here, because
it goes from Apfel, one, to Äpfel, more than one.
Ä, Ö, and here's the fun one, because it looks
like a smiley face, the Ü, the U with an umlaut.
You also make the U sound and purse your lips.
Ü.
Students: Ü.
Gretchen Strauch: Here's the thing, this one is
really close to what we have the letter I as in fit,
so it's not quite e, but it's really close, and
that's much easier for us, as English speakers.
Here's a cheat for you.
If you see what we say Uber, you know, instead of a taxi, but they
would say über. Über. If you say über, is it exactly right? No.
Is it close? Yes.
Is it way closer than Uber? Yes.
Here's your cheat, you can just say über. People will understand you.
The plural for fruit, Früchte.
Students: Früchte.
Gretchen Strauch: Früchte.
Früchte.
Ein Frucht, zwei Früchte.
Okay, combo letters.
Most of these are mysterious to us, because in
English we see the word, Oscar Hammerstein,
"Hammersteen", "Hammerstine", Rod
"Rosensteen", Rob "Rosenstine", nobody knows.
In German, everybody knows, because the way it's
spelled always tells you exactly how to say it.
It's really easy.
If you have E-I, you say I.
Ei.
Students: Ei.
Gretchen Strauch: The word for stone?
Students: Stein.
Gretchen Strauch:Stein.
The word for not beer, but wein.
Wein.
Easy.
I-E is the E sound.
You can drink wine in?
Students: Wien.
Gretchen Strauch: Wien.
Which is Vienna.
Another word for the, die.
The word for beer?
Students: Bier. Gretchen Strauch: Bier. You
can think of it in terms of saying how we'd
pronounce the English name of the second
letter, between E-I and I-E, if that helps.
Or a friend of mine knows how to spell
Wein and Bier, and she knows how
to say those, and that helps her remember, if that's a trick for you.
E-I, I-E, never breaks the rules.
E-U is always oy.
We know this from Deutschland.
The word for new is?
Students: Neu.
Gretchen Strauch: Neu.
A-I is actually the same sound as E-I.
The big river that Frankfurt is on, is, it looks like
we would say the river Main, but it's on the river?
Students: Main.
Gretchen Strauch: Main.
A word for a waterfront, K-A-I, is?
Students: Kai
Gretchen Strauch: I just put that in because
it's my nephew's name, and he's great.
[laughter]
Gretchen Strauch: A-U is an aw sound, always.
Frau.
I know that, I know the word Frau, that's not
so hard, but A with an umlaut U is not aw.
There is no such word as Fraulein.
Fräulein.
Fräulein.
Ä with and umlaut U is the exact same sound as E-U, so Fräulein.
All right? That's it.
You know everything you know about German vowels.
It's that easy.
Most of the consonants are exactly the same.
G is always hard, so you sneeze, someone says?
Students: Gesundheit.
Gretchen Strauch: Gesundheit, yes, healthiness.
J, just like a lot of languages that aren't English,
is a y sound, so yoghurt is spelled with a J, right? K
is a K sound, but the tricky part is that we put it
in front of, say, knife, and suddenly it disappears.
In German, it never disappears.
If it comes before an N, you just say it.
The word for garlic is, I'll say it, you say it, Knoblauch.
Students: Knoblauch.
Gretchen Strauch: We think, "You can't
just put a K in front of an N."
German speakers think, "Why not? Knoblauch." It's not hard, Knoblauch.
Knobby leek is what that breaks down to.
So many German words.
The R sound is really tough to get quite right.
The important part is to try to say it at
the back of your throat as much as you can.
We tend to put our R right in front.
The word for R is pronounced air, if that helps
you remember, because that's what you do.
You push out air. My name, Gretchen Strauch, has two Rs, one per name.
This is a source of frustration for me.
When I want to order my favorite drink in the summer, which is
beer and 7-Up together, what British people call a shandy, I
ask for ein Radler. Ein Radler, ein Radler, ein Radler. Takes
me a few times but, if I said radler, that would be even worse.
[laughter]
I'll say it, and you say it.Radler.
Students: Radler. Gretchen Strauch: Yes.
Or the word for three.
Anyone know the word for three?
Student: Drei.
Gretchen Strauch: Drei.
So we think, "dry," just like wet-dry but drei, it's way back there.
Yes, I'm still working on that one.
S by itself is actually a Z sound.
I showed the word for lake, S-E-E, to
make sure we don't say, see, we say, See.
It's not s, it's z.
See, the word for lake.
V is an F sound.
That one surprises us.
We know the word for Volk, we recognize that,
but we think they might pronounce it volk.
It's Volk.
Exact same pronunciation as English.
And of course, W is the v.
"I want to be alone." We kind of know
that about German, it's just the v sound.
Wien und Wein.
All right? Z, we think we can cheat on this one.
Does anyone here speak any Italian? In
Italian, you always have to say that T sound.
We know this in English because we always say, pizza.
If someone asked for what you wanted for
tonight and you forgot to put the T in, and
you said, "You know, I don't know, maybe we'll
have a salad or might have some pizza."
[laughter]
Even in context, you'd be like, "What?" That's a city in Italy.
That doesn't make sense.
You have to put that T sound in there.
We wouldn't even figure it out.
You would have to say, Pi-tza.
We know this about Italian, but German is the exact same rule.
You have to put that T sound in there or
it is confusing to them, just like pizza.
The name of the city where Mozart is from is:
Students: Salzburg.
Gretchen Strauch: Salzburg.
Right, Salzburg.
Salt, Salz, Salzburg.
Most famous son is?
Students: Mozart.
Gretchen Strauch: "Mot-zart", right? M-O-T, zart.
Mozart.
That's how it's pronounced.
Can't stress that enough.
C-H sound is, that's where you really get to huch.
You can roll the R's and ch.
Especially in Swiss German, my gosh.
We don't really have that in English, except in
Scotts English, with the word for lake, loch.
I put that up there but the way that you say attention in German is?
Students: Achtung.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, but lay into it.
Students: Achtung.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, that's better. Achtung.
Achtung.
The S-C-H sound is always an "sh" sound, never a k
sound so we with S-C-H school we think, it's hard to
tell on context, but it's always- for the word for
shoe is Schuh and the word for plural shoes Schuhe.
No silent letters that's why I said the
E, you get to say every letter. The thing
that looks like a Greek beta is actually
two S's together, you think about
maybe the Constitution then they blur it looks like an F s together, that's
just the stylized way of putting two S's
together and German still does that.
If you see this interesting letter it's
called an S set and it makes a "suh"
sound but it's equivalent of just two S's makes the same sound of two S's.
The word for street is?
Students: Straße.
Gretchen Strauch: Straße, yes or you might see
it pronounced Straße but with the s set yes.
What it is not is streamed.
T-H is a sign it's an old word in German, modern German spelling
doesn't use T-H together but German doesn't even have a "Th" sound.
This is a very difficult thing for German speakers, a sound for them
to make, unless they're imitating someone with a lisp, I found that a
lot of my students claimed that they couldn't make the T-H sound and
they were really good at making fun of someone on TV who had a lisp.
They just don't have that sound, so you see
T-H together don't be tempted to say it it's
always "Tuh" just like Thomas we know it's not
Thomas, we know it's not Vomas, it's Thomas.
You mainly see it in place names in Germany
because these would be older, older spellings.
Thun is a is a Swiss town on a lake in the Vanor Oberland.
Okay, a few more things that to press on
you that the C-H-S-H we see that together
and we say "No, this language, for she said
it was easy to pronounce but what am I
gonna do with all these consonants what a
mess." German does compound words more
than we, do we tend to say a lot more words
compound than we actually spelled them.
German spells them compound, German loves putting words
together, but if you can separate the words in your head
then you can you can make educated guesses about where the
break is and then you realize that it's not such a mess.
A town near where I used to live is Friedrichshafen, not too much.
One cheat is that there's no S and H never go
together in German, so that's one clue that if I
didn't know either of those words that that's a
break between the words in the compound word.
If you want a "Sh" sound that's always S-C-H then S-H
isn't a consonant combination in German, Friedrichshafen.
We think, "Okay we see a word M-B-D-R how would
you say [babbles]" Guess what this is English
thumb-drive, but we know that thumb and drive are
two different words so it doesn't hurt our brain.
The word for tap water is?
Students: Leitungswasser. Gretchen Strauch: Leitungswasser, you
might think U-N-G [groan], but Leitungs-wasser, it helps you
think "Wassar, I think I know that it sounds like the word water
or maybe I've heard that somewhere." Leitungswasser, now it's
not so hard to pronounce, right? Now's our chance to practice
what we just learned because you now know all that you need to
know to pronounce German well enough to be understood and actually
come across as someone who kind of knows what they're doing.
Okay, but all these words, except one, have at
least one thing in them that's gonna trip us up.
How do you say the word for highway?
Students: Autobahn.
Gretchen Strauch: Autobahn.
"Tuh" make sure that T pops good.
What are you going to drive out on the Autobahn you're gonna drive a?
Students: Volkswagen.
Gretchen Strauch: Volkswagen, Volks-wagon on the Autobahn.
You might drive it from the city the capital city of?
Students: Berlin.
Gretchen Strauch: Berlin, yes you might drive it from
Berlin to the Black Forest which in German is the?
Students: Schwarzwald.
Gretchen Strauch: Schwarzwald, the "Vuh"
Schwarzwald, Black Forest, Schwarzwald.
Yes, good you might also drive your cart Rothenburg.
You may even drive it all the way to the word for Munich is?
Students: [mumble]
Gretchen Strauch: This one's hard I'll say it München.
München.
München, they actually put an S sound in here, in München.
Yes, munchin they will not understand-
except there's so many English-speaking
travelers in Munich that they probably figured it out by now.
München is in the Bundestag, the state
of Bavaria which Germans would call?
Students: Bayern.
Gretchen Strauch: Bayern, Bayern.
Yes, the Y works like an I here, Bayan.
In Bavarian Bayern and you might visit in München
the? This tricky remember Hof-bräu-haus.
If you ask for direction to the hofbraeuhaus everyone will
know where it is because that's how old English speakers
say it, but you will come across so sophisticated because
you're gonna say it like this say it after me, Hofbräuhaus.
Students: Hof-bräu-haus.
Gretchen Strauch: They're going to be like, "Come on in you get to the
back room where all the beer is free." One more time Hof-bräu-haus.
Students: Hofbräuhaus.
Gretchen Strauch: Good where you might drink
a? I'll say it, you say it Hefe-wei-zen.
Students: Hefeweizen.
Gretchen Strauch: wizen.
Students: wizen
Gretchen Strauch: That T right? We want to say
Hefeweizen and Hefeweizen in English, but Hefeweizen.
That T, pizza, wizen, yes? You might order with your Hefeweizen ein?
Students: Brezel.
Gretchen Strauch: Close.
Students: Brezel.
Gretchen Strauch: Brezel.
Brezel, Brezel it's got the "Eh" and "tuh" Brezel, pretzel.
You may even visit the beautiful little town of not fussen but?
Students: Füssen.
Gretchen Strauch: Füssen.
Students: Füssen
Gretchen Strauch: Füssen, it's not quite Fissen but that's close enough.
Füssen.
Füssen, yes, yes.
Where you could visit the beautiful
Schloss Castle called? Here we go Neu-
Students: Neuschwanstein.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes.
Neuschwanstein, which means? Anyone want to guess? New Schwan stone, yes.
Okay, one more country over where we've left Bayern and now we're in?
Students: Österreich.
Gretchen Strauch: Österreich, the eastern
realm in English the country is?
Students: Austria.
Gretchen Strauch: Austria, I'll say you say it Österreich.
Students: Österreich.
Gretchen Strauch: Österreich, yes.
The capital of it is?
Students: Wien.
Gretchen Strauch: Wien where you might drink some?
Students: Wein.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, okay good.
The big river there is the?
Students: Donau.
Gretchen Strauch: Donau.
Danube.
Now I'll say you say it, Donau.
Students: Donau.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, so the Donau is Blau, with blue
danube doesn't really rhyme in English, it rhymes in German.
One of my favorite cities in Austria, again, is?
Students: Salzburg.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, okay and where Mozart liked to play a lot of?
Students: Musik.
Gretchen Strauch: Musik not music [???? 00:28:00] makes music.
I'm walking around Salzburg you would cross the?
Students: Straße.
Gretchen Strauch: To get to the?
Students: U-Bahn.
Gretchen Strauch: U-Bahn, there's no U-Bahn
in Salzburg, but there's an U-Bahn in Veen.
"You" bahn, but U-Bahn, right- or u-boat if
you're into war movies- or you might catch the?
Students: Bus.
Gretchen Strauch: Bus, yes right, and you would pay for the bus with?
Students: Euro.
Gretchen Strauch: Deutschland.
Euro.
Students: Euro.
Gretchen Strauch: Right so, Neuschwanstein
Deutschland, E-U-R-O in German is Euro.
Europa is the continent Europe and the money is Euro.
I know that's a tough one.
If you're going to go to Switzerland and you
were actually in the German-speaking areas in?
Students: Schweiz.
Gretchen Strauch: Schweiz, in die Schweiz.
Switzerland.
Rick's favorite place in Switzerland actually always
says all of Europe is the tiny little hamlet of?
Students: Gimmelwald.
Gretchen Strauch: Gimmelwald you say it.
Students: Gimmelwald.
Gretchen Strauch: Good, and nearby is-you can ride a gondola up to?
Students: [mumbles]
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, Männ-lich-en.
Männlichen
Students: Männlichen.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, make sense? Yes? Or you can ride the train
all the way up to the highest train station in Europe the?
Students: Jungfraujoch.
Gretchen Strauch: Jungfraujoch.
Students: Jungfraujoch.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes that one's got a lot
of tricky things in there, the Jungfraujoch.
Yes, good.
You might go to the beautiful town in Switzerland of?
Students: Luzern.
Gretchen Strauch: Luzern, which is right on the
beautiful shores of Lake? Okay, let's break it down.
Vier-wald-stätter-see,
it's the four for its state to the lake.
Break it down, it's a little bit less absurd, okay.
I'll say and you say it, Vierwaldstättersee.
Students: Vierwaldstättersee.
Gretchen Strauch: Not so bad now right? Right?
Student: Right.
Gretchen Strauch: Okay, good.
Few more.
Best thing eated in Switzerland, that's
maybe cheese is? Schokolade, yes.
They also have in German speaking area is very good.
Students: Brot.
Gretchen Strauch: Brot, bread, yes.
Not brote, brot or suppe.
Students: Suppe.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes.
If you want to order it in restaurant, you ask for the?
Students: [???? 00:30:35]
Gretchen Strauch: No, you ask for the Speisekarte, I was tricking you.
[laughter]
This is one of those false friends.
So, the word Menü, with an Umlaut is actually the fixed
price meal, like the togas or you can have the togas menu.
Like an appetizer and a main course desert, that kind of thing.
That would be the menü.
If you walk in, and you order the menü,
they will say it right away, and they will
come out with your appetizer and then the,
"Very well, that's now, I just wanted a
piece of paper." If you want a piece of
paper, or you want a karte, or you want
Speisekarte, the meal card, that what you ask
for. I'll say and you say it, Speisekarte.
Students: Speisekarte.
Gretchen Strauch: Good and the word for
the fixed price meal of the day is the?
Students: Menü
Gretchen Strauch: Menü.
Yes, good.
Finally, if someone sneezes, you say?
Students: Gesundheit.
Gretchen Strauch: Gesundheit.
The only word in German that English
speakers all pronounce preferably perfectly.
Okay.
We're going to do some vocabulary.
The point isn't to learn this forever, but
to think about, to get your mind around it.
Just to get some practice and get a sense of what we might
figure out if we saw these or heard these in the world.
If you need to ask somebody, if they speak English, you could
say, "sprichst Englisch," but you could just stick to English.
The important point here is not the English, we will understand
you, but for some reason we pronounce ENG in English like an I. Inglish.
They actually pronounce in German like its spelled.
I'll say and you say, Englisch.
Students: Englisch.
Gretchen Strauch: England, Englisch, makes sense.
Englisch.
The word for please is also the same word for, you're welcome.
I'll say and you say it, Bitte
Students: Bitte.
Gretchen Strauch: [???? 00:32:12]
Students: Entschuldigung
Gretchen Strauch: Entschuldigung.
You want to get someone's attention you say,
Student: Entschuldigung.
Gretchen Strauch: Entschuldigung.
You trip over someone's foot, entschuldigung.
You really make a mistake you want say I am sorry, you say?
Students: "Es tut mir leid," does mean suffering, es tut mir leid.
So much better than sorry.
We want to say, "I don't understand." I'll
say it, you say it, Ich verstehe nicht.
Students: Ich verstehe nicht.
Gretchen Strauch: Obviously, if you don't understand, you're going argh.
People get that, but if you want to say, "I don't
understand," and be fancy about, ich verstehe nicht.
Okay.
Important words for travelers.
The word for train station, I'll say and you say
it, main word for train station is, bahnhof.
Students: Bahnhof.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, and the main train station is the hauptbahnhof.
Students: Hauptbahnhof
Gretchen Strauch: Haupt-hauptbahnhof.
Yes, the word for train is zug.
Students: Zug.
Gretchen Strauch: You want to figure out when a train is going
to get there, you are interested in the train's ankunft.
Students: Ankunft and more importantly
most of the time Ausfahrt
Students: Abfahrt
Students: And, yes, I just said, fahrt because
that is the word for journey, in German.
If you want to tell someone to have a good trip,
you could say, "gute Reise," but you could
also say, "gute fahrt," and that is still funny
to me, so you're allowed to laugh at that.
[laughter]
That was always my thing, living in Germany, they would come by
the train every day and they ask me, "Are you going on your way,
or on your way back?" The would check my tickets, then, they
say, "hec fahrt or wuk fahrt," and I think, "God, it's so funny"
[laughter]
Gretchen Strauch: We go home and that's not funny.
In big cities like Salzburg, but in Viena and Berlin, Munich, all the big
cities certainly in Germany, what we'd
call the subway, they call the U-bahn.
Students: U-bahn.
Gretchen Strauch: The commuter rail that would
go to outer reaches, outside is an S-bahn.
Students: S-bahn.
Gretchen Strauch: Bus.
Students: Bus.
Gretchen Strauch: A bus stop sign, you think maybe, you're looking
for a B, but actually the word for bus stop is haltestelle.
Students: Haltestelle.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, the stopping position, haltestelle.
This H is within Germany and much of
Austria, a Universal sign for bus stop.
The H is for haltestelle.
They think if it was being for bus, but you're
not looking for B, you're looking for H.
Then when they come through on the train to
check, they're going to ask for your fahrkarte
Students: Fahrkarte.
Student: Yeah, sure
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, fahrkarte, or your fahrschein
Gretchen Strauch: Fahrschein.
They mean exactly the same thing.
They can see the train they say, "Fahrschein bitte, fahrkarte
bitte," and you hand over your ticket or you rail pass.
All right, you need ask for where things are, where is, is, wo ist.
Students: Wo ist.
Gretchen Strauch: Don't worry about [German
language], when you're travelling around.
If you want to say, "Where is train station?" If someone said
that to you in English, you wouldn't be like, "[German language]"
[laughter]
Leave out.
They would be perplexed if you said I wanted to eat
pizza for dinner. You would not be perplexed if
someone said, "Where is train station?" Feel free,
you have my permission to say, "Wo ist bahnhof?"
Students: Wo ist bahnhof.
Gretchen Strauch: If the bahnhof is to the right? Bahnhof it is, rechts.
Students: Rechts
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, rechts.
Yes, and if it's to the left its, links.
Students: Links.
Gretchen Strauch: If its straight ahead,
because there is also no EA together
in German, this is two words together,
its straight-out, it's geradeaus.
Students: Geradeaus.
Gretchen Strauch: Gerade, straight aus, straight out.
Geradeaus.
Left, links.
Okay, pretend I'm lost in a German city, I
want to get someones attention and, so, I say,
Students: Entschuldigung
Gretchen Strauch: "Entschuldigung," and they hear
me, so they say, "Ja," and I say, "Where is?"
Students: Wo ist?
Gretchen Strauch: Let's say I want to say, "Bus."
Students: Bus.
Gretchen Strauch: Bus, and someone says, "Ja, links."
Students: Left
Gretchen Strauch: Left, and I say, "Thank you."
Students: Danke.
Gretchen Strauch: And they say?
Students: Bitte.
Gretchen Strauch: Bitte.
I need it.
Okay.
Word for exit, the outgo is the?
Students: Ausgang.
Gretchen Strauch: Ausgang.
Gang, right.
I think like, gang [German language], same
route, ausgang, but what looks to us, like
the notausgang, is actually the very important
ausgang, that is the emergency exit.
Notfall, I said is emmergency, notfall is accident and
not, is emmergency, notausgang is emergency exit.
If you are looking for the toilet, you
can ask for die Toilette or just WC.
Students: WC.
Students: WC.
Where is the bathroom?
Students: Wo ist WC.
Gretchen Strauch: WC.
I have made this mistake.
I thought I was having a good German day, I
accidentally asked for the badezimmer, bathroom.
That would be a room with bath in it.
They problem is I was at a truck stop.
[laughter]
And they were like, "We don't have that.
It's a truck stop." And then, "Who wants to
take a bath at a truck stop?" I was like,
"You don't have a bathroom?" My friend said,
"She wants the WC." "Yes, we have that.
It's the truck stop, of course we have
that." WC, or toilette, but not bathroom.
Okay.
Most of these are ones that we know but
let's practice them really quickly.
Yes, no?
Students: Ja, nein.
Gretchen Strauch: ja nein.
Good, bad?
Students: Gut, schelcht.
Gretchen Strauch: Gut schelcht.
Schelcht.
More is?
Students: Mehr. Gretchen Strauch: Less is?
Students: Wenig
Gretchen Strauch: Wenig.
Wenig.
Word for big is?
Students: Gross.
Gretchen Strauch: Gross, it doesn't mean [???? 00:38:05] it
just means big, and it doesn't mean fat, like in French.
It just means big.
The word for small is?
Students: Klein.
Gretchen Strauch: Klein.
Klein.
The word, I've mentioned it before with, want to get
this Umlaut right, the word for wonderful or pretty is?
Students: Schon
Gretchen Strauch: Schön.
Schön, and if it's very pretty its sehr schön.
Very wonderful, sehr schön.
A waiter comes by and says, "How are your sausage and
potatoes?" Sehr schön, if that's what you're into.
The word for open is?
Students: Geöffnet.
Gretchen Strauch: Geöffnet, because
that's not a combination, so geöffnet.
Students: Geöffnet.
Gretchen Strauch: Geöffnet, and the word for close is?
Students: Geschlossen.
Gretchen Strauch: Because you used a schloss
to abschließen the door now it's geschlossen.
Okay.
A lot of us know these but let's practice them once more,
and I'm going to count these on my fingers because
when you count on one and you order one of something
in Germany or around here we start with the thumb.
Do this and you might get two.
If you ordering ice-cream, not such a bad problem, but if
you're ordering something expensive, you might be in trouble.
Okay.
One is? Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs.
Right was, sechs with a z sound.
Seiben.
Students: Seiben.
Gretchen Strauch: Eight is?
Students: Acht
Gretchen Strauch: Acht.
Nine?
Students: Neun
Gretchen Strauch: Neun.
Ten?
Students: Zehn.
Gretchen Strauch: Zehn, that's right, tz.
The word for eleven is?
Students: Elf
Gretchen Strauch: Elf, yes.
Twelve?
Students: Zwölf.
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, zwölf, yes, and
then just like in English, then you get
to 13, and then said it, but when we say 13 they say three ten, dreizehn.
Yes, okay.
Also like in English, we say forty, fifty,
sixty, seventy, twenty is a little different.
They don't say svaysig they say is zwansig for twenty.
zwansig, zwansig.
Thirty, then it gets normal.
Thirty is? [crosstalk] dreizig.
Forty? vierzig, fünfzigsechzig, siebzig.
They don't say siebensig they say siebzig, achtzig,
neunzig, hundert, that's right and tausend.
Students: Tausend
Gretchen Strauch: It's exactly what you guessed? The tricky part is they
say like four and twenty black birds, they say the numbers different.
The word for example, the way that you say
forty-three, they would say three and forty.
Drei-und-vierzig.
Students: Drei-und-vierzig
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, even when I'm having a good day then
someone would tell me the price, I'm at the shop counter and they
say the prices back to me, and they say, "The price is drei-und-vierzig
zwei- und-achtzig," and I'm thinking, okay it's €43.82.
That's when I look at the cash register
to make sure I don't mix the numbers up.
Words to listen for, if you really are in an unusual
situation as a traveler and find yourself needing
important information from somebody who doesn't
speak any English, which does happen now and then.
Key words to listen for are the words that change the whole sentence,
[mumbles] nicht geöffnet, probably not
open nicht, I'm listening for nicht.
I'm going to listen for leider-unfortunately,
because if your asking
someone, "I'm trying to get into the museum and it's closing in
15 minutes but I really want to get in there because I have to see
this one thing and that person says [mumbles] don't let me down.
[laughter]
Word for no or none-kein.
Remember the word for small?
Students: Klein
Gretchen Strauch: Klein, it's close.
Klein is small, kein- that's it, kein.
I don't know? Ich weiss nicht.
Ich weiss nicht.
You don't hear this so much but you'd see it
posted, you might see geschlossen on a shop or
restaurant that's closed but you might also see
Ruhetag, the quiet day, this means it's closed today.
A few more key travel words, the words for hotel and restaurant are
the exact same words, they pronounce them a little bit differently.
Hotel and restaurant, really close to the French.
I've got a bunch of different words for
restaurant, gaststätte, gaststube.
What's the difference between these? I've never understood.
Gast is guest, so that's a clue that it's some
sort of place to stay, maybe a place to eat.
Kneipe, stube, words for bar.
Schnell is fast, so Schnellimbiss is a
fast-food stand, sometimes this 'S' will be spelled with a Eszett.
Gasthaus, Gasthof, Wirtschaft a place to stay, places to
eat the gas is a sign that there's guesting involved.
Lot's of different words, Pension.
Yes, not pension, but just doesn't say Italian
pension, a place to stay, usually pretty
inexpensive, you know bare bones but one
of my favorite kinds of places to stay.
The word for room, don't forget the 'T' sound is zimmer. Students: zimmer
Gretchen Strauch: Zimmer. When you see a
sign that says, die macht frei, are the
rooms free? Well, they're available but
they are not free, you'd still have to pay.
[laughter]
Frei means customers is free.
Most of the time f-r-e-i just means
available, so you could ask if the seat is
free, you could ask if the zimmer are frei,
but if it's not full then it's belegt.
Okay.
Few eating things, you don't ask for the menu, you ask for the?
Students: Speisekarte
Gretchen Strauch: Yes, half right.
Speise.
Speisekarte
Students: Speisekarte
Gretchen Strauch: Speisekarte, the spiesekarte.
How do you say please?
Students: Speisekarte
Gretchen Strauch: Speisekarte bitte, yes.
You want to get the waiter's attention, you say?
Students: Entschuldigung
Gretchen Strauch: Entschuldigung, yes, good.
You want to get your hot chocolate with cream, you ask for it mit.
Mit, Ohne, and if there's something that you are allergic to and you want
to make absolutely sure that you don't
eat, ask for ohne, such and such.
Word for piece ein stück, ein stück pizza is exactly a piece of pizza.
Stück.
Frühstück, breakfast is supposed to be
the early piece or early piece of bread.
You'd see Gericht or Speise on menus, spiesekarte.
Frühstück.
To order something, there's different
ways to say, "I would like." I think this
is the easiest one for us to say as English
speakers, I'll say it and you say it.
Ich hätte gern
Students: Ich hätte gern
Gretchen Strauch: Good.
Let's say you would like water. Ich hätte gern wasser. Student: Bitte
Gretchen Strauch: Bitte, yes, good.
It's just as important in German to say please as is just in English.
Ich hätte gern wasser. You might have also heard Ich mochte ein wasser,
I would like, that also works, I think hätte is easier to say.
Ich hätte gern, I would like.
Schmeckt's isn't a question you would ask, but schmeckts's is a question
that waits staff to ask you all the time eating in restaurants.
They walk up to you and it's kind of
like in the States they come up and they
say, "Is everything okay?" The most commonly
what a waiter or waitress would ask
you in a German speaking restaurant is
schmeckt's? and what they're asking you
is everything okay? Did you like the food?,
and you would say lecker. [laughter]
Or not, German speakers, we think maybe its kind of rude but to them
they think it forthright, I've heard people go like, "Yes, it's okay."
[laughter]
That'd be really rude in an American restaurant
but in Germany they're like, "Oh Okay, not
everyone has a good day", back away, they're
not going to comp your meal or anything.
[laughs]
Schmeckt's? [mubles] Oh, yes okay.
What you asked for, how do you say excuse me? Entschuldigung.
You want the? Rechnung or the quittung
so the qu doesn't pop up much but
when it does, it's v because they don't have the w sound so quittung.
Your going to ask for reckoning or the quitting.
[laughs] The rechnung, quittung, and of course
if you can't remember you just entschuldigung,
that's an important word, right?
entschuldigung and then you write it up there.
Asking for the bill.
It's quite common in German speaking countries and around a lot of
Europe, except for Scandinavia and Britain that they only accept
cash, they just don't have a credit card economy quite like we
do so if they only accept bargel, cash, it will say nur bargel.
Nur bargel.
Yes, Cash money.
Here's an important one, we're going to practice this
for a sec, the waiter comes up and the waiter has a
bill for you and they don't tend to leave a bill on the
table for you, usually the waiter will come up and
actually verbally say the amount and if the waiter
comes up and says that it is vier und zwanzig dreizig,
you think, I heard some numbers but they're probably
on the wrong order. How do ask them to write it down?
[audience murmurs]
[laughs]
Gretchen Strauch: They write it down, they write €24.30
and they're going to make the decimal point a comma.
The're going to write €24.30, let's pretend
that's the bill for your two person lunch.
Let's say, "Oh boy, do Iv tip them? How much do I tip them?
How do I do this? Do I leave money on the table?" It's
really straight forward in German speaking countries, this
is through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as well.
They come up to say it's €24.30, the chances
that they speak English well enough to
just tell you €24.30 in English is really
high but if not, have them write it down.
What you want to do, tipping in German speaking countries
is round up between zero and 5%, more than 5% is absurd.
I would round up either to the nearest euro
or maybe one or two above depending on
the amount, if they said €24.30 I'd probably
pay €26 to €27, not more than that.
Let's say I'm feeling generous that day and I want
to pay €27 for a €24.30 bill, which is a fair
amount, if you just paid 24.30 no one's going to
spit in your food if you go back the next day.
That's because the cost of your food includes the service cost, the wait
staff is adequately paid and you are not shorting them money like that.
The word for tip in German is Trinkgeld, it's their drinking money.
The bill is €24.30, I could pay €25 no problem,€26, I'm going to pay €27.
The easiest way to do this, let's say I
have €30 on me, I hand the bill to the
waiter and I say 27 and the waiter says
thank you and gives me back €3 change.
That makes sense?
Students: Yes
Gretchen Strauch: You can do this in German if you want
to be fancy but if you're doing this in English which
is possible most of the time because most white staff
in most places that are popular for travelers speak
at least some English is that you tell them what you
want to pay that's an amount that's slightly over and
usually and even euro amount of what your actual
bill and then you hand them either that exact thing.
If you hand them the exact thing, so they say it's €24.30, well guess
what? I have exactly €27 on me, I hand them €27 and I say stimmt so.
Students: Stimmt so.
Gretchen Strauch: It's fine as is, so keep the change.
Stimmt so is fine as is, I hand them €27 and the waiter
says, "Danke," because I just gave him a €2.70 tip.
That make sense?
Students: Yes.
Gretchen Strauch: And we're all happy.
He's like, "Wow, she must be American because that's a lot
of extra money to be on top of that bill." Stimmt so.
If I don't have exact change, then I pay more and I say what I
want to pay, they say danke, and they hand back the change,
makes sense? Solve the stress, it's so much better. It's not
common to have tap water in a German-speaking restaurant.
If you want some, don't assume it's free
but at least if you ask for tap water
it will be less expensive than getting
mineral water, which is the default thing
if you order wasser. The word for tap water is, I'll say it and you say it,
leitungswasser. Pretty straightforward,
the word for white wine is weißwein.
Red wine is rotwein not rotting wine. Beer.
My favorite, I know, Radler. Let's finish on the
most important thing, let's be honest, ice cream.
Yes.
The word for a scoop of ice cream, you would ask for a
spear of ice cream, a ball of icecream, eine kugel.
Is anyone's favorite kind of ice cream vanilla?
That's never true, my mom's favorite, it's strange.
Vanilla is the same.
Schokolade.
Perhaps, one of my favorites, erdbeere, strawberry.
My favorite in Germany is Walnuss.
Let's pretend that at least one of these is your favorite,
let's say it together. I'll say it, then you say it.
You can put in your favorite ice cream.
I'm going to hold up one scoop, eine kugel Walnuss, bitte.
And you say it? eine kugel [crosstalk].
Exactly, great.
That's it, we are done.
Thank you so much for coming, I'll be out
there to answer questions for a few minutes.
[applause]
[music]
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