Chatterbug’s new podcast, Long Story Short, covers beginners German for English speakers. Each episode is in German and English, and takes you on a journey. Listen as the characters navigate their way through chance meetings, miscommunications and surprises.

You can also listen on Apple or the RSS feed. Below is a transcript of the tenth episode.

Intro

HELENA: From Chatterbug and produced by Weframe Studios, you’re listening to Long Story Short – Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn – ein Podcast in Deutsch und Englisch. 

For those of you following the Chatterbug curriculum, remember to look out for a few key themes today, covering describing objects and their locations, talking about work, and – in case any of you are missing your travel days – airport announcements. 

This episode is “The Way Back”, meaning “Der Weg zurück”. Sometimes, when told a story enough times, it becomes part of our own memory as if we have experienced it ourselves. But why do some memories stay with us more than others?

The Way Back

[00:55] 

MICHAEL: 

There’s an expression – I’m sure you’ve heard it – that the first impression is everything. But with us, there was nothing remarkable about the moment we met. It was everything after that showed me what extraordinary could feel like. People always ask if ours was a love story. It was, but just not in the way they mean. Daisy was a song writer who was moving to Berlin to find success in the city her father was from. She said that it was where he had been the most happy, and she wanted a piece of that. I wondered how she’d be able to find this happiness on her own. She told me it was simple. She just needed to find her way back to his life and that time travel was possible, not in an 80s, “Back to the Future” kind of way, but that you can use things to bring you back to a feeling. She explained that the first step was through music. Maybe that was where her own ambition stemmed from. But she also longed for the sounds of the city, the smell, and the people, a world her father had painted in the mind of the little girl who grew up curious. She had the air of a wanderer, except for her, that had always been a destination in mind. And I happened to be the person to help her get there as unlikely as that seems. I’d been standing in a queue at the airport duty free, but this was no ordinary day. It was the day, and a long one ahead of me at that. I was coming for a promotion at work and this was the final hurdle. I was up against one other person and we’d be going head-to-head for an important client. I was lost in my thoughts – statistics, charts, nerves taking up considerable thinking power – when a small person guitar, almost the size of her on her back, sidled up next to me.

DAISY: Entschuldigen Sie, darf ich Sie was fragen?

MICHAEL:

She interrupted my concentration.

Oh, hallo! Ja, klar.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I was frustrated by this disturbance, especially as her query was so undemanding.

DAISY: Ich wollte wissen, wo ich so eine kaufen kann.

MICHAEL:

She said, pointing at the newspaper in my hands.

Oh, die habe ich in einem anderen Laden gekauft. Dort rechts, zwischen dem Café und dem Schuhgeschäft. Die stehen direkt unter den Büchern.

I explained.

DAISY: Oh, danke! Wissen Sie, ob man mit Kreditkarte zahlen kann?

MICHAEL:

She continued.

Ähm… ich denke schon. Das ist ja ein Flughafen hier.

I answered pretty patronizingly.

DAISY: Oh, ja, stimmt.

MICHAEL:
She said, nodding.

DAISY: Und, sorry, noch eine letzte Frage.

MICHAEL:
She pushed on.

DAISY: Haben Sie eine Uhr? Wie spät ist es?

MICHAEL:

There were clocks practically everywhere in the airport, but I obliged.

Es ist punkt 9 Uhr.

DAISY: Ach, dann beeile ich mich lieber.

MICHAEL:

She declared, then thanked me and, I presumed, went off to find her newspaper. As I went back to my thoughts, another disruption:

AIRPORT EMPLOYEE: Achtung, Achtung! Passagiere des Fluges FL307 nach Berlin werden zum Gate A23 gebeten.

MICHAEL:

My flight was called. When I reflect on it, I guess, even then, I knew something about her. She asked strangers questions, a lot of them. But this would only be confirmed when I arrived on the flight, and there, in my row, she sat – she at the window, I at the isle. It didn’t take long for her to start talking. As she did, she took out her newspaper and began tearing the pages. She confused me. She just seemed aimless. I tried to resist her conversation, to keep my eyes on the prize so to speak, but it was impossible. She had so much to say, and that was when I heard her plan for happiness in the big city. We sat beside each other for a two-hour flight, just two hours, and I felt like I knew more about her and she about me than most of the people I saw every day. When we landed, we didn’t make any plans to see each other again, nothing like that. We just stepped off the plane. Back to reality, I figured. As I waited outside the airport for a company car to pick me up, we had a parting moment, though. She walked towards me, easygoing as she came.

Du hast es geschafft! Willkommen in Berlin!

I said triumphantly for her.

DAISY: Ja, geschafft.

MICHAEL:
She smiled.

DAISY: Du ja auch. Also jetzt ab ins Büro, oder?

MICHAEL:

It sounded like a rhetorical question, but it wasn’t. From our earlier conversation she seemed to think I did in fact have other options.

Ja.

I replied.

DAISY: Ich denke, du hast Emails und Anrufe, um die du dich kümmern musst. Und deine groβe Präsentation.

MICHAEL:

She raised her eyebrows as she spoke.

Hört sich richtig an.

I said.

DAISY: Du solltest mich auf meiner Suche begleiten. Ich denke, es macht mehr Spass als das, was du heute vor hast.

MICHAEL:

She then propositioned. Anyone else would seem like they were joking saying something like that, but there was a sincerity in her words. Still, as much as I would like to look for happiness with her, I wasn’t the type to abandon my plans.

Ach, ne! Da ist leider etwas, was ich wirklich tun muss.

I was resolved.

DAISY: Ich respektiere das. Am Ende, es ist deine Entscheidung.

MICHAEL:

She dropped some wisdom to which I replied with:

Drück mir die Daumen.

DAISY: Ich drück dir die Daumen.

MICHAEL:

She wished, and that was us. I got into the car on the way to what this morning had seemed like the most important turning point in my life so far. Now, I felt like something was fighting that feeling, but my practical side brought me back down. It was go time.

BOSS: Sie sind spät dran.

MICHAEL:

Was the first thing my boss said when I arrived.

Das tut mir wirklich leid. Ich stand im Stau.

I tried explaining.

BOSS: Der Kunde ist schon hier für das Meeting. Gehen Sie sofort in den Besprechungsraum. Ich komme gleich nach.

MICHAEL: 

He ushered me in.

Guten Tag! Vielen Dank, dass Sie nochmal gekommen sind.

I began. This was my shot. I was almost persuading myself. And so, the presentation went underway. The whole afternoon it took, and by the end of it, my boss gave me their answer.

BOSS: Danke, dass Sie angereist sind, Michael. Ihre Präsentation was sehr informativ.

MICHAEL:

“Thank goodness,” I thought.

Ich weiβ das sehr zu schätzen. Es wäre mir eine Ehre, das Berlin Team zu leiten.

But he didn’t let me finish. Instead, he laid it on me.

BOSS: Nun, das tut mir leid, aber wir haben uns für den anderen Kandidaten entschieden. Sie haben den Job nicht bekommen.

MICHAEL:

And down I went. I’d been counting on this job for a long time. In my disappointment, all I could think was, “How was it possible that in no time at all one person opened themselves up to me so unreservedly, but in the years that I’d given myself to my work, they still couldn’t?” So, I took off. There was nothing more I could do there. I walked the streets, trying to clear my head. Daisy had told me that when she was younger, her father had always tried to find a spot in the sun, above the city, so he could take it all in, this place he loved so much. I thought that sounded peaceful. I also happened to know a place like that. I decided to take the subway, see if I could find it. As I rode, it felt like I was on a different side of the day. I arrived at the stop. Usually, I walk fast, quite single-minded. The more I thought about Daisy’s take on life, the more I slowed down. I got on an escalator and actually just stood there. I watched the people around me, caught moments of their conversations. I looked up at the walls lined with posters. And as I did, I noticed that stuck on the top of each ad was a torn-out letter. They all varied, but together they formed a word – Papa – over and over. Then came the music and the comforting sound of a voice I knew. She was there, guitar in her arms, at the top of the steps. They brought me to her. Her eyes met mine and we laughed.

Sind es deine… auf den Plakaten? 

I gestured to the letters. She smiled and then asked incredulously:

DAISY: Was machst du denn hier?

MICHAEL: Tja… ich habe sie es nicht bekommen.

I replied.

DAISY: Die neue Stelle?

MICHAEL:
She wondered, and I nodded.

DAISY: Und wie bist du hier gelandet?

MICHAEL:
I honestly didn’t know how this happened, but if ever a sign had come to me, this was it.

Komm mit! Ich will dir was zeigen.

I said. She didn’t take convincing. We walked together quietly for the first time. I think we were both too busy absorbing the serendipity after all. Then, finally:

Wir sind fast da.

I said.

DAISY: Wo sind wir?

MICHAEL: She asked.

An einem Ort, den dein Vater mögen würde.

DAISY: Hier?

MICHAEL: Nein, wir gehen da hoch bei den Bäumen.

I pointed to the top of the hill with the best view of Berlin I’d ever seen. We walked up, and with each step, the city revealed itself. When we reached the top, Daisy was silent. She just stared out, breathing the air, listening to the world around us. She then spoke.

DAISY: Ich hatte schon immer Heimweh nach einem Ort an dem ich noch nie war. Und jetzt weiβ ich warum.

MICHAEL:

She took out a photograph. It was faded and old, but the image was uncanny. I looked up. It was the same view.

DAISY: Davon hat er geredet. Du hast mich hier hingebracht… zu ihm. 

MICHAEL:

She looked serene. Daisy had been searching for a way to bring her father’s memories to life. And in doing so, she had created her own… her own happiness. She was home. Daisy was meant to make it to the top of the hill that day, and so was I. I never saw her after that, but I never forgot that feeling, how the city had come alive for us as we stood there. The sounds, its smell, the people, the peace we felt standing on that top. For a moment, time had seemed to stop for her… or, perhaps, it went back.

Breakdown

[14:55]

HELENA: And we’re back. You’ve just been listening to “The Way Back” or “Der Weg zurück”.

DANIELLE: “Der Weg zurück”.

HELENA: That’s Danielle, our A1 German learner.

DANIELLE: Hi!

HELENA: Welcome to our final episode of season one.

DANIELLE: Oh, my goodness! I can’t believe we’re here!

HELENA: We have come so far, learned so much.

DANIELLE: I learned so much.

HELENA: But, yeah, we’re really looking forward to discussing this beautiful cherry on top ending to our stories. This one was all about making… kind of coming full circle, I think.

DANIELLE: Yeah, it’s a good way to describe it.

HELENA: That’s why I thought, yeah, it was a perfect way to end this season. The story is about kind of these two contrasting characters. One is a man who’s very clear oriented, very focused, a little bit more straightforward thinking, and he runs into a free-spirited woman in the airport.

DANIELLE: Daisy and Michael, right?

HELENA: Yeah, Michael.

DANIELLE: Michael.

HELENA: So, they go their own ways in the story, but they find their way back together, just like Daisy finds her way back to her father’s memory that she is looking for throughout the story.

DANIELLE: Yeah.

HELENA: There is a part of the story where she describes feeling like homesick for a place she’s never been to before.

DANIELLE: Yeah, which I though was really beautiful.

HELENA: She’s describing this picture that her father had taken from the top of the view of a mountain overlooking Berlin, and I think she kind of relates this view to the spirit of her father and she kind of longs for that connection to him.

DANIELLE: Sure.

HELENA: And I thought that a really nice way to start this episode would be to take about these beautiful, abstract poetic notions that are really exemplary of a few German words.

DANIELLE: Okay.

HELENA: People always say that German is a really logical language and lacks spirit and is really, I don’t know, cold in some ways.

DANIELLE: Yeah.

HELENA: But I would disagree. I think there’s some kind of philosophical nature of the German language, which lends itself very well to putting complex concepts in pretty short, beautiful compound words.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay.

HELENA: So, I thought we could take a look at a few of them.

DANIELLE: Oh, nice!

HELENA: So, first it’s the concept of “Fernweh” versus “Heimweh”.

DANIELLE: Yeah, I’ve heard of “Heimweh”.

HELENA: “Heimweh”? That means “home sickness”.

DANIELLE: Home sickness.

HELENA: Right. “Heim” means “home” and “weh” is kind of like a word for pain. So, you could say “Es tut weh.”.

DANIELLE: “Es tut weh.”, yeah.

HELENA: Which means, “it hurts”.

DANIELLE: “Weh tun”.

HELENA: So, “Heimweh” is like the “hurt for home”. Like, you know that… I love this because when I think of “Heimweh”, I feel like that pain in my chest.

DANIELLE: Yeah, you… yeah.

HELENA: It’s like a feeling. It’s a physical feeling. And I just love that this German word “Heimweh” beautifully describes that. Kind of almost the opposite of “Heimweh” would then be “Fernweh”, which means “the longing for something far away”.

DANIELLE: I see.

HELENA: Or like the pain for a distant place or a distant time. So, you could say, oh, I have “Fernweh” for a spot that you’ve been vacationing on many times, and you love it so much, and it’s like an important part of your past. Or you want to experience it in the future and you’re like, oh, I can imagine this place being so amazing and I have a “Fernweh” for it. Like, you want to experience it, but it’s not near you and it’s not home. It’s something distant.

DANIELLE: That’s so interesting because I actually had “Fernweh” for Germany long before I moved here.

HELENA: Oh!

DANIELLE: Yeah, when I first started dating my now-husband, I actually told him. Like, maybe on our fourth or fifth date, I was like, “I really want to live in Europe. And I think I really want to live in Germany.” And I don’t know why Germany. And, like, I just…

HELENA: Yeah, I’m curious to know why.

DANIELLE: I actually, to this day, I like really try to think about it. I think maybe I had heard, you know, maybe a couple of stories about how the country had really turned around after the wall came down. And, I don’t know, but I just… I was always drawn to this country in some way. And so, yeah, when my husband, he was here… I guess maybe five or six years after I told him that, he actually came here to visit and then ended up finding a job, kind of serendipitously, kind of like this story.

HELENA: Yeah, the story also has serendipity in it.

DANIELLE: Yeah, so then we ended up moving here and he reminded me. He was like, “Remember when we first started dating, you said you wanted to move here?” I was like, “Oh, that’s right! I totally forgot about that.”

HELENA: Wow! Okay, so that’s “Fernweh”. And then there’s another word similar in German called “Wanderlust”. Do you know this one?

DANIELLE: Yeah, “Wanderlust”!

HELENA: That’s really popular in American culture right now. 

DANIELLE: Yeah, “Wanderlust”, yeah.

HELENA: Everyone’s like – I have Wanderlust. I want to travel the world.

DANIELLE: So, that’s actually a German word then.

HELENA: Yeah, “Wanderlust”. So, “wandern” means…

DANIELLE: I thought we came up with that.

HELENA: No, I’m sorry. To “wandern” is like “to explore” or “to hike”, you know. “Ich bin wandern gegangen.”

DANIELLE: Oh, right! Yeah.

HELENA: I went hiking. And then “Lust”…

DANIELLE: Is to love something.

HELENA: Yeah, in this sense, “Lust” means “to want to do something” or to…

DANIELLE: To want to do something, okay.

HELENA: Feel like doing something, so to have the feeling like you want to travel. And then another word that has this sort of poetic notion in Germany is the “Zeitgeist”, which is also a…

DANIELLE: “Zeitgeist”.

HELENA: Word used in English.

DANIELLE: Oh, yeah! We use that one a lot.

HELENA: Yeah, it captures the emotions of a certain decade or era or a specific point in time.

DANIELLE: I also thought we came up with that one as well.

HELENA: Oh, sorry. The news, kindergarten… I’m just kidding. I want to go over two more of these German words that I really love.

DANIELLE: Okay, these are fine, yeah.

HELENA: So, we have “Luftschloss”.

DANIELLE: “Luftschloss” is like “air castle”.

HELENA: Yeah, air castle, and it actually means “to daydream”.

DANIELLE: Oh!

HELENA: Or to describe an unrealistic dream.

DANIELLE: Oh! “Luftschloss”. Oh, that’s such a great word!

HELENA: Yeah, it’s like making dreams out of imaginary clouds. When I think of “Luftschloss”, I think of when I was a child and I would try to make animals or creatures out of the clouds that I would see passing by. Actually, I still do that because it’s fun.

DANIELLE: Wow! That’s such a beautiful word and concept.

HELENA: And then we have the “Kopfkino”.

DANIELLE: Okay, so “head movie theater”.

HELENA: Head cinema, yeah. And that means “to have pictures or scenarios in your mind”.

DANIELLE: And would you hear these kinds of words in normal conversation?

HELENA: Yeah.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay.

HELENA: Yeah, definitely! “Kopfkino” is used a lot. “Zeitgeist” is used all the time in like more poetic writings or even political or if you see the newspaper.

DANIELLE: Okay.

HELENA: “Fernweh”, “Heimweh”, yeah, they’re all pretty commonly used words in German.

DANIELLE: Great!

HELENA: I find that Germans have a very philosophical way of speaking usually, like really trying to get to the depth really quickly in conversation. It’s what I really like about German culture. So, with those words in mind, let’s dive into the first dialogue.

DANIELLE: Okay, let’s do it.

DAISY: Entschuldigen Sie, darf ich Sie was fragen?

MICHAEL:

She interrupted my concentration.

Oh, hallo! Ja, klar.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I was frustrated by this disturbance, especially as her query was so undemanding.

DAISY: Ich wollte wissen, wo ich so eine kaufen kann.

MICHAEL:

She said, pointing at the newspaper in my hands.

Oh, die habe ich in einem anderen Laden gekauft. Dort rechts, zwischen dem Café und dem Schuhgeschäft. Die stehen direkt unter den Büchern.

I explained.

DAISY: Oh, danke! Wissen Sie, ob man mit Kreditkarte zahlen kann?

MICHAEL:

She continued.

Ähm… ich denke schon. Das ist ja ein Flughafen hier.

I answered pretty patronizingly.

DAISY: Oh, ja, stimmt.

MICHAEL:
She said, nodding.

DAISY: Und, sorry, noch eine letzte Frage.

MICHAEL:
She pushed on.

DAISY: Haben Sie eine Uhr? Wie spät ist es?

MICHAEL:

There were clocks practically everywhere in the airport, but I obliged.

Es ist punkt 9 Uhr.

DAISY: Ach, dann beeile ich mich lieber.

MICHAEL:

She declared, then thanked me and, I presumed, went off to find her newspaper. As I went back to my thoughts, another disruption:

AIRPORT EMPLOYEE: Achtung, Achtung! Passagiere des Fluges FL307 nach Berlin werden zum Gate A23 gebeten.

HELENA: The airport – what a great place to get to know people!

DANIELLE: Yeah, Daisy really, really wants to talk to him.

HELENA: Yeah, she’s like – This guy is my new entertainment in this line.

DANIELLE: I like to also strike up conversations with strangers at airports.

HELENA: Me, too. I actually… Probably, that’s when I’m most open to having random conversations to strangers.

DANIELLE: I think so, yeah.

HELENA: Is sitting in airports and on planes because you’re kind of forced next to somebody and you’re like, oh…

DANIELLE: Yes, that’s true.

HELENA: You can either awkwardly ignore each other for the next hour and a half.

DANIELLE: Or we can chit-chat.

HELENA: Yeah, and have the time go by even quicker. So, in this case, they’re waiting in line maybe to board the plane.

DANIELLE: Yes.

HELENA: And Daisy is asking Michael a few questions. So, let’s go over these questions.

DANIELLE: Yeah.

HELENA: She says, “Entschuldigung, darf ich Sie was fragen?”

DANIELLE: “Can I ask you a question?”

HELENA: And then she wants to know where she can buy a newspaper that he’s holding. And then he says that it’s in another store.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay.

HELENA: So, not the one nearby – “in einem anderen Laden”. 

DANIELLE: Oh, okay.

HELENA: Which means “other store”. And then he says, “dort rechts,” so, to the right, “zwischen dem Café und dem Schuhgeschäft”.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay, so between the café and… What’s “Schuhgeschäft”?

HELENA: “Schuhgeschäft”.

DANIELLE: “Schuhgeschäft” – is that like the shoe shine people?

HELENA: Just the shoe store.

DANIELLE: Oh, the shoe store? I was just thinking, you know, you see these places where you can shine your shoes at the airport.

HELENA: Yeah, totally. It’s like the last place you still see them in this modern world.

DANIELLE: Okay, yeah, but “Geschäft” totally I do know that that means “business”.

HELENA: Yeah, it’s just a shop. And then she wants to know “ob man mit Kreditkarte zahlen kann”.

DANIELLE: And he’s… At this point, he’s probably like – I don’t know! Why are you asking me questions?

HELENA: Well, actually, that’s a legitimate question if you can buy something with a credit card in Germany.

DANIELLE: That is true.

HELENA: Because, I don’t know, there’s so many places that are cash only.

DANIELLE: Yeah, but not in an airport, though.

HELENA: That’s true.

DANIELLE: Yeah.

HELENA: So, the last question Daisy asks is, “Und, sorry, noch eine letzte Frage.”

DANIELLE: Okay. “Oh, sorry, one last question.”

HELENA: Uh-huh. “Haben Sie eine Uhr? Wie spät ist es?”

DANIELLE: “Do you have a watch? What time is it?”

HELENA: Yeah. At this point, he’s like – What does this girl want from me?

DANIELLE: Yeah, she just really wants to talk.

HELENA: Yeah, she’s bored probably or she thinks Michael’s cute.

DANIELLE: Probably.

HELENA: Probably both. So, this is a funny word, “Uhr”, in German. It’s clock and watch. Same word for both. Okay, so how often have you been in an airport and they’re saying something over the loud speaker and you’re just like – I have no clue what that was. I hope it wasn’t important to me.

DANIELLE: Yeah, probably every single time. It happens everywhere – on the S-Bahn, on the U-Bahn.

HELENA: Yeah, the S-Bahn, they’re like, “This train is stopping here.” 

DANIELLE: At the “Hauptbahnhof”.

HELENA: And you have to take an “Ersatzverkehr”, and you have to take three other busses to replace this one stop that you wanted to go. And you’re like – I’m just going to follow the person in front of me.

DANIELLE: Exactly. That’s exactly what I always do. I’m like, okay, I think I need to do what they’re doing.

HELENA: In this case in the story, it says, “Achtung, Achtung!” Do you know what that means?

DANIELLE: “Attention, attention!”

HELENA: Attention. It could also mean “caution”.

DANIELLE: Yes, “beware”.

HELENA: Yes, exactly. But in the airport, they’re not usually saying “beware”. Beware! Your flight’s about to leave. Then it says, “Passagiere des Fluges…” So, “Passagiere des Fluges” – Do you know what that means?

DANIELLE: Passengers of flight?

HELENA: Yes, exactly. And then it talks about where they’re going. Let’s listen to the next dialogue.

DANIELLE: Okay.

MICHAEL: Du hast es geschafft! Willkommen in Berlin!

I said triumphantly for her.

DAISY: Ja, geschafft.

MICHAEL:
She smiled.

DAISY: Du ja auch. Also jetzt ab ins Büro, oder?

MICHAEL:

It sounded like a rhetorical question, but it wasn’t. From our earlier conversation she seemed to think I did in fact have other options.

Ja.

I replied.

DAISY: Ich denke, du hast Emails und Anrufe, um die du dich kümmern musst. Und deine groβe Präsentation.

MICHAEL:

She raised her eyebrows as she spoke.

Hört sich richtig an.


I said.

DAISY: Du solltest mich auf meiner Suche begleiten. Ich denke, es macht mehr Spass als das, was du heute vor hast.

MICHAEL:

She then propositioned. Anyone else would seem like they were joking saying something like that, but there was a sincerity in her words. Still, as much as I would like to look for happiness with her, I wasn’t the type to abandon my plans.

Ach, ne! Da ist leider etwas, was ich wirklich tun muss.

I was resolved.

DAISY: Ich respektiere das. Am Ende, es ist deine Entscheidung.

MICHAEL:

She dropped some wisdom to which I replied with:

Drück mir die Daumen.

DAISY: Ich drück dir die Daumen.

MICHAEL:

She wished, and that was us.

HELENA: So, here we have our quintessential rom-com moment where they’re getting off the plane and they have to say goodbye and they never see each other again, but they wish themselves the best in life.

DANIELLE: Yeah.

HELENA: And then what happens? They meet each other once again somewhere in life. This part of the story has some nice little ways of expressing hope for the future, or expressing encouragement, the first one being “Du hast es geschafft!”.

DANIELLE: What does that mean?

HELENA: You did it!

DANIELLE: Oh! “Du hast es geschafft!”

HELENA: Congratulations!

DANIELLE: Okay. You did it!

HELENA: You made it! It’s another way of saying it.

DANIELLE: You made it!

HELENA: So, if Wilder, your son, manages to do something for the first time, you can be like “Du hast es geschafft!”.

DANIELLE: “Du hast es geschafft!”

HELENA: Oh!

DANIELLE: Yeah!

HELENA: And then, at the very end of the dialogue, another really nice sort of way of expressing luck to somebody would be to say “Ich drück dir die Daumen.”.

DANIELLE: “Ich drück dir die Daumen.”

HELENA: Yes. Do you know what that means?

DANIELLE: Well, I know that “drück” is like “to push”, but I don’t know “Daumen”. It’s not “Darmen”, right?

HELENA: No. “Daumen” means “thumbs”.

DANIELLE: Oh!

HELENA: So, in German, to wish somebody good luck, you say, which literally means “I’m pressing you the thumbs.”.

DANIELLE: I’m pressing you… Oh! I’m pressing you the thumbs.

HELENA: Yeah, so you know like “crossing fingers” in English?

DANIELLE: Yeah, yeah.

HELENA: So, in German, you have a little bit different hand movement. You basically put your thumbs in your palm and you basically make a fist with your thumbs under your fingers.

DANIELLE: Oh!

HELENA: So, you’re pressing your thumbs with your fingers.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay. “Ich drück dir die Daumen.”

HELENA: Yeah, that’s how you do it. And then you kind of wiggle your hand at the person.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay. So cool! I got to start doing that.

HELENA: Yeah. So, good luck!

DANIELLE: Good luck, okay.

HELENA: Daisy, once again, hoping to steer this serios businessman in the direction of life which is more fun, she says, “Du solltest mich auf meiner Suche begleiten.” So, she’s telling Michael, “You should come with and help me look for this…”

DANIELLE: “This place.”

HELENA: “This place.”

DANIELLE: Okay.

HELENA: That they talked about, that her father reminded her of. And then she says, “Ich denke, es macht mehr Spass als das, was du heute vor hast.”

DANIELLE: I think it’s… “mehr Spass” is like “more fun”. I think it’s more fun than what you have to do today.

HELENA: Yes.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay.

HELENA: She’s probably 100% right.

DANIELLE: Right.

HELENA: I’d much rather go exploring Berlin than having to make stressful business presentations.

DANIELLE: Yeah, I’m sure. Exploring Berlin is way more fun.

HELENA: Yeah, so “Spass haben”.

DANIELLE: “Spass haben”.

HELENA: That’s a nice idiom; “to have fun”.

DANIELLE: To have fun.

HELENA: And you can also say “Es macht mir Spass.”.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay, make fun.

HELENA: No, that means “That’s fun to me.”.

DANIELLE: Oh!

HELENA: That’s fun for me. Or you can say “Macht es dir Spass?”.

DANIELLE: “Macht es dir Spass?” – Make yourself fun.

HELENA: No. That’s a way of asking “Are you having fun?”. 

DANIELLE: Oh, right!

HELENA: Speaking of fun, let’s listen to the next dialogue.

BOSS: Sie sind spät dran.

MICHAEL:

Was the first thing my boss said when I arrived.

Das tut mir wirklich leid. Ich stand im Stau.

I tried explaining.

BOSS: Der Kunde ist schon hier für das Meeting. Gehen Sie sofort in den Besprechungsraum. Ich komme gleich nach.

MICHAEL: 

He ushered me in.

Guten Tag! Vielen Dank, dass Sie nochmal gekommen sind.

I began. This was my shot. I was almost persuading myself. And so, the presentation went underway. The whole afternoon it took, and by the end of it, my boss gave me their answer.

BOSS: Danke, dass Sie angereist sind, Michael. Ihre Präsentation was sehr informativ.

MICHAEL:

“Thank goodness,” I thought.

Ich weiβ das sehr zu schätzen. Es wäre mir eine Ehre, das Berlin Team zu leiten.

But he didn’t let me finish. Instead, he laid it on me.

BOSS: Nun, das tut mir leid, aber wir haben uns für den anderen Kandidaten entschieden. Sie haben den Job nicht bekommen.

HELENA: Oh, man!

DANIELLE: Oh, no!

HELENA: His boss sounds mean.

DANIELLE: I wouldn’t want that boss.

HELENA: No. He’s like, “Sie sind spät dran,” which is a formal way of saying you’re late.

DANIELLE: Yeah, he is probably the image of the German boss in my mind, though.

HELENA: Like, completely punctual, extremely logically thinking.

DANIELLE: Right.

HELENA: And has no patience for anything really.

DANIELLE: Very direct.

HELENA: Yes. He doesn’t want to hear Michael excuse “Ich stand im Stau.”.

DANIELLE: Oh, is that what that means? Like, I don’t want to hear your excuses?

HELENA: No, no. “Ich stand im Stau.” that means I was… that’s Michael explaining why he was late.

DANIELLE: Oh, “Stau” means “traffic”, right?

HELENA: Exactly. So, he had a lot of traffic on the way from the airport.

DANIELLE: Which is a very typical excuse, isn’t it? When you’re late to something.

HELENA: Yeah, because you can’t be like, no, there wasn’t traffic, because there probably was traffic.

DANIELLE: There’s always traffic.

HELENA: Yeah, I mean, leave earlier usually, but I guess if you have a plane, you can’t really…

DANIELLE: Right.

HELENA: Change that time. So, Michael gives his presentation and then, at the end, he’s like so pumped. He thinks he does a good job.

DANIELLE: He’s like – Oh, man, I got this!

HELENA: Yeah.

DANIELLE: I got this in the bag!

HELENA: He says to his boss, “Es wäre mir eine Ehre, das Berlin Team zu leiten.” What does that mean?

DANIELLE: I don’t know.

HELENA: “Eine Ehre” – that means “it would be an honor”. 

DANIELLE: Oh, “eine Ehre”!

HELENA: It would be an honor to lead the Berlin team.

DANIELLE: Oh, okay, “das Berlin Team zu leiten”.

HELENA: Yeah, he feels confident because his boss says, “Ihre Präsentation was sehr informativ.”

DANIELLE: Oh, okay.

HELENA: As like feedback for after his presentation.

DANIELLE: So, your presentation was very informative.

HELENA: Yeah, and he’s like – Oh, yeah, totally, that means I’m a good leader. But apparently it was just full of facts.

DANIELLE: Right. But you can be informative and still not be the person we want for this job.

HELENA: Yeah. And the boss lets him know. He says, “Das tut mir leid…”

DANIELLE: “I’m sorry.”

HELENA: “Aber wir haben uns für den anderen Kandidaten entschieden. Sie haben den Job nicht bekommen.”

DANIELLE: Oh, so they’re going with another candidate.

HELENA: Yes.

DANIELLE: And he didn’t get the job.

HELENA: No.

DANIELLE: That’s such a sad line!

HELENA: Yeah, it must be really awful for somebody who worked so hard to get let down like that.

DANIELLE: And he was obviously in the zone, which is why he didn’t really want to talk to Daisy earlier in the day.

HELENA: Yeah. But, because of Daisy, he has maybe a way of getting over this depressing news.

DANIELLE: Yeah, that’s true.

HELENA: So, let’s listen to the next dialogue and see where the story takes us.

DANIELLE: Wooo!

MICHAEL: Sind es deine… auf den Plakaten? 

I gestured to the letters. She smiled and then asked incredulously:

DAISY: Was machst du denn hier?

MICHAEL: Tja… ich habe sie es nicht bekommen.

I replied.

DAISY: Die neue Stelle?

MICHAEL:
She wondered, and I nodded.

DAISY: Und wie bist du hier gelandet?

MICHAEL:
I honestly didn’t know how this happened, but if ever a sign had come to me, this was it.

Komm mit! Ich will dir was zeigen.

I said. She didn’t take convincing. We walked together quietly for the first time. I think we were both too busy absorbing the serendipity after all. Then, finally:

Wir sind fast da.

I said.

DAISY: Wo sind wir?

MICHAEL: 

She asked.

An einem Ort, den dein Vater mögen würde.

DAISY: Hier?

MICHAEL: Nein, wir gehen da hoch bei den Bäumen.

I pointed to the top of the hill with the best view of Berlin I’d ever seen. We walked up, and with each step, the city revealed itself. When we reached the top, Daisy was silent. She just stared out, breathing the air, listening to the world around us. She then spoke.

DAISY: Ich hatte schon immer Heimweh nach einem Ort an dem ich noch nie war. Und jetzt weiβ ich warum.

MICHAEL:

She took out a photograph. It was faded and old, but the image was uncanny. I looked up. It was the same view.

DAISY: Davon hat er geredet. Du hast mich hier hingebracht… zu ihm.

HELENA: Oh!

DANIELLE: Yeah, it’s so sweet that it’s a beautiful ending.

HELENA: Yeah, a beautiful ending to a beautiful season one. So, in this little segment, Daisy and Michael end up at a place, the same place, a mountain or a hill overlooking Berlin. And the author of the story told me which hill it is in Berlin. It actually exists. It’s in Charlottenburg and it’s called “Drachenberg”.

DANIELLE: “Drachenberg”.

HELENA: “Drachen” – do you know what that is?

DANIELLE: No, what does that mean?

HELENA: That’s a dragon.

DANIELLE: Oh, so Dragon Hill.

HELENA: Dragon Hill, yes.

DANIELLE: Okay. I didn’t even know this place existed.

HELENA: It does. It’s in the southwest of Berlin.

DANIELLE: Okay.

HELENA: Kind of near where the convention center is.

DANIELLE: I see. 

HELENA: Close to the mountain, or the hill, there is also a TV tower, not the one in the middle of Berlin, but another one that you can take all the way up to the top. And there’s a restaurant there, and there’s another crazy beautiful view of Berlin.

DANIELLE: Yeah, I’ve heard of that one. I’ve never been, but, yeah.

HELENA: So, from that TV tower, you can also see a view of the city Berlin, so two places close to each other have both a beautiful view. So, Michael finds this spot where Daisy is playing her guitar by following some posters with the words “Papa” – so, “father” in German – written on them. I actually call my dad “Papa.”

DANIELLE: Oh, do you?

HELENA: Yeah, “Mama und Papa”. It’s a German way of calling your parents. So, Michael asks her, when she finally gets to where she’s sitting, she says, “Sind das deine… auf den Plakaten?”.

DANIELLE: “Is this yours?”

HELENA: Yeah, “Are those yours?”.

DANIELLE: Are those yours?

HELENA: She says, yes, of course. And then she asks, “Was machst du denn hier?”

DANIELLE: Okay, “What are you doing here?”

HELENA: Yeah, because it’s a serendipitous moment, right?

DANIELLE: It is, yeah.

HELENA: They both end up in the same place even though they thought they parted ways. Daisy asked him, “Und wie bist du hier gelandet?” Do you know what that means? That’s another idiomatic expression.

DANIELLE: No.

HELENA: “So, how did you end up here?”

DANIELLE: Oh!

HELENA: “Gelandet” means “to land”.

DANIELLE: To land.

HELENA: “How did you land here?”

DANIELLE: “How did you land here?”

HELENA: With the plane. So, Michael decides to take her to a spot on this hill where you can see the view.

DANIELLE: Yeah.

HELENA: And then Daisy pulls a picture out of her wallet and she shows him, and it’s the same view.

DANIELLE: Oh!

HELENA: That’s the place that her father also had shown her when she was a child.

DANIELLE: Oh, Papa!

HELENA: Yeah. Daisy says, “Ich hatte schon immer Heimweh nach einem Ort an dem ich aber noch nie war.” And with that, we’ve come to the end of our Breakdown. Danielle, thanks so much for learning German with me.

DANIELLE: Oh, it’s been so much fun, and I have learned a lot. Thank you so much for being such a great teacher!

HELENA: Yaw! And see you next season!

DANIELLE: Okay, bye!

Grammatically Speaking

[41:50]

HELENA: So, as you guys know, I am not an official language teacher, but we have our glorious language…

STEFIE: Every time better. Helena, thank you!

HELENA: We have our glorious language masters here to explain to us a little bit about German grammar. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this whole season I have been playing extra special attention to reflexive verbs. I think it’s probably because I get them wrong so often when I speak German and my mom has spent her whole life trying to teach me the difference between “mir” und “mich”. But I don’t know what it is, but let’s just talk about reflexive verbs this week and what they’re all about and how to use them. Let’s start off with some examples from this episode.

STEFIE: So, yeah, we have two examples in this story. Mia tells Michael, “Ach, dann beeile ich mich lieber,” when he tells her what time it is.

HELENA: So, she’s saying, “Oh, I have to hurry up.”

STEFIE: Exactly, because she had to catch…

HELENA: I have to hurry myself up?

STEFIE: She had to hurry herself up, yeah, because otherwise she was going to miss her flight. And then when Daisy talks to Michael about what his tasks are for the day, probably she says, “Ich denke, du hast Emails und Anrufe, um die du dich kümmern musst.” “Sich um etwas kümmern” means “to take care of something”.

HELENA: Okay. So, we’re hearing the “sich”, which implies that it’s reflexive, right?

STEFIE: Yeah. So, we have two in the story – “sich beeilen”, “to hurry up”, and “sich um etwas kümmern”, “to take care of something”.

HELENA: Okay. So, we know that “sich” is a part of reflexive verbs. But I was wondering if you could explain in plain English what a reflexive verb is and what are the components of it.

INDA: Luckily, we have that in English as well. So, “myself”, “yourself”, those are reflexive pronouns, so German has this too. Basically, the reflexive pronoun is reflecting back to the subject. That’s why it’s reflexive. Basically, you’re looking at yourself in the mirror; you see a reflection of yourself. Similarly, with a reflexive pronoun, you have a subject that is doing something, but is doing something for himself/herself.

HELENA: Okay. 

INDA: Right?

HELENA: So, one of my favorite examples is “sich duschen”.

INDA: Right.

HELENA: To take a shower. And in English this isn’t reflexive. You just… I’m taking a shower. But in German you take a shower to yourself.

INDA: To yourself.

HELENA: Right.

INDA: Yeah.

HELENA: In German, there seems to be way more reflexive verbs than in English.

INDA: Yes, a lot of times is kind of logical. Obviously, you’re taking a shower; you’re doing this for yourself. And then you have to use the reflexive verb. This is the German consistency, right? If you’re doing something for yourself, then you should have a reflexive pronoun as opposed to English that is like, well…

HELENA: We already know we’re doing it to ourselves.

INDA: Right, most of the times.

HELENA: Right. What are some examples in English of reflexive verbs? I can’t think of anything right now.

INDA: So, basically, in English you have verbs that can be reflexive or can be non-reflexive, for example “enjoy”, right?

HELENA: Okay.

INDA: I enjoyed the party last night. Or you could say in a reflexive way “I enjoyed myself”. 

HELENA: Oh, okay. So, the “myself” would be then the pronoun.

INDA: Yeah. So, basically, in German you have verbs that are reflexive and can never be not reflexive.

HELENA: Okay. What’s an example of a verb like that?

INDA: “Remember” – that’s a very good one.

HELENA: Okay.

INDA: And it’s one that is taught very late because of the complexity of this verb. But I disagree with this. Usually, when you’re learning a new language, you need the sentence “I don’t remember.” almost all the time.

HELENA: True.

INDA: But, you know, German teachers are very reluctant to teach you that verb because it’s reflexive and it has a preposition, so I would like to tell people, if you want to say “I don’t remember” in German, you say “ich erinnere mich nicht”.

HELENA: “Ich erinnere mich nicht.”

INDA: Yeah.

STEFIE: Yes, that’s something you have to learn.

INDA: So, “erinnern” is a verb, but “erinnern” on its own is not sufficient to create any sentence. You need the reflexive pronoun in addition to that, so “ich erinnere mich”.

STEFIE: Or, for example, “sich freuen”, you can’t say “ich freue”. That’s not correct. “Ich freue…”

HELENA: So, that means “I’m looking forward to something”.

STEFIE: “Ich freue mich”, yeah.

HELENA: Okay, “ich freue mich”. You cannot say… “Ich freue” on itself doesn’t mean anything.

STEFIE: Nope.

HELENA: Always “I’m looking forward to this myself”.

STEFIE: So, we have some verbs like that that are always reflexive – “sich freuen”, “sich erinnern”, “sich um etwas kümmern”, “to take care of something”. But we have other reflexive verbs that also work without the reflexive pronoun. For example, “sich waschen” – to clean yourself – you can say “ich wasche mich”, like I’m cleaning myself, but you can also say “Ich wasche die Hose.”, “I’m cleaning/washing the pants.”.

HELENA: Okay, so it’s one or the other. It would maybe be a good idea to make a list of words that are always reflexive because I think that’s a pretty common mistake for beginners to leave out the reflexive pronoun when making sentences.

INDA: Yeah, I would say the most common ones are “sich freuen”, “sich interessieren”, yeah?

HELENA: To be interested in something.

INDA: Right. “Ich interessiere mich für Kunst” or “Musik”.

HELENA: I’m interested in music or art.

INDA: Yeah. So, notice here that reflexive verbs very usually have prepositions as well. So, “Ich interessiere mich für Musik.”, “Ich erinnere mich an meine Kindheit.”.

HELENA: I remember my childhood.

INDA: Yeah, and if you were to transliterate that, it would be “I remember myself at my childhood.”, right?

HELENA: So, if you’re saying “I remember myself in my childhood.”, it’s like really drawing attention to that it’s your own personal experience and that it’s something that you go inwards for really. Oh, German, so beautiful… when it wants to be.

STEFIE: So, you also have like that example you gave, “Ich dusche mich jeden Tag.”. That’s your favorite example. So, there are a lot of reflexive verbs for the morning routine actually.

HELENA: We talked about that in the previous episode, about daily routines, that one where they were talking about art school, last episode.

STEFIE: Exactly. So, you have for example “sich strecken” when you wake up. You stretch in your bed.

HELENA: “Sich strecken”.

STEFIE: “Sich strecken”, or “sich rasieren” – to shave – “sich kämmen”.

HELENA: To comb one’s hair. 

STEFIE: Exactly, or “sich waschen”, what we already talked about.

HELENA: So, we’ve been talking about reflexive pronouns in relation to ourselves, like doing things to ourselves, but what happens when we use the “du” form or the “Sie” form with reflexive pronouns?

STEFIE: It changes a little bit. I’ll give you a whole example. “Ich freue mich”, “du freust dich”…

HELENA: Oh, okay.

STEFIE: “Er/sie freut sich”, “wir freuen uns”, “ihr freut euch”, and “sie freuen sich”.

HELENA: Okay. So, there is a reflexive pronoun that correlates directly with each pronoun used to conjugate each word.

STEFIE: Exactly.

HELENA: Okay. Can you give me maybe another example for a different word?

STEFIE: Yeah, you can pick out the…

HELENA: Okay, okay.

STEFIE: Reflexive verb.

HELENA: What are some good ones? Okay, what about “kämmen”, so “to comb”?

STEFIE: Ja, ich kämme mich, du kämmst dich, er/sie kämmt sich, wir kämmen uns, ihr kämmt euch, sie kämmen sich. Wow!

HELENA: So, what about if I was doing it to a specific person? Like, say I was combing my daughter’s hair. How would you say that?

STEFIE: Exactly. Then that reflexive verb “sich kämmen” would just change a little bit and you would say “Ich kämme meine Tochter.”.

HELENA: So, the reflexive verb goes away.

STEFIE: Uh-huh, I comb my daughter.

HELENA: Okay.

STEFIE: If you’re combing yourself, then it’s reflexive. If you’re combing someone else – your daughter, your dog – then you don’t say the “sich”, or “mich”, or “dich”.

HELENA: Oh, because it’s doing it to another person. It’s not describing what another person is doing to themselves.

STEFIE: Exactly.

HELENA: “Sie kämmt sich”. Okay, okay, okay. Got it! That’s quite a lot of information there at once. How can we remember these rules?

INDA: Yeah, remembering tips. The very first thing is, okay, you want to learn the reflexive pronouns, and then you have this list – “mich”, “dich”, “sich”, “uns”, “euch”. Don’t try to memorize those like that, because in conversation, that’s not how your brain makes those associations, right? You never use “dich” and “euch” in a sentence. You rather use “du” in combination with “dich”, or “ich in combination with “mich”, because you’re using a reflexive pronoun. So, my tip here is to associate the reflexive pronoun to the personal pronoun that we have learned. The first pronouns we learned – “ich, “du” – those are called personal pronouns. So, those are the basic ones, and every time you try to remember reflexive pronouns, accusative pronouns, any pronoun, possessive ones, try to attach them to the basic pronoun and not to filling those tables and try to memorize all these paradigms of declensions and what not.

HELENA: So, in other words, you’re saying that maybe it also helps to memorize them in phrases?

INDA: Exactly.

STEFIE: Definitely.

HELENA: So, there is a few reflexive phrases that are used very commonly. I guess if you internalize those and the structure of them can help you build…

INDA: By analogy, you will build other similar…You’re like, oh, okay, this verb works like “freuen”. And then “errinern”, it’s the same pattern, so you just basically switch the verb, as we just did, and then you have the sentences.

STEFIE: I saw a very nice phrase you can always use. So, someone is inviting you to a birthday party for example, or to some place, and then, at the very end, you say, “Ach, ich freue mich.”, like “I’m looking forward to it.”.

HELENA: I love this word “ich freue mich”. 

STEFIE: “Ich freue mich”.

HELENA: I use it all the time. 

STEFIE: Yeah.

HELENA: “Ich freue mich”.

STEFIE: It’s so nice. Yeah, I’m just looking forward to it.

HELENA: Yes, I have joy in me in anticipation for it. So, can we do a quick recap of what we’ve just learned?

STEFIE: Of course. So, reflexive verbs are used when you’re saying that you’re doing something for yourself, like “ich dusche mich”. And that means that reflexive verbs have always two parts – the reflexive pronoun, the “mich”, the “dich”, “sich”, and so on, and the verb. And that’s it. But a good way to remember them, as Inda said, is to learn those reflexive pronouns in combination with a pronoun, “ich – mich”, “du – dich”, “er – sich”, “wir – uns”, “ihr – euch”, “sie – sich”.

HELENA: So, that’s six different ones. That’s something we can remember.

STEFIE: Yeah. “Und ich freue mich.”

HELENA: “Und ich freue mich auf die nachste Staffel.” – season two. Thank you, girls!

STEFIE: Yeah, you’re welcome.

INDA: See you. Thank you! It’s been amazing.

HELENA: Well, that’s a wrap on our final episode this season for A1 German learners. Vielen Dank to Danielle, Inda, and Stefie for all their hard work and wonderful insight. And a special thank you to Joscha Leeuw for his reading of this episode. And an extra special thanks to our wonderful author Grace Low who has written all the stories for this season. She has been doing such a beautiful work with her storytelling and we really appreciate her. 

If you’re following along with Chatterbug’s curriculum, you can find the links to this episode’s topics in the podcast notes or on Chatterbug’s blog. 

We’ve had a blast doing this season and we would love to hear your thoughts on Long Story Short, too, so get in touch in the comments or on one of Chatterbug’s social media channels. We love to hear how we can improve, but also what you liked best. And, of course, if you liked to story, please like us, review, and share so other people can learn German through storytelling. 

Long Story Short is from Chatterbug and produced by Weframe Studios. I’m Helena. Thanks for listening! Tschüss!

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