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 sixth 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. In season one, we will focus on talking points we found to be the most valuable for A1 German learners. Our podcast coincides with topics in our curriculum at chatterbug.com. So, if you’re looking for a deeper dive into language learning, check us out there! For those of you following the Chatterbug curriculum, remember to look out for a few key themes today, covering the train station, for all of our travelers out there; booking a night at the museum, for all our culture buffs; and, finally, your daily routine for… well, everyone. Today’s episode is “Art School”, meaning “Kunstochschule” in German.
When people who have a great influence on our lives come and go, does that affect the way we remember them?
Art School
[01:03]
CHARLOTTE: Also, gehst du jetzt?
ANDREA:
My flatmate, Charlotte, asked me from across the table as we picked at a two days old croissant. She knew I was biding my time. This was a decision I did not want to make.
CHARLOTTE: Du kannst nicht den ganzen Tag herumsitzen und nichts tun, nur weil du eine Sache nicht tun willst.
ANDREA:
She held my eye-line as she spoke.
Wer hat gesagt, dass ich den ganzen Tag herumsitzen werde?
Her words stung with truth, but I fought my corner all the same.
CHARLOTTE: Nun, du bist sehr spät aufgewacht. Und du hast bis jetzt deine Zähne nicht geputzt, hast dich nicht angezogen und auch kein Essen gemacht.
ANDREA:
She pointed out, looking me up and down grinning.
Hey! Ich esse dieses Croissant!
My absurd defense.
CHARLOTTE: Wir wissen beide, wie alt das ist. Wir haben es zusammen gekauft, erinnerst du dich? Wie auch immer, es ist 14 Uhr.
ANDREA:
But we both also knew that wouldn’t stop me.
Es ist auch Samstag.
I protested.
CHARLOTTE: Wie wäre es, wenn ich mit dir zusammen gehe?
ANDREA:
She offered.
Wirklich? Das würdest du tun? Deinen Samstagabend für mich aufgeben?
I said, looking up sheepishly at my friend.
CHARLOTTE: Mein Samstagabend aufgeben? Quatsch! Ich denke, heute Abend wird es sehr interessant für uns beide.
ANDREA:
And she winked.
Okay.
I said sighing.
Ich kauf die Tickets.
As I picked up the phone, my hands were shaking. With the free one, I grabbed the blue flyer that lay uncertainly between us on our small breakfast table. The paper was thick; the writing gold and embossed. It read — “You are invited. An Exhibition Opening. Max Goldberg with Portraits of Tonight.”
“Oh, Max, what do you want?” I wondered as the call rang. I almost hoped no one would pick up, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? A woman answered:
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Guten Tag! Galerie Begas.
ANDREA: Guten Tag! Ich habe eine Frage. Von wann bis wann hat die Galerie heute geöffnet?
I asked.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Normalerweise von 10 bis 20 Uhr, aber heute ist es geschlossen. Wir haben eine private Veranstaltung.
She explained.
ANDREA: Oh, ist das Max Goldbergs Vernissage?
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Oh!
ANDREA:
She changed her tune.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Ja, “Portraits einer Nacht”.
ANDREA: Ja, genau.
I looked over at Charlotte nodding at me to continue.
Was kosten zwei Eintrittskarten?
I enquired.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: 20 Euro.
ANDREA:
She confirmed curtly.
Okay, kann ich bitte zwei reservieren?
I requested.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Sicher, unter welchen Namen?
ANDREA: Wir heißen Andrea Ernst und Charlotte…
But as I gave her our names, she stopped.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Oh, Sie stehen schon auf der Liste. Sie brauchen also keine Karten.
ANDREA:
She assured me as I wondered aloud.
Oh, wirklich?
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Ja. Wir sehen uns heute Abend um 20 Uhr!
ANDREA:
He’d put me on the list? We hadn’t seen each other in years, let alone spoken. He gave up on me a long time ago, I thought. It’s why I wasn’t sure I should even be going. And to be honest, the only reason I could see him inviting me was to rub salt in a very old wound, one that left its scars, but I’d tried to not notice. I guess, though, there’s always those people, the kind that make their way into your heart, into your bones. Their story imprints onto yours, and from then on, yours is told a little differently.
Mine was Max. We grew up together, or, more like, near each other — right down the street from the year dot. Apparently, our parents set up playdates in the first few years of our lives. And then, as so often happens, those came to an end; not something I remember, the beginning or the way we drifted. But when Max and I had our first cognizant conversation years later in high school, he told me he remembered me, but back when I had blue eyes and a dummy. I told him a lot babies have blue eyes; that’s nothing special. But he said mine were — the blue-eyed babe. I used to cringe when he’d call me that. But Max was different to me. He didn’t care about embarrassing himself. He didn’t care what other people thought, even when he accidentally flashed everyone in assembly that one time, or when he was caught kissing our class assistant in the janitor’s closet, even when he told everyone he’d get into art school and he didn’t. Although, that one had to hurt.
That’s also how we became friends, the second time around. We both loved art, creating beautiful things from the mundane. We were paired up for a project. Max came over and, as we worked, he looked out of my bedroom window. The moment he opened my world up, a simple thing, something I’d done every day, suddenly transformed. He asked me to stop for a second and watch with him. My bedroom window, he said, was like an art gallery, and each night the sky would paint a new picture just for us. From then on, most evenings we’d sit there together, watching as the colors washed across their canvas. And this way of approaching life extended to his everyday. I frequently think about a conversation we’d have. He’d ask me:
MAX: Wie sieht dein Tag heute aus?
ANDREA:
And I’d say:
Ich bin um 7 aufgewacht, habe geduscht. Um 8.30 bin ich zur Schule. Nach der Schule, um 4, bin ich zum Kunstunterricht gegangen…
And then he’d interrupt:
MAX: Nein, nein. Wie sieht dein Tag wirklich aus?
ANDREA:
And then I’d have to “find the truth through the routine”, is how he’d put it. What was I waking up for?
Ich bin aufgewacht, um zu entdecken. Ich ging um 8 Uhr morgens zur Schule, damit ich den Neuanfang eines neuen Tages spüren kann.
MAX: Und was machst du um 16 Uhr?
ANDREA:
He’d ask.
Um 16 Uhr übernehme ich die Kontrolle über meine Zukunft.
It might sound like poetic nonsense, and, believe me, some days I could not hack it. But on the days that I could, the way he helped me reflect on these moments made each one significant. And I came to find that powerful. Max’s interpretations of the world were manifested, too, in his art. We were going to change the world through painting, he would laugh. And, sometimes, I’d believe him. So, we made a pact. And Max applied to art school. I held back without telling him, because there were also times I didn’t believe him. So, when his rejection came in, they reinforced that thinking, and I had to come clean.
He didn’t even seem to care about the rejection, just that I didn’t have confidence in our future. We didn’t speak for many months after that, which, in the timeframe of a teenager, meant an age of growing apart, to the point where I applied to law school — the sensible choice. But on the day of the big move, I missed him. The sunrise through my window that morning was spectacular, and I couldn’t get him out of my head. I arrived at the train station with my bags, immediately regretting telling my parents I was taking my independence seriously and could do this bit alone. I was lost. I turned to the help of a conductor on the platform.
Entschuldigung, wissen Sie, wann der nächste Zug kommt?
I asked frantically, sure I was about to miss it.
CONDUCTOR:Wohin wollen Sie denn fahren?
ANDREA:
He said with a snicker.
Nach Hamburg.
I explained.
CONDUCTOR: Um 11 Uhr. Und der Zug kommt um 15 Uhr in Hamburg an. Sie haben 8 Minuten.
ANDREA:
He warned me and continued:
CONDUCTOR: Aber Sie werden umsteigen müssen.
ANDREA: Oh, wo?
I asked panicky as I tried to find the details on my ticket.
CONDUCTOR: In Hannover, nach 3 Stunden Fahrt.
ANDREA:
He confirmed.
Und das hier ist die richtige Plattform?
I responded, looking up at the screens around for the answer.
CONDUCTOR: Ja.
ANDREA:
But as he did, I saw Max on the crowded platform. He was looking directly at me. I thought he was there to apologize, to give me his support whatever decision I made. But instead, he drew closer speaking as he came.
MAX: Was tust du da? Wir wissen beide, dass das nicht das ist, was du willst.
ANDREA:
His boldness jolted me into defense mode.
Ich treffe die realistische Entscheidung.
He shook his head saying:
MAX: Du meinst die falsche.
ANDREA:
But I deflected.
Ich nehme an, ich sollte also deinem Beispiel folgen? Zur Kunsthochschule gehen… Oder auch nicht? Selbst wenn du angenommen wirst, die Kunsthochschule bringt einen sowieso nicht weiter. So bist du besser dran.
I knew that it was too far, even as I spoke. And it stopped him in his tracks. He then delivered the words I’ve replayed in my head in every which way since it happened.
MAX: Ich weiß nicht einmal, wer du bist.
ANDREA:
I shot back with:
Tja, von jetzt an wirst du das auch nicht mehr wissen.
And I boarded the train.
That was the last time I saw Max. “How wrong I’d been,” I thought, looking at his flyer in my hands. That night when Charlotte and I arrived at the gallery, I thought that was the moment my mind would gravitate to. But, instead, as I walked in, I wasn’t at the train station. I was at my bedroom window. The colors, the strokes, the beauty Max had daydreamed about were all there. I could feel his touch in the layers of his work, but they were refined now, as he suddenly seemed, once more, stepping towards me.
MAX: Hallo, Andrea.
ANDREA:
He said smiling. Charlotte swiftly left my side.
Hallo, Max.
There was a pause as we remembered how that sounded.
Max, du hast es geschafft! Und es tut mir leid.
I began.
MAX: Schon okay. Du hattest recht. Du musstest für dich eine Entscheidung treffen. Und ich brauchte Zeit, um als Künstler zu wachsen.
ANDREA:
His last word lingering in his very own exhibition space.
Etwas, das du alleine machen musstest, denke ich.
I said, looking down regretfully.
MAX: Nun, ich habe es nicht ganz allein getan. Ich muss dir etwas zeigen.
ANDREA:
And he took my hand. We walked through the gallery, the sea of people, and his art above them speaking to each other. Max had a vision for his future, and this was it. As we turned the corner, he walked towards a piece.
MAX: Das Pièce de Résistance.
ANDREA:
He presented it to me, his hands beckoning me over. It was a sculpture — a tiny eye. As I got closer, I could see clouds in the cornea, streaks of sunlight within it, sky blue.
Es ist wunderschön!
I said.
MAX: Das bist du.
ANDREA:
He uttered.
Aber ich habe keine blauen Augen.
I grinned.
MAX: Du bist auch kein Baby mehr. Aber du bist immer noch mein blauäugiges Babe.
ANDREA:
It was over a decade since I’d last seen him, since I’d last heard those words. But, as if on cue, I cringed just the same as I always had all those years ago. This time, though, I knew what it meant to the both of us. And there, in the routine, we found our truth.
Art School – Breakdown
[15:05]
HELENA: And we’re back. We’ve just been listening to “Art School” or “Kunstochschule”, and we’re joined now by a German learner, Danielle, for a breakdown. Hey, Danielle!
DANIELLE: Hey, Helena!
HELENA: Thanks so much for joining us.
DANIELLE: Thanks for having me.
HELENA: So, in this story it’s about making decisions, big decisions, when you’re a teenager, when you’re young. It’s right about — What am I going to do with my life when I’m older? What should I study? What career do I want to start?
DANIELLE: Right.
HELENA: Should I take a practical route? Or should I take a route that follows my heart?
DANIELLE: And my passions.
HELENA: Exactly, passions. And we’ll be talking a little bit more about past tense verbs in the breakdown.
DANIELLE: Oh, good.
HELENA: How to conjugate them, how to talk about your day in the past tense, so stay tuned for that.
DANIELLE: Okay, great.
HELENA: Let’s take a little bit of a closer look into what actually happened in each scene. So, the first scene starts off with two girls, two women, talking about art exhibition that’s coming up, and it turns out to be Andrea’s friend, Max, who was her childhood friend, who has this vernissage or art opening. And she’s hesitant to call to buy the tickets because she hasn’t talked to Max for a really long time.
DANIELLE: Right.
HELENA: So, why is that?
DANIELLE: So, we learn a little bit later, I guess in like a sort of a flashback, that she and Max were really, really good friends when they were in high school and he really sort of helped her think about like what she wanted from life. And they were both supposed to go to art school. They sort of had this mutual interest in art. And he applied to art school; she did not. She was too hesitant. She was too scared. And when he didn’t get in, she, I guess, let him know that she hadn’t actually applied herself. So, she decided to go to law school instead and…
HELENA: The practical route.
DANIELLE: The practical route, right. And so, when she’s leaving to go to law school — she’s at the train station — Max comes and he confronts her basically, and they get into a really kind of sad argument. Well, it was sad for us to hear, right?
HELENA: Yeah, it was sad.
DANIELLE: So, she kind of said some not so nice things to him. And then, when we fast forward to the present, we realize that, you know, he actually did make his dream come true. And so, she goes to the exhibition, and, yeah, she sees him, and she sees that he’s actually done the thing that he set out to do, and she’s super proud of him.
HELENA: And the piece, the main piece of the exhibition, turns out to be a reference to their childhood.
DANIELLE: Right.
HELENA: And the years of their youth where they were making art together.
DANIELLE: Right, right. And so, they have this beautiful moment at the end and they’re friends once again.
HELENA: So beautiful!
DANIELLE: Yeah, it was a really nice story.
HELENA: Yes, I like this one and a lot, too, because I actually ended up studying Art History and Philosophy.
DANIELLE: Oh, right!
HELENA: So, I took the maybe less practical route in my studies, chose to follow my passions of art because I really liked the creative things, and I really liked history, too. And philosophy, yeah, that was definitely like just a dream project that I was doing — What’s the meaning of life? I must find this out.
DANIELLE: Which, in and of itself, is a bit practical, isn’t it? But, I guess, not practical in the way that it’s definitely going to lead to a job at some point.
HELENA: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a job description that’s like “Philosophy — You studied philosophy?”. Like, you can, maybe, if you’re looking at, I don’t know, think tanks or…
DANIELLE: Sure.
HELENA: Higher-level positions at universities, but it’s not like a very common requirement.
DANIELLE: And would you say that here, in Germany, that going the practical route is what usually happens? Like, most people choose law school over, let’s say, a passion project like art school.
HELENA: Yeah, that’s definitely the case. I actually looked up the statistics about this.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: And it turns out that, for women, “Rechtswissenschaften”, or law school, is the second most studied subject in Germany. Around 64.000 people study it.
DANIELLE: Oh, wow! Yeah, it’s a lot.
HELENA: Yeah. And, of course, the most practical major is BVL, which is Business Administration.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: So, that’s the number one for both men and women in Germany. So, yeah, people are definitely going the more practical route. And, I’ll tell you, on this list of most popular majors, this is not art.
DANIELLE: Yeah, but that’s what’s cool about living in Berlin, though. I mean, I guess Berlin is quite distinct from the rest of Germany in that way that you can find lots of artists, lots of people here pursuing their dreams and things like that.
HELENA: That’s true. Berlin has an art school, and they have an Art History program — that’s where I studied. But that being said, there still weren’t that many people in my class.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. Interesting.
HELENA: Yeah. Like, even in Berlin, which is probably considered the most artistic city in Germany, yeah, not hugely popular.
DANIELLE: Interesting. Okay.
HELENA: But maybe that’s because they have an art school, like a pretty big one. They actually have a few art schools in the area.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: There’s also one in Weisensee. Well, let’s take a listen to the first dialogue.
CHARLOTTE: Also, gehst du jetzt?
ANDREA:
My flatmate, Charlotte, asked me from across the table as we picked at a two days old croissant. She knew I was biding my time. This was a decision I did not want to make.
CHARLOTTE: Du kannst nicht den ganzen Tag herumsitzen und nichts tun, nur weil du eine Sache nicht tun willst.
ANDREA:
She held my eye-line as she spoke.
Wer hat gesagt, dass ich den ganzen Tag herumsitzen werde?
Her words stung with truth, but I fought my corner all the same.
CHARLOTTE: Nun, du bist sehr spät aufgewacht. Und du hast bis jetzt deine Zähne nicht geputzt, hast dich nicht angezogen und auch kein Essen gemacht.
ANDREA:
She pointed out, looking me up and down grinning.
Hey! Ich esse dieses Croissant!
My absurd defense.
CHARLOTTE: Wir wissen beide, wie alt das ist. Wir haben es zusammen gekauft, erinnerst du dich? Wie auch immer, es ist 14 Uhr.
ANDREA:
But we both also knew that wouldn’t stop me.
Es ist auch Samstag.
I protested.
CHARLOTTE: Wie wäre es, wenn ich mit dir zusammen gehe?
ANDREA:
She offered.
Wirklich? Das würdest du tun? Deinen Samstagabend für mich aufgeben?
I said, looking up sheepishly at my friend.
CHARLOTTE: Mein Samstagabend aufgeben? Quatsch! Ich denke, heute Abend wird es sehr interessant für uns beide.
ANDREA:
And she winked.
Okay.
I said sighing.
Ich kauf die Tickets.
HELENA: So, Danielle, how much of that did you understand?
DANIELLE: I understood a good bit. You know, there were a couple of words and phrases that were a bit confusing to me.
HELENA: Right. So, this section has a lot of words that have to do with the past tense and explaining your daily day, the sort of thing you do, in the past tense though.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: So…
DANIELLE: “Aufgewacht”?
HELENA: Genau! That means “to wake up”, “aufgewacht”. And then she also mentioned “Zähne putzen”, but actually that she did not do her teeth brushing. She says, “Du hast deine Zähne nicht geputzt.”
DANIELLE: Okay, “nicht geputzt”.
HELENA: Yeah, “nicht geputzt”. And she also said, “du hast dich nicht angezogen.”
DANIELLE: It’s like you haven’t gotten dressed.
HELENA: Right. And she also said, “du hast auch kein Essen gemacht.”
DANIELLE: You haven’t… Oh, you haven’t made eat?
HELENA: You haven’t made any food yet for yourself. You can also say “Du hast noch nicht gefrühstück”.
DANIELLE: Okay. Okay.
HELENA: So, you haven’t had breakfast.
DANIELLE: You haven’t made any food yet. Okay.
HELENA: Yeah, and “es ist 14 Uhr am Samstag”.
DANIELLE: Oh, wow! So, she hasn’t eaten all day. Wow!
HELENA: Yeah. It’s 2:00 PM on a Saturday and she hasn’t done anything. Why? Because she’s procrastinating calling up this art gallery.
DANIELLE: Right. ‘Cause she’s really like — Oh, no, I have to call and get these tickets. I’m so scared!
HELENA: She doesn’t want to ‘cause it’s like confrontation.
DANIELLE: Yeah, sure.
HELENA: And meeting somebody she hasn’t met in so long, so…
DANIELLE: I mean, that is a bit nerve wracking.
HELENA: Definitely!
DANIELLE: So, I totally understand.
HELENA: Yeah, I would be the same.
DANIELLE: And Charlotte is really pushing her, right?
HELENA: Yeah, she’s being a really good friend. She’s like — Come on, just do it! I’ll go with you.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: So, that’s really nice. She says, “Wirklich? Das würdest du tun? Deinen Samstagabend für mich aufgeben?” So, that’s Andrea’s response to Charlotte saying “Yeah, I’ll go with you.” She’s like, “Really? You would do that for me? You would give up your Saturday evening…”
DANIELLE: “To go with me to this gallery?”
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Oh, that is a very nice friend. At one point, I think Charlotte says this phrase “wie auch immer”?
HELENA: Charlotte says basically that in response to the croissant that she’s eating. She’s like — Whatever! We know that we bought that croissant a long time ago.
DANIELLE: Oh, right!
HELENA: “Wie auch immer, es ist 14 Uhr.” So, “it doesn’t matter”, “whatever”. It’s 2:00 PM; you should have eaten breakfast already.
DANIELLE: Okay, so idiomatic expressions can really trip you up, right? Because “wie auch immer”, when I heard it, I was like, “how… also… always”?
HELENA: Yeah, exactly! That is really confusing. It’s true.
DANIELLE: Idioms didn’t mean anything to me yet.
HELENA: No, you have to know the idiom in the whole context of the phrase and like what that phrase means. So, it basically means “whatever”…
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: “That’s not the point”, you know…
DANIELLE: Okay, okay.
HELENA: “Let’s get to the point”.
DANIELLE: And is this something that you could say like when you’re talking to friends or is it something you could also say to just like also to like your boss?
HELENA: It really depends on how you say it.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: Usually, it could be maybe more of an informal situation where you’re like —Whatever, let’s get to the point, you know. Like, what you’re saying doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about this. So, maybe…
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: Maybe you could make it work in professional setting, but I think it’s more like for casual conversations.
DANIELLE: Okay. Good to know.
HELENA: So, Danielle, what are some other words that you can use to describe your daily routine?
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. So, in the story we talked about “die Zähne putzen”.
HELENA: “Zähne putzen”.
DANIELLE: “Zähne… Zähne putzen”. Und also “frühstücken”.
HELENA: Yeah, you can also say…
DANIELLE: “Waschen”.
HELENA: “Ich dusche mich”.
DANIELLE: “Ich dusche mich”. Okay.
HELENA: “Sich duschen”.
DANIELLE Oh, okay. “Sich duschen” — to shower yourself.
HELENA: To shower yourself. Exactly.
DANIELLE: I guess another part of your daily routine could be “Haare brushen”?
HELENA “Bürsten”.
DANIELLE “Sich die Haare bürsten”.
HELENA: “Bürsten”.
DANIELLE: “Bürsten”.
HELENA: That’s a tough one.
DANIELLE: “Bürsten”?
HELENA: It has the umlaut, yeah.
DANIELLE: Oh, “ü”!
HELENA: Wait! Is it”bürsten” with umlaut? Yeah! My German is so vague in my brain. Like, it’s just a feeling and I never know if I can trust it or not.
DANIELLE: Fair enough.
HELENA: So, let’s take a listen to the next dialogue.
DANIELLE: Okay, sounds good.
ANDREA:
I almost hoped no one would pick up, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? A woman answered:
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Guten Tag! Galerie Begas.
ANDREA: Guten Tag! Ich habe eine Frage. Von wann bis wann hat die Galerie heute geöffnet?
I asked.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Normalerweise von 10 bis 20 Uhr, aber heute ist es geschlossen. Wir haben eine private Veranstaltung.
She explained.
ANDREA: Oh, ist das Max Goldbergs Vernissage?
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Oh!
ANDREA:
She changed her tune.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Ja, “Portraits einer Nacht”.
ANDREA: Ja, genau.
I looked over at Charlotte nodding at me to continue.
Was kosten zwei Eintrittskarten?
I enquired.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: 20 Euro.
ANDREA:
She confirmed curtly.
Okay, kann ich bitte zwei reservieren?
I requested.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Sicher, unter welchen Namen?
ANDREA: Wir heißen Andrea Ernst und Charlotte…
But as I gave her our names, she stopped.
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Oh, Sie stehen schon auf der Liste. Sie brauchen also keine Karten.
ANDREA:
She assured me as I wondered aloud.
Oh, wirklich?
GALLERY ASSISTANT: Ja. Wir sehen uns heute Abend um 20 Uhr!
HELENA: All right. So, she just got off the phone with the gallery. What are some common words or phrases that you use when you’re calling a museum or a gallery?
DANIELLE: “Guten Morgen!”
HELENA: Great start!
DANIELLE: Yeah, so I guess you can say… She says in the story, “Von wann bis wann hat die Galerie…” open?
HELENA: “Von wann bis wann hat die Galerie heute geöffnet?”
DANIELLE: Okay, “Von wann bis wann hat die Galerie geöffnet?”.
HELENA: “Heute geöffnet.” Yeah, exactly!
DANIELLE: “Heute geöffnet.”
HELENA: Yeah, basically, it means “From when to when is the gallery open?”. And you can also say “Hat die Galerie heute auf?”.
DANIELLE: Yeah. “Hat die Galerie…”
HELENA: Or you can say “Was sind eure Öffnungszeiten heute?”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. That’s the one that I use when I go out. So, what are your opening hours?
HELENA: Exactly. And then she responds with, “Normalerweise, von 10 bis 20 Uhr.”
DANIELLE: Okay, so, “normally, from 10 AM to 8 PM”.
HELENA: Exactly. “Aber heute ist es geschlossen.”
DANIELLE: Oh! But today they’re closed.
HELENA: Yeah, don’t go if they’re closed. Because of a “private Veranstaltung”.
DANIELLE: Okay. I do not know “Veranstaltung”, but…
HELENA: “Veranstaltung”.
DANIELLE: “Veranstaltung”.
HELENA: Yeah, that just means “event”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay, okay. So, a private event then.
HELENA: Yes, exactly. And this is actually a word, “Vernissage”. It’s used in German. It means art opening.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: And there’s quite a few words…
DANIELLE: But it’s French, right?
HELENA: It’s French, but it’s also used in German.
DANIELLE: “Vernissage”.
HELENA: Yeah, there’s a few words like that in German that are taken from French and used, spoken with the French accent even.
DANIELLE: Oh, really?
HELENA: But everyone in Germany knows what it means because it’s so often used.
DANIELLE: What are some other ones?
HELENA: Some other examples would be “Accessoire”.
DANIELLE: “Accessoire”.
HELENA: Which means accessory.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: “Apropos”.
DANIELLE: “Apropos”.
HELENA: Everyone knows what that means. “Apropos”, “Engagement”.
DANIELLE: “Engagement”?
HELENA: Means engagement.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: “Pardon”.
DANIELLE: “Pardon”.
HELENA: “Rendezvous”.
DANIELLE: “Rendezvous”, yeah.
HELENA: “Voilà”.
DANIELLE: “Voilà”. We have a couple of these in English as well.
HELENA: Yeah, exactly. But I think in English we’re more prone to speak them in the English accent.
DANIELLE: Sure, we’d say “rendezvous”.
HELENA: Yeah, exactly. In Germany, they pay a little bit more attention to the French. So, back to calling a gallery or a museum, how would you order some tickets on the phone?
DANIELLE: “Wie viel kostet die Eintrittskarte?”
HELENA: “Eintrittskarten”.
DANIELLE: “Eintrittskarten”.
HELENA: Yeah. “Wie viel kosten zwei Eintrittskarten?” That’s what she says in the story. You can also say “Was kostet der Eintritt?”.
DANIELLE: Okay. “Was kostet der Eintritt?”
HELENA: And if you want to already reserve some tickets, you can say “Kann ich bitte einz, zwei oder drei reservieren?”, so depending on how many you want. So, Danielle, have you been to any museums in Germany, in Berlin?
DANIELLE: I’ve been to a couple of the history museums, like the DDR Museum and the Topography of Terror. But I actually have… I noticed. A bit dark, but, yeah, I haven’t actually been to any of the art museums. My husband went to the — I always mess up the name of this one — Neues Museum? Which has like the bust of Nefertiti, and he loved it. He thought it was an amazing museum. But, actually, haven’t spent that much time going to art museums here.
HELENA: Yeah, that’s in the “Ägyptisches Museum” or the Egyptian?
DANIELLE: No, it’s in the “Neues”.
HELENA: Is “Neues” not the Egyptian museum? Really?
DANIELLE: I don’t know if that’s the name of the museum.
HELENA: Cool. Yeah, I mean, I’ve never been to any of the old archeological museums.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: Art History starts technically with the Gothic era, but I have been to pretty much every museum in Berlin and in Munich.
DANIELLE: Oh, wow!
HELENA: And art galleries, ‘cause I used to go for classes all the time.
DANIELLE: I have been to a couple of gallery openings, though. I have a friend who is a Berlin based artist.
HELENA: Oh, cool!
DANIELLE: So, I’ve been to a few of her openings.
HELENA: Yeah, I think galleries are sometimes more interesting than museums because they’re a little bit more focused and sometimes more contemporary.
DANIELLE: Yeah, and it’s cool when you can actually meet the artists, right? A lot of you studying, you know, the Renaissance, you obviously can’t meet those artists.
HELENA: It’s my time traveling abilities. I used to go to art openings for the free wine back when I was a student.
DANIELLE: Oh, sure. I mean, I’m not a student and I still do that from time to time.
HELENA: My favorite museum in Berlin is the Hamburger Bahnhof.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. I’ve never been to that one.
HELENA: Yeah, it used to be the central train station here, then it got converted into an art gallery or a museum. And they have a lot of contemporary exhibitions and modern art in their permanent collections, so…
DANIELLE: I’ll have to check that out then.
HELENA: That’s always my suggestion when people ask where they should go.
DANIELLE: Nice. Okay, we’ll do that.
HELENA: Go out there and see some art. So, let’s take a listen to the next one.
ANDREA:
I frequently think about a conversation we’d have. He’d ask me:
MAX: Wie sieht dein Tag heute aus?
ANDREA:
And I’d say:
Ich bin um 7 aufgewacht, habe geduscht. Um 8.30 bin ich zur Schule. Nach der Schule, um 4, bin ich zum Kunstunterricht gegangen…
And then he’d interrupt:
MAX: Nein, nein. Wie sieht dein Tag wirklich aus?
ANDREA:
And then I’d have to “find the truth through the routine”, is how he’d put it. What was I waking up for?
Ich bin aufgewacht, um zu entdecken. Ich ging um 8 Uhr morgens zur Schule, damit ich den Neuanfang eines neuen Tages spüren kann.
MAX: Und was machst du um 16 Uhr?
ANDREA:
He’d ask.
Um 16 Uhr übernehme ich die Kontrolle über meine Zukunft.
HELENA: So, in this little excerpt, there’s a flashback to when Andrea and Max were friends, and they were talking every day, and they were creating art together.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: And I think this little excerpt about their friendship’s really beautiful.
DANIELLE: It is. It is.
HELENA: Where Max is asking Andrea about her day. So, in this little dialogue, it’s a little bit different about how we were talking about our day earlier.
DANIELLE: Right.
HELENA: Because it’s a bit more poetic. It’s not like — Oh, my gosh! It’s two o’clock. Why are you not showered? And why have you not eaten yet? But it’s more like some people who care about each other asking about their day.
DANIELLE: How was your day? Yeah.
HELENA: So, Max asks her, “Wie sieht dein Tag heute aus?”
DANIELLE: So, how was your day?
HELENA: Yeah. It’s like, “How was your day?” or “How’s your day looking?”.
DANIELLE: Okay. “What does it look like?” I guess.
HELENA: Yeah, exactly.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: And then Andrea says…
DANIELLE: I woke up at seven o’clock…
HELENA: “Habe geduscht”.
DANIELLE: I hope so. She showered.
HELENA: And then she says, “Nach der Schule, um 4 Uhr, bin ich zum Kunstunterricht gegangen.”
DANIELLE: Oh, I liked this line. So, it’s like after school I will take control of my life.
HELENA: That’s what she says in the second part, but in this part, she’s just explaining her day really.
DANIELLE: No. What did she say after this?
HELENA: She says, “Ich bin zum Kunstunterricht gegangen.”
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. So, after my lessons, I go to art school.
HELENA: Yeah, exactly. So, she’s in an afterschool art program.
DANIELLE: Oh, how nice!
HELENA: Yeah. But then Max is like, “No, no, no.”
DANIELLE: “What do you really… What is your day really like?”
HELENA: Tell me about how you’re feeling about it.
DANIELLE: Oh, my gosh, this Max! I mean, he really makes you dig really deep.
HELENA: He’s an artist, you know. Artists are… But, yeah, like you said, she says, “Um 16 Uhr übernehme ich die Kontrolle über meine Zukunft.”
DANIELLE: So, at 4:00 PM, I’m going to take control of my life.
HELENA: My future.
DANIELLE: Oh, my future! “Zukunft”.
HELENA: “Zukunft”.
DANIELLE: “Zukunft”. So, there’s “Zukunft” and then there’s “Kunst”. Those two words confuse me.
HELENA: Oh! Yeah, they have the “kun” in them.
DANIELLE: Yeah, so there’s … So, “Zukunft” is…
HELENA: “Zu-”.
DANIELLE: “Zu-”.
HELENA: “Z”.
DANIELLE: “Z”? Oh, “Z”, “tz”!
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: “Zu-”.
HELENA: There you go! “Zukunft”.
DANIELLE: “Zukunft”.
HELENA: Nice!
DANIELLE: That means “future”. But “Kunst” is art.
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: Ah! That’s almost a fast friend there. They’re very similar sounding, yeah. And Andrea also says, “Ich bin aufgewacht, um zu entdecken.” — I woke up to discover.
DANIELLE: Oh, “entdecken” is “to discover”.
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: Yeah, and she says, “Ich ging um 8 Uhr morgens zur Schule, damit ich den Neuanfang eines neuen Tages spüren kann.”
DANIELLE: Okay. I start a new day… But what was the last bit?
HELENA: She says, “I go to school at eight to feel the fresh beginning of a new day.”
DANIELLE: Oh, wow!
HELENA: I’m sorry, but that’s BS. I go to school because I have to, not to feel…
DANIELLE: Oh, my gosh, not me! I loved school, okay? That’s why I became a teacher.
HELENA: Okay, I lied. I liked school also, but I did not like getting up at 8.
DANIELLE: Yeah, sure, yeah. Yeah, that was not so fun. Well, actually, you get up much earlier than 8 to go to school. You get up at 6.
HELENA: Yeah, you get up at 7:30, so you can roll out of bed and put on some dirty shirt and not eat breakfast and show up late to class.
DANIELLE: I guess that’s how you guys went to school in California, not on the East coast. We didn’t do that.
HELENA: Next dialogue, please.
ANDREA:
I turned to the help of a conductor on the platform.
Entschuldigung, wissen Sie, wann der nächste Zug kommt?
I asked frantically, sure I was about to miss it.
CONDUCTOR:Wohin wollen Sie denn fahren?
ANDREA:
He said with a snicker.
Nach Hamburg.
I explained.
CONDUCTOR: Um 11 Uhr. Und der Zug kommt um 15 Uhr in Hamburg an. Sie haben 8 Minuten.
ANDREA:
He warned me and continued:
CONDUCTOR: Aber Sie werden umsteigen müssen.
ANDREA: Oh, wo?
I asked panicky as I tried to find the details on my ticket.
CONDUCTOR: In Hannover, nach 3 Stunden Fahrt.
ANDREA:
He confirmed.
Und das hier ist die richtige Plattform?
I responded, looking up at the screens around for the answer.
CONDUCTOR: Ja.
HELENA: In this dialogue, Andrea is at the train station and she’s trying to figure out how to get to a platform, how to get to where she’s going. Like a typical student, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. So, she asked the conductor, “Entschuldigung, wissen Sie, wann der nächste Zug kommt?”
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. Do you know when the next train is coming?
HELENA: Yeah, exactly. And then notice here, once again, she used the formal word “Sie”.
DANIELLE: “Sie”.
HELENA: Instead of “du”.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: “Weißt du?” She says “wissen Sie”.
DANIELLE: “Wissen Sie”, “wissen Sie”.
HELENA: Yeah, and then the conductor, who’s surprisingly nice in this story…
DANIELLE: Because he should have been, you know… He’s like — Of course I know! I work here. I mean, I’m the conductor.
HELENA: Yeah. I don’t know, people in train stations are extremely curt in their answers in my experience. Actually, I was at the train station yesterday and “ich musste umsteigen”. Do you know what “umsteigen” means?
DANIELLE: You had to get off?
HELENA: I had to change trains.
DANIELLE: “Umsteigen”. I always get that one confused with “aussteigen”.
HELENA: Yeah, “aussteigen” — get off. “Umsteigen” — to change. And “einsteigen” is to get on. And how do you ask if you’re on the right platform?
DANIELLE: “Ist das die richtige Plattform?”
HELENA: Wow, pretty good!
DANIELLE: Ich spreche Deutsch.
HELENA: Du sprichst sehr gut Deutsch. Let’s go on to our next flashback dialogue.
DANIELLE: Okay, sounds good. Is this when Max comes back?
HELENA: Yes.
MAX: Was tust du da? Wir wissen beide, dass das nicht das ist, was du willst.
ANDREA:
His boldness jolted me into defense mode.
Ich treffe die realistische Entscheidung.
He shook his head saying:
MAX: Du meinst die falsche.
ANDREA:
But I deflected.
Ich nehme an, ich sollte also deinem Beispiel folgen? Zur Kunsthochschule gehen… Oder auch nicht? Selbst wenn du angenommen wirst, die Kunsthochschule bringt einen sowieso nicht weiter. So bist du besser dran.
I knew that it was too far, even as I spoke. And it stopped him in his tracks. He then delivered the words I’ve replayed in my head in every which way since it happened.
MAX: Ich weiß nicht einmal, wer du bist.
ANDREA:
I shot back with:
Tja, von jetzt an wirst du das auch nicht mehr wissen.
HELENA: Oh, man, Andrea! She’s a little drama queen in this scene.
DANIELLE: Well, this is a turning point in both of their lives, right?
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: When you leave high school and, you know, this separation from friends, from family, and then you’re going off into your future, be it bright or otherwise.
HELENA: Yeah, and it’s really a tough decision.
DANIELLE: It is.
HELENA: Like, you’re like — Okay, 17-year-old, what do you want to do for the rest of your life? And you’re like — I don’t know.
DANIELLE: It’s really tough, yeah.
HELENA: I sure didn’t know.
DANIELLE: Emotions are running high.
HELENA: Yeah. So, Max and Andrea, they’re kind of struggling here because Max really wants Andrea to study Art with him and to go on and be artists together.
DANIELLE: Yes.
HELENA: And Andrea has made the decision to study Law. So, she says, “Ich treffe die realistische Entscheidung.”
DANIELLE: So, I was not quite sure about that one ‘cause “ich terffe”, doesn’t that mean like “I meet”?
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: So, I was a bit confused about that.
HELENA: So, in German, this is just the way that you say that you’re making a decision. Once you’ve made a decision, you say “ich treffe eine Entscheidung”.
DANIELLE: Okay, not “I meet a decision”, “I’m making a decision”.
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: “I made the decision”.
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: And then Max says, “Du meinst die falsche.”
DANIELLE: But that’s the wrong one.
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: Okay. Oh, Max! I hear you, Max. I totally agree. She should follow her heart.
HELENA: But maybe she can’t.
DANIELLE: But it’s tough to do that sometimes.
HELENA: Yeah. And then later she says, “Die Kunsthochschule bringt einen so wie so nicht weiter. So bist du besser dran.” So, she says studying Art amounts to nothing.
DANIELLE: Oh! Ugh!
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: That cuts deep.
HELENA: Yeah. I mean, first, a lot of people, they study art and they don’t get a job in an art field.
DANIELLE: Yeah, sure.
HELENA: They do something else. But I still think that their degree was valuable.
DANIELLE: Of course!
HELENA: I mean, what do you learn in university? You learn critical thinking, unless you’re studying something really technical. You’re basically just doing the thing for yourself.
DANIELLE: And if nothing else, you go to art school and then you can just… Like, when you go to a party, you can just make everybody around you feel, you know, totally inadequate because you know the meaning behind this painting and they don’t.
HELENA: I do that on a daily basis, Danielle.
DANIELLE: Yes, you do.
HELENA: Don’t know what you’re talking about. But, actually, Max, he made it, so good for him.
DANIELLE: Yeah. He said — Let your haters be your motivators.
HELENA: He did get back to the whole world.
DANIELLE: So, there was one part that I wanted to know a little bit more about. She says, “bist du besser dran,” I think she says.
HELENA: She says, “So bist du besser dran.”
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: And this is referring to this argument where she’s upset and she’s trying to hurt Max.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: He’s saying, “You’re making the wrong decision,” and she says, “Well, you didn’t get into art school, so better off for you that way.”
DANIELLE: I see. Okay.
HELENA: And this is what “so bist du besser dran” means.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: It’s better off that way that he didn’t get in.
DANIELLE: Okay, yeah. Ugh!
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: That’s harsh.
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: She’s the bad friend in this scenario.
HELENA: She is going through her teenage emotions. And, now, let’s fast forward into the future where they meet once again, 10 years later after this big fight, in the art gallery.
MAX: Hallo, Andrea.
ANDREA:
He said smiling. Charlotte swiftly left my side.
Hallo, Max.
There was a pause as we remembered how that sounded.
Max, du hast es geschafft! Und es tut mir leid.
I began.
MAX: Schon okay. Du hattest recht. Du musstest für dich eine Entscheidung treffen. Und ich brauchte Zeit, um als Künstler zu wachsen.
ANDREA:
His last word lingering in his very own exhibition space.
Etwas, das du alleine machen musstest, denke ich.
I said, looking down regretfully.
MAX: Nun, ich habe es nicht ganz allein getan. Ich muss dir etwas zeigen.
ANDREA:
And he took my hand. We walked through the gallery, the sea of people, and his art above them speaking to each other. Max had a vision for his future, and this was it. As we turned the corner, he walked towards a piece.
MAX: Das Pièce de Résistance.
ANDREA:
He presented it to me, his hands beckoning me over. It was a sculpture — a tiny eye. As I got closer, I could see clouds in the cornea, streaks of sunlight within it, sky blue.
Es ist wunderschön!
I said.
MAX: Das bist du.
ANDREA:
He uttered.
Aber ich habe keine blauen Augen.
I grinned.
MAX: Du bist auch kein Baby mehr. Aber du bist immer noch mein blauäugiges Babe.
DANIELLE: Such a sweet exchange!
HELENA: Yeah. After all these years, they still care about each other. So, in this section, Max and Andrea, they’re meeting in the gallery, and Andrea says to Max, “Du hast es geschafft!” Do you know what that means?
DANIELLE: No, I was actually not super clear on that one.
HELENA: She’s saying, “You made it!”
DANIELLE: Oh! But “geschafft” is like “business”, right?
HELENA: That’s “Geschäft”.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: It’s very similar. “Geschafft”… I mean, they’re kind of similar to each other — “Geschäft”, “geschafft”. Like, what do you do in business? You make things.
DANIELLE: Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.
HELENA: You get the stuff done.
DANIELLE: Okay. Thanks for making me feel a bit better.
HELENA: They’re very similar words. So, “Du hast es geschafft!” means… You can also say that in like a… not as in like “You made it!”, like “you made it as an artist”. You can also say it… Like, if you finish a race, or if you finish your homework, if you finish a really big burger, you can say “Du hast es geschafft!”.
DANIELLE: “Du hast…”
HELENA: “Du hast es geschafft!”
DANIELLE: Okay. “Du hast es geschafft!”
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. So, this is a very useful phrase to know.
HELENA: Yeah, you can say that to your son.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: And then Andrea says, “Und es tut mir leid.”
DANIELLE: Yeah, “I’m sorry.”?
HELENA: Yeah. So, she basically apologizes for the falling out they had and that she said that, “you wouldn’t amount to anything.” And then he says, “Schon okay. Du musstest für dich eine Entscheidung treffen. Und ich brauchte Zeit, um als Künstler zu wachsen.”
DANIELLE: Oh, that was a lot!
HELENA: Yeah. Let’s focus on this “Entscheidung treffen” sentence. “Du musstest für dich eine Entscheidung treffen.”
DANIELLE: Okay. So, you must make a decision for yourself.
HELENA: He said, “You had to make a decision for yourself.”
DANIELLE: You had to make a decision for yourself.
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: And then he says, “Und ich brauchte Zeit, um als Künstler zu wachsen.”
DANIELLE: And I needed the time with my art.
HELENA: He said, “I needed time to grow as an artist.”
DANIELLE: Aaah! “Zu wachsen… wachsen”.
HELENA: “Wachsen”. So, yeah, that’s really nice that towards the end of the story they were able to become friends again and that so much of his art was a reference to their time as artists earlier when they were still in school together.
DANIELLE: Yeah, that was really beautiful.
HELENA: Danielle, thank you so much for joining me.
DANIELLE: Oh, thanks for having me again.
HELENA: I mean, you’re a regular because you’re perfect.
DANIELLE: Oh, well, well…
HELENA: See you next time!
DANIELLE: Okay. Bye!
Grammatically Speaking
[49:03]
HELENA: That was Danielle and I breaking down “Kunsthochschule” or “Art School”. And now we’re going to move on to our next section with Inda and Stefie called “Grammatically Speaking”. We will take a closer look at the grammar that was present in this story and learn some useful memory techniques to make German learning a little bit easier. Hey, girls!
INDA: Hi, Helena!
HELENA: So glad you’re here to explain the confusion that is German grammar. I know a lot of listeners probably are struggling with it and your tips are so helpful in making learning German much easier. In this episode particularly, we learned a lot about describing our daily routines and talking about past tense and verbs. And I was hoping that you could explain how to talk about the past tense in German.
STEFIE: So, first things first, how was your weekend? What did you do?
HELENA: Ich war bei meiner Mutter.
STEFIE: What did you do, Inda?
INDA: Ich habe viel geschlafen und gegessen, ein biβchen Sport gemacht.
HELENA: Ich habe das auch gemacht. Ich war am See.
STEFIE: Ich auch. Ich habe mit meinen Freunden gegrillt.
HELENA: Oh, “grillen”! So, Stefie, how do I conjugate verbs in the past tense? How do I speak about the past?
STEFIE: In German, there are two ways to talk about the past, but we’re just going to focus on one because we have a lot of nice examples in the story. So, when Charlotte is reprimanding Andrea for procrastinating, she says, “Und du hast bis jetzt deine Zähne nicht geputzt, hast dich nicht angezogen und auch kein Essen gemacht.” So, she’s talking about her not doing a lot of stuff she should have done, like a daily routine stuff.
HELENA: ’Cause it’s 2:00 PM already on a Saturday.
STEFIE: Exactly. Not even…
HELENA: She didn’t even brush her teeth yet.
STEFIE: Exactly.
HELENA: Oh, come on!
STEFIE: It’s not good. They are using the Perfekt there. So, we want to give you a brief overview on “das Perfekt”.
INDA: Before we start, I wanted to quote Mark Twain, who wrote this very amusing essay “The Awful German Language”.
HELENA: Oh, I have read that!
INDA: Have you? It’s very humorous. And he describes his frustrations learning German. He says, “Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”
HELENA: Is that a reference to the verb always coming to the end of the sentence?
INDA: Yes. That’s a wonderful first memory techniques for today. Remember Mark Twain — imagining a sentence in German that is so long that one verb, the auxiliary, is in New York, and the other verb is in London, and then a lot of information in the middle.
HELENA: It’s so true. I have a theory that one of the reasons Germans are such good listeners is because they have to listen to the end of the sentence to know what’s going on before they interrupt.
INDA: That is so true. The language forces you to listen.
HELENA: Yes, to listen carefully.
STEFIE: Kids in school always complain about them forgetting what I wanted to say in the beginning, because you just have to wait so long to use the verb.
HELENA: Back that verb at the end. This happens to me, too. I’m like — What verb did I even want to use?
INDA: What was I talking about?
HELENA: So, how do you know when the verb comes at the end? ‘Cause sometimes there’s a verb in the middle, right?
STEFIE: Exactly. So, for a normal statement — for example “I am hungry.” — the conjugated verb, like the verb that changes the form, is in the second position. That’s like the natural place for the verb to be.
HELENA: So, “habe”.
STEFIE: Exactly. “Ich habe Hunger.” — second position, “habe”. And with the Perfekt, you have a “Satzklammer”; you call that sentence brackets. So, you have the conjugated verb, the verb that changes in the second position, like usual — you know that — and then you have the other part of that form in the variant.
HELENA: Okay. So, the “habe” is still in the second… Like, for example, if you say “ich habe gegessen” — I ate — “habe” is still number two and “gegessen” is then smacked at the end.
STEFIE: Exactly. You could say “Ich habe Pizza und Eis gegessen.” for example. You have a lot of information in-between and then you have the other part of the verb at the end, and that’s the part that doesn’t change.
HELENA: Okay. So, you can also say “Ich habe gestern Pizza mit Mozzarella und Käse gestern auf meinem Balkon gegessen.”.
STEFIE: Exactly. Just put all the information there.
HELENA: And “gegessen” is then in New York. Well, I’ve noticed that, sometimes, instead of “habe” — like, you could say “ich habe gegessen” — you say something else. You say “ich bin schwimmen gegangen”. So, how do you know when you use “bin” and how do you know when you use “sein”?
INDA: Yes, that’s a really good question. So, you read the rule of thumb that says you have to say “ich bin”, or the verb “sein” in general, when the action involves movement, and “haben” with all the other cases. But this can be a little bit misleading because almost all verbs involve some kind of a moment, right?! And it’s very hard to know, well, is “dancing” moving? Of course it is, but you still say “ich habe getanzt”.
HELENA: But you would say “ich bin tanzen gegangen”.
INDA: Right. So, “gehen”… I like to explain “sein” with two characteristics actually. The first one is — Are you changing your location? Are you going from A to B? Things like “gehen”, “ich bin gegangen”.
HELENA: “Gehen”, which means “to go”.
INDA: Right. “Fliegen”, fly, “ich bin geflogen”; or run, “ich bin gerannt”. Or you might change your state. Instead of changing your physical location, you might change…
HELENA: It’s the metaphysical!
INDA: Your metaphysical location, right?
HELENA: Bring the philosophy into German, please.
INDA: Yes. So, waking up — you’re asleep, status of sleeping, status of…
HELENA: Being asleep to being awake.
INDA: To being awake. The same goes for “to fall asleep”, right? So, verbs like… “aufwachen” is “to wake up”.
HELENA: So, when you’re learning, from a state of knowing to unknowing, to unknowing to knowing is still “ich habe…”.
INDA: That’s very true. So, you change… actually, you change your state from being an ignorant to knowing, but in that case it’s too much of a gray area.
HELENA: That’s too far-fetched.
INDA: I’m talking more about verbs like “to become” or “to die”.
HELENA: Okay.
STEFIE: We also have “schmeltzen” for example — “to melt”. When an ice cube, that is… It’s ice; it changes to water; it uses the “sein”, “es ist geschmolzen”. And that’s like a very nice example of how that change of state works.
HELENA: So, if I move from California to New York, I would say “ich bin umgezogen”.
INDA: Yes. So, the verb “umziehen”, and then you have “umgezogen” as the participle.
HELENA: So, we have the one part of talking in past tense, which is the verb “sein” or “haben”, but then there’s also this “ge-“, which I keep seeing coming over and over again. It’s not just the verb. You have to add this “ge-“ in front of it, like “gemacht”, “gegangen”, “aufgewacht”. Where do I use the “ge-“? When do I use it? How?
STEFIE: Yeah, good question. We would need a couple of hours. So, we have different patterns. So, we have “gemacht”, for example, for “machen” — “to do”. Or “gegangen”, you have the “ge-“ and “-en” at the end. “Aufgewacht”, you have it in the middle. You have “angezogen”. And you have also past participles, like “passiert”. So, there are like one, two, three, four, five patterns there, different patterns that verbs use.
HELENA: So, it sounds like the prefix comes before the past participle. Like, “angezogen”, “an-“ is a…
STEFIE: Exactly.
HELENA: Is it a prefix or what is that?
INDA: Yeah, it’s a prefix. So, most verbs have this “ge-“ for the ”ge-“ words. We call them “ge-“ words because of that. But there are some verbs that end with “-ieren”, and they were like — You know what? I don’t need the “ge-”. This is a pretty Germanic thing to do, and I am actually a descendant of the big Roman Empire. I am a Latin word, so I’m not doing this “ge-” thing. So, “studieren” becomes “studiert”; and “photographieren”, “photographiert”; “informieren”, “informiert”. So, you don’t use the “ge- “when the verb sounds Latin.
HELENA: So, if I say “I informed myself”, I would say “Ich habe mich informiert.”.
INDA: Yes.
HELENA: Or “Das ist passiert.”.
INDA: Yes.
HELENA: So, that happened. Interesting. So, that’s always the Latin words that have…
INDA: The Latin words, yeah.
HELENA: That are thinking they’re too cool for German.
INDA: They’re too cool. They’re the cool kids. They don’t want to do the “ge-” thing.
HELENA: Interesting. So, do you have any ways of knowing when a word is Latin and when’s not Latin?
INDA: It’s just the words that end with “-ieren”.
HELENA: Okay.
INDA: Yeah, just remember that prefix. In general, probably sounds familiar to the English word, right? To inform, exist, to study…
HELENA: To photograph. The earlier examples that we just mentioned, “gemacht”, “gegangen”, “aufgewacht”, “angezogen”, “passiert”, there are so many variations and that’s gonna get pretty confusing if you’re trying to learn which one is the correct one to use. So, do you have any tips of how I can remember which one goes where and when to use “ge-” and when not to use “ge-”?
INDA: Yeah, so I already told you the first one. Don’t use “ge-” with verbs ending on “-ieren”. And then most verbs have a regular participle, and the regular participle is simply “ge-” plus “t” in the end, so “gespielt”.
HELENA: So, for “spielen”, it would be “gespielt”. For “gehen”, it’s “gegangen”.
INDA: ”Gegangen” — that’s an irregular one.
HELENA: An irregular, okay.
INDA: So, there are quite a few irregular ones, and you’ll get the hang of them with time, reading, listening, speaking, trying to use them. One thing I advise is to keep a journal when you start learning the past tense. So, write at the end of the day five sentences of the things you did on that day. Write them in German and then you will quickly expand your vocabulary and also you will practice your verbs. So, that’s one option.
HELENA: So, I would say “Ich bin zur Arbeit gegangen.”.
INDA: Yes.
HELENA: Cool.
INDA: And then I have five memory techniques for memorizing the five most important irregular ones.
HELENA: Okay, let’s hear them.
INDA: They’re pretty crazy. Memory techniques are always crazy. So, for “kommen — gekommen”, so imagine you have a friend called Gavin.
HELENA: So “kommen”…
INDA: “Gekommen.
HELENA: To come.
INDA: Yes.
HELENA: Okay.
INDA: “Kommen”, to come, participle “gekommen”.
HELENA: ”Gekommen”.
INDA: ”Gekommen”, right. So, imagine you have a friend called Gavin.
HELENA: Gavin.
INDA: But you call him Ga.
HELENA: Ga.
INDA: Just shorter — Hey, Ga! Can you tell him to come on?
HELENA: Come on!
INDA: And then you’re — Ga, come on!
HELENA: Ga, come on!
INDA: Ge-kommen.
HELENA: ”Gekommen”, okay.
INDA: So, that’s the first one. Then you have “helfen”, which is “geholfen”.
HELENA: So, “helfen” means “to help”.
INDA: Right, “geholfen”. It’s not “gehelft”. That would be if it was regular, but it’s not, unfortunately. It’s “geholfen”, so, remember, with the “o”. And the “o” here shows up in S.O.S.
HELENA: Right!
INDA: Which, by the way, means “Save Our Ship”, which I didn’t know. Did you know that?
HELENA: I did know that because I had a fundraiser at my elementary school called Save Our Schools. That was a play on that “Save Our Ship”.
INDA: And it’s also S.O.S.
HELENA: Yeah.
INDA: So, “finden”, “gefunden”, to find. This one is easy if you think of the English own irregular participle “found”. They’re very similar here. So, just remember “found” and “gefunden” are pretty close. And then “geben” — “to give”, and all you have to do for this one is imagining you saying it, but with a little of hesitation. You’re like “ge-geben”.
HELENA: Do I really want to give this cookie? “Ge-geben”. So, basically, all the irregular verbs have a vowel change in them. So, in the regular verbs, the vowel stays the same. And in all these irregular verbs, the vowel changes, but it’s not regular in how it changes. So, these are all memory techniques to remember how to change the vowel in these different verbs.
INDA: This is by definition what an irregular verb is. It’s when the vowel or some part of the stem changes while you conjugate the verb. I usually tell people not to learn things in isolation, by heart. Just learn them in context. But, for this particular case, I am pretty open to have a very old-fashioned list of irregular verbs and going through them, possibly, if you can, out loud. Just make them start sounding right in your mind. This is how I learned them and I have never had a problem with the regular verbs or the past tense in German.
HELENA: But what you did do is you made a story for each of these most common words. So, maybe if you’re struggling with a certain verb and you keep conjugating incorrectly, maybe you can attach your own story, like Gavin.
STEFIE: And what is important is also to vary the ways you learn something. So, I have three tips for you. One — and I already mentioned, but I don’t know — so, it’s listen, write, and quiz, like listening to podcasts, or like watching a movie or a series, or just talking to someone, just like…
HELENA: German radio?
STEFIE: German radio, for example. Try to spot the Perfekt everywhere. And try to identify the different patterns and link them to phrases you’re hearing or phrases you usually use. And then, what Inda said, write down whatever you did on a specific day, and do it like on a daily basis, for example, and do it in German, of course. But also do it when you go on vacation, or during the weekend, for example, because you would be using verbs that are not that common for you.
HELENA: Right. So, if I was talking about my day, I’d be like…
STEFIE: Exactly.
HELENA: “Ich bin zur Arbeit gegangen. Ich habe gegessen. Ich habe Freunde getroffen. Ich bin schlafen gegangen.” So, it’s the same day every day. And then the weekend is where the… not only is it more interesting to talk about, and you’ll be probably talking about it more often. Like, people don’t ask you what did you do during your week.
STEFIE: Exactly.
HELENA: They say — What did you do on your weekend? So, practicing, writing that down. So, that’s a really a good idea so that if you get asked in the future, you’ll be able to answer.
INDA: Another thing I did when I was still a beginner learning German and I knew that there was something coming where I would have to speak German, I would prepare for that particular situation. So, if I knew I was going to party and people were going to ask me like, you know, what I had done that day or what I had been up to or…
HELENA: What did you do…
INDA: They usually ask me if I like Germany, things like that. So, you can really prepare at home and just try to make it so that it matters to you. And the things that you would usually need to say in a social situation, you kind of prepare in advance, and that helps you a lot; build some confidence when you have to actually speak.
STEFIE: Exactly. And so, the third tip would be quiz; quiz yourself. Like, you can use flashcards or do online exercises. It’s important to keep practicing. And, most importantly, making mistakes and correcting them helps you learn.
HELENA: So, how’s a good way to get people to correct your mistakes? ‘Cause I find that maybe people are a little bit shy and they’ll just listen to you like, oh, okay, I know approximately what they’re saying. And some people get offended. So, do you have any ideas of how you can communicate to people that you want to be corrected?
STEFIE: That’s a tough one because there are a lot of people who don’t like to do that, who didn’t like to correct you and who don’t know how to correct you as well. So, what I would do there is find someone who likes correcting you.
HELENA: Find a German teacher. Become friends with a German teacher. I know quite a few very nice ones.
STEFIE: I have a couple of French tutors, for example. And I have some that don’t correct me, and it’s fun because I get to like speak freely. And then I have some others that do, but I like those lessons as well. So, a nice mixture between both is nice as well, I think, because otherwise you get frustrated if you keep getting corrected. So, using flashcards or just like online exercises where you actually make the mistakes and you see the correction and then you just try to remember that, that’s useful for grammar.
HELENA: I get always frustrated at my mom, who’s a German teacher, ‘cause she always corrects my mistakes and I never listen.
STEFIE: Yeah, sometimes you just stop listening.
INDA: Who knew you would end up in a grammar podcast?
HELENA: I know, but I’m really glad to be here because I think I will be more capable of listening to your grammar explanations than to my mom’s, just because it’s sometimes hard to listen to your mom, especially when she’s explaining German grammar that she’s explained your whole life and you still don’t get it. And maybe you need the other perspective. Shout-out to my mom! So, to recap, the easiest way to express the past tense would be to use an auxiliary verb, like “haben” or “sein”, and then have the past participle always come at the end of the sentence, like “gegangen” or “aufgewacht”.
INDA: Exactly.
HELENA: Cool!
INDA: That’s it.
HELENA: That’s all we have to say in the segment of Grammatically Speaking. Thanks, Stefie and Inda, for joining us.
STEFIE: You’re welcome.
INDA: It was fun.
HELENA: And that’s a wrap of the podcast! Vielen Dank to Danielle, Inda, and Stefie for their contribution this episode, and a special thank you to our actor Maeva Roth for her reading of this episode.
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. Long Story Short is from Chatterbug and produced by Weframe Studios. We’ll have a new story for you next week. I’m Helena, and bis dann! Tschüss!
Want to learn more?
If you’re feeling inspired, sign up below for a free Live Lesson with a private qualified tutor to start speaking a new language for real! Our classes are structured around exercises created by language teachers, so there’ll be no awkward silences – we promise! 😉