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 ninth 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 asking for directions, shopping and customer service, going to the doctor, and – perhaps most key when getting to know a person – talking about the past.
Today’s episode is “A Long Shot”, which can be translated to a similar idiomatic expression, “Ein Schuss ins Blaue” or “A Shot into the Blue”. When we finally find a sense of belonging, what are the lengths we’ll go to keep that feeling?
A Long Shot
[00:52]
MIA: Oh, nein, oh, nein, oh, nein, oh, nein!
How could this be happening? For as long as I could remember, this is where I wanted to be, what I wanted to spend my days working towards. The thing is I love what a space means to different people. It means to distinguish ourselves, a place of calm, home. I wanted to be part of that creation of solace. It’s a special way to help someone find their belonging. And here I was — my first day on the job, an interior design studio of note — and I’d already destroyed the one, the only thing I’d been asked to take charge of, an antique vase shipped in from across the globe, a piece for an important client, I was told. With a bloody hand and a broken relic, all I cared about was whether this would affect my chances at the dream job. No doubt it would. I cringed as I pictured my reassurance during the interview. My boss had really pushed for a liability. He’d ask:
BOSS: Erzählen Sie mir von Ihren früheren Jobs. Welche Verantwortung hatten Sie?
MIA:
And I’d explained:
Zuletzt habe ich als persönliche Assistentin bei einem Design Magazin gearbeitet. Ich musste immer erreichbar sein.
He’d seemed satisfied with this, checking:
BOSS: Was waren Ihre Aufgaben?
MIA:
I was careful with my answer.
Ich musste vor allem die Termine meines Chefs organisieren. Aber ich hatte auch die Gelegenheit an einigen kreativen Projekten zu arbeiten.
I had to get that in there. His questioning had continued:
BOSS: Und haben Sie gelernt, wie man hochwertige Produkte beschafft?
MIA:
With each answer, he became less dubious and I more eager.
Ja, ich habe auch Produkte für die Fotoshootings gefunden. Viele waren sehr wertvoll.
But the role, it seemed, would be tough. He was clear:
BOSS: Auch ich erwarte eine engagierte Mitarbeiterin, die meinen Terminkalender führen und das Studio in Ordnung halten kann. Ich brauche jemanden, der zuverlässig und professionel arbeitet.
MIA:
To which I deserted
Sie sehen sie gerade an.
Sitting here amongst the precious shards, that assertion felt far from the truth. I began to gather the pieces, along with my confidence to own up, when my boss called me into his office.
BOSS: Mia, ist die Vase schon da?
MIA:
But I wasn’t ready to come clean.
Nein, noch nicht.
BOSS: Sie ist für einen sehr wichtigen Kunden. Bitte lassen Sie mich wissen, wenn sie da ist.
MIA:
I nodded. He then noticed my hand.
BOSS: Sie sind verletzt. Was ist passiert? Sie bluten.
MIA:
Trying to downplay it, I said:
Ach, nichts! Mir geht’s gut.
He wasn’t so sure.
BOSS: Das sieht nicht nach Nichts aus. Müssen Sie zum Arzt gehen?
MIA:
Falling deeper down the rabbit hole, I assured him:
Nein, nein! Ich bin nur gestolpert. Es ist eine oberflächliche Wunde.
But he pressed:
BOSS: Das sieht ziemlich tief aus. So sollten Sie nicht weiter arbeiten. Ich glaube, Sie brauchen einen Verband.
MIA:
Suddenly, this gave me an idea — the perfect deflection in a long line of perhaps scenarios. If I could distract him with my injury, perhaps I could solve my more urgent of issues. The vase, while antique, was not unlike those in Berlin’s vintage stores. Perhaps I could find a replacement. And if I found one in time, perhaps it would all go unnoticed. A lot was riding on uncertainty, but I was ready to take the risk, so I suggested:
Vielleicht haben Sie recht. Wissen Sie, wo die nächste Apotheke ist? Ich kann schnell hin laufen.
And he agreed.
BOSS: Das wäre vernünftig. Die nächste, die mir einfällt, ist leider etwa 20 Minuten zu Fuβ von hier entfernt.
MIA:
Great! That would give me more time.
Kein Problem, es geht ja.
I shrugged it off, and he continued:
BOSS: Sie ist in der Nähe des Einkaufszentrums. Wenn Sie also direkt aus dem Studio nach links abbiegen, geht es im Prinzip nur geradeaus die Hauptstraβe entlang bis Sie dort sind.
MIA:
I knew the place.
Oh, ich glaube, ich habe sie schon mal gesehen. Ist sie gegenüber dem Haupteingang?
BOSS: Genau.
MIA:
And with that, I was on my way. Luckily, the studio was positioned in the particularly artsy neighborhood of Friedrichshain. I had options. I ran from store to store, frantically showing images of the vase to shop owners, like a detective with their suspect. But on my seventh try, I was losing my optimism. I approached an elderly lady at the cashier.
Entschuldigen Sie, ich weiβ, es ist wahrscheinlich hoffnungslos, aber ich brauche wirklich Ihre Hilfe.
She had a kindness in her expression.
ELDERLY LADY: Sehr gerne. Was kann ich für Sie tun?
MIA:
I began:
Sehen Sie, ich suche diese Vase. Ich bin mir sicher, Sie haben sie nicht, aber vielleicht etwas ähnliches?
I held up the photo with my wounded hand. I don’t know if it was the softness in her approach or the sight of my injury, but I was in disarray. And as the vase had, I suddenly broke. Tears of defeat began to stream down my cheeks. The lady reached over, placed the photo on the counter, and put my hand in hers.
ELDERLY LADY: Ich denke, wir müssen uns erstmal darum kümmern.
MIA:
She walked me to a seat in the store and asked me to wait for a moment. My inclination was to run, to keep searching. But before I could, she was wrapping a bandage around my hand.
ELDERLY LADY: Es ist gut manchmal langsamer zu machen, den Kopf frei zu bekommen.
MIA:
She smiled up at me as she spoke.
ELDERLY LADY: Das ist eine schöne Vase, die Sie da suchen. Ist die für Sie?
MIA:
She wondered.
Für meinen Chef… seinen Kunden. Ich habe sie fallen gelassen. Es ist… man kann sie nicht mehr reparieren.
I sighed.
ELDERLY LADY: Es ist ein seltenes Stück. Wenn ich mich nicht irre, aus dem Jahr 1956, sehr schwer zu bekommen.
MIA:
She explained.
Ja, ein Meisterwerk von Rörstrand, vielleicht sogar ein Unikat.
I shook my head as I came to terms with my foolishness.
ELDERLY LADY: Ich befürchte, so etwas habe ich hier in meinem Laden nicht.
MIA:
She apologized.
Trotzdem, vielen Dank.
I said. I meant it. Her warmth was calming. She went to the door and held it open for me, wishing me to:
ELDERLY LADY: Passen Sie auf sich auf! Und versuchen Sie es vielleicht mit der Wahrheit. Die Dinge entwicklen sich nicht immer so, wie wir es erwarten.
MIA:
She waved me off. Maybe she had a point. More than the pain under my bandage, even more than my distress over possibly losing grip of my goal, the guilt was eating me up. I needed to accept responsibility. I motioned forward, more courage in each step. I reached the studio and went straight to my boss, but I couldn’t find him. I sat and waited, racking my mind for a way to convince him that actions in this case did not speak louder than words. He could count on me. When he finally arrived, I stood in the studio space for what was likely the last time, and confessed. I ended on:
Ich bin sehr dankbar für Ihr Vertrauen und ich hoffe wirklich, dass Sie darüber hinwegsehen können.
With bated breath, I awaited his reply.
BOSS: Ich muss mich um unseren Kunden kümmern.
MIA:
Is all he said, and he left me. As I puzzled over his response, he entered once again, this time accompanied. It was the lady, my well-wisher, standing opposite me in the studio. In her hands was a vase identical to the one that lay hidden, shattered.
Ich bin verwirrt.
I said. With a twinkle in her eye, she answered.
ELDERLY LADY: Meine private Sammlung. Sie sind ein Set. Ich habe sehr lange nach Ihrer Partnerin gesucht.
MIA:
My heart sank.
Und ich habe sie kaputt gemacht.
But, again, through her tenderness, she spoke:
ELDERLY LADY: Wir können nicht immer alles richtig machen. Und überhaupt…
MIA:
She held up the vase as I realized I was holding my breath.
ELDERLY LADY: Manchmal kommen wir auch alleine zurecht.
MIA:
And she smiled at me, adding:
ELDERLY LADY: Meiner Vase geht’s auch allein gut.
MIA:
And, finally, I felt a release. She meant I’d be okay, and I would. I looked over at my boss, knowing what I needed to say.
Ich verstehe, wenn Sie mich gehen lassen müssen.
I gave him his way out.
BOSS: Mia…
MIA:
He said.
BOSS: Sie sind genau da, wo Sie sein sollten.
MIA:
Now, I know he’s a professional, but, in that moment, I felt like I was, like I belonged.
A Long Shot – Breakdown
[11:15]
HELENA: And we’re back. You’ve just been listening to “A Long Shot” or, in German, “Ein Schuss ins Blaue”. I’m your host, Helena, and this is Danielle in the studio once again for our breakdown.
DANIELLE: Hey, Helena!
HELENA: What’s going on?
DANIELLE: Nothing much.
HELENA: Just sitting here, about to record a podcast. So, let’s talk about this week’s story.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: What happened?
DANIELLE: Oh, you want me to give a little rundown?
HELENA: Give a little recap, three sentences. Go!
DANIELLE: Oh, that’s really tough! Okay, so we have Mia, who is…
HELENA: One.
DANIELLE: Oh, no! No, no, no. At least give me 10, okay?
HELENA: Okay.
DANIELLE: All right. So, we have Mia, and she has, I guess, just gotten this new job at an interior design studio. And, I guess on her first day, or close to when she first started, she’s already broken something. She broke this really unique, one-of-a-kind vase that’s just been shipped to them.
HELENA: Oh, nein!
DANIELLE: Oh, nein! And so, she also… I guess, while breaking the vase, she also cut herself, and so her boss had made a big deal about it and so she took it as an opportunity to run to the “Apotheke”, to the pharmacy, to get some things to clean up the wound, but really she just wanted to buy herself some time so that she could try to find a replacement for this vase that she’s just broken.
HELENA: A long shot.
DANIELLE: Yeah! A long shot, yeah.
HELENA: She’s very optimistic.
DANIELLE: Yeah, yeah, but I liked her optimism actually. Yeah, so she does find an antique shop, and she meets the shop owner.
HELENA: Who’s a very kind lady.
DANIELLE: Yeah, she’s a very nice lady, and so she helps her clean up her wound, and she tells her to kind of calm down; it’s okay. And I think Mia tells… What was her name? Mariane?
HELENA: Mariam.
DANIELLE: Mariam. She tells her what happened with the vase, and so the lady was like, “It’s okay, no problem. Don’t stress out so much about these things.” So, she returns…
HELENA: Well, what she told her was, “You should be honest with your boss about what happened.”
DANIELLE: Oh, yeah, that’s right! In my mind, she just, you know, was like — Don’t stress out about these things, because that’s…
HELENA: Maybe that was the German part that you didn’t listen to. I’m just kidding. That was hard to understand.
DANIELLE: Yeah, that was probably the part that I didn’t quite get well.
HELENA: We’ll get to that later.
DANIELLE: Yeah, and so it turns out that the vase actually belonged to Mariam and she was the client that the vase was for, so, yeah.
HELENA: Yeah, it’s such a crazy story.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: What are the chances? So, in the beginning of the story is kind of replaying the job interview that she had.
DANIELLE: Oh, yeah, it’s like a little flashback.
HELENA: Exactly. I thought we could talk a little bit about job interviews in Germany.
DANIELLE: Oh, yeah.
HELENA: And how they usually go down. So, it really depends on the kind of place that you’re interviewing for.
DANIELLE: Yeah, sure.
HELENA: But more formal or larger corporations, like BMW, would have a really rigorous process with assessments and lots of paperwork that you have to show. Sometimes you have to prove language certification or sometimes you have to supply certifications of professional development. Like, there’s tests you can take that say, yeah, I’ve worked in this field or I’ve taken training for this sort of thing, so lots of paperwork that has to be correct for you to get the job.
DANIELLE: And this is something that’s quite standard in Germany.
HELENA: Yeah, I’d say so. And then, yeah, lots of assessments and processes.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: Before you get the job. In startups, it’s usually a little bit more casual, but, usually, it’s pretty quick and you get the job.
DANIELLE: That’s quite a juxtaposition to the U.S. because outside of professions like being a doctor or being a lawyer, you can pretty much talk your way into any job.
HELENA: Really?
DANIELLE: I mean, that’s really the whole point of the elevator pitch, isn’t it? Is like to be able to tell somebody really quickly why you deserve a job, and people get jobs very quickly. Like, being able to just kind of talk their way into it. But, yeah, I’m now understanding that you can’t do that in Germany.
HELENA: No. Where’s the paperwork? See it when I believe it.
DANIELLE: When we see your certificates, yeah.
HELENA: Yeah, and I guess you could say in Germany that they’re more focused on the documents than they are on the experience to like… If you have paperwork to prove that you’re worth of the job, they’ll probably believe that more than if you’re like, “Yeah, I’ve been working for many years.”
DANIELLE: I see.
HELENA: In the story, she’s probably working for a smaller company because it was a bit of dialogue of approving her experience at places that she worked earlier, but maybe she already put in all the paperwork, who knows?
DANIELLE: Yeah, probably.
HELENA: So, let’s actually listen to this dialogue where she’s in the interview.
DANIELLE: Okay, great!
BOSS: Erzählen Sie mir von Ihren früheren Jobs. Welche Verantwortung hatten Sie?
MIA:
And I’d explained:
Zuletzt habe ich als persönliche Assistentin bei einem Design Magazin gearbeitet. Ich musste immer erreichbar sein.
He’d seemed satisfied with this, checking:
BOSS: Was waren Ihre Aufgaben?
MIA:
I was careful with my answer.
Ich musste vor allem die Termine meines Chefs organisieren. Aber ich hatte auch die Gelegenheit an einigen kreativen Projekten zu arbeiten.
I had to get that in there. His questioning had continued:
BOSS: Und haben Sie gelernt, wie man hochwertige Produkte beschafft?
MIA:
With each answer, he became less dubious and I more eager.
Ja, ich habe auch Produkte für die Fotoshootings gefunden. Viele waren sehr wertvoll.
But the role, it seemed, would be tough. He was clear:
BOSS: Auch ich erwarte eine engagierte Mitarbeiterin, die meinen Terminkalender führen und das Studio in Ordnung halten kann. Ich brauche jemanden, der zuverlässig und professionel arbeitet.
MIA:
To which I deserted:
Sie sehen sie gerade an.
DANIELLE: Wow! There are a lot of words in there that I had trouble with.
HELENA: Okay. Yeah, this one was a pretty dense German dialogue. So, let’s just hop right in, why don’t we?
DANIELLE: Okay, great.
HELENA: So, the boss is talking about her prior job experience. “Erzählen Sie mir also von Ihren früheren Jobs.”
DANIELLE: Okay, “früheren Jobs”, yeah.
HELENA: And then he asked, “Welche Verantwortung hatten Sie?” Do you know what “Verantwortung” means?
DANIELLE: No, I don’t know that word.
HELENA: That’s “responsibility”.
DANIELLE: Oh, “verantworten”!
HELENA: “Verantwortung”.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: So, she tells him that she was a personal assistant at a design magazine. And she says, “Ich musste immer erreichbar sein.”
DANIELLE: “Ich musste…” So, I must… something?
HELENA: No, “musste” actually doesn’t mean “must”.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: We’ll actually talk about this in Grammatically Speaking a little bit deeper.
DANIELLE: So, it’s a false friend?
HELENA: Yeah, you can say it’s a false friend.
DANIELLE: Oh, that’s not fair!
HELENA: But it’s not too far away from “must”.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: But it actually means “I had to”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay, so somehow related.
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: But we’ll get into it a little bit later, I guess.
HELENA: Exactly, yeah. Okay, and then the boss asks, “Was waren Ihre Aufgaben?”
DANIELLE: Okay. So, what were your duties, I guess?
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Or like what did you have to do?
HELENA: “Aufgaben” can also mean like “exercise”.
DANIELLE: Exercise, yeah. But it’s not the same as an exercise in a textbook or like in a workbook?
HELENA: No, it can be.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. But so…
HELENA: Do you know the word…
DANIELLE: What’s the difference between “Aufgabe” and “Übung”?
HELENA: They’re very similar in this sense.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: Do you know the word “Hausaufgaben”?
DANIELLE: Oh, “Hausaufgaben” is “homework”.
HELENA: Exactly.
DANIELLE: Oho!
HELENA: Then Mia, she says to the boss, “Ich musste vor allem die Termine meines Chefs organisieren. Aber ich hatte auch die Gelegenheit an einigen kreativen Projekten zu arbeiten.”
DANIELLE: Okay, that was a lot! So, the first part was like, “I had to organize all of my boss’s meetings or appointments.”
HELENA: Yeah, “Termine” is “appointments”.
DANIELLE: Appointments. “But I also had the opportunity to do some creative projects as well”… Maybe?
HELENA: Yeah. That’s correct. “Gelegenheit” is an interesting word here because it’s, once again, a word with a suffix. So, and we have our adjective suffixes, like “-bar”, which means “able to”. But “Gelegenheit”, “-heit” and “-keit”, that automatically indicates that it’s a…
DANIELLE: Noun.
HELENA: Exactly. And if it’s a noun with “-heit” or “-keit”, do you know what article it has?
DANIELLE: No. What article?
HELENA: They’re always “die”.
DANIELLE: Oh! So, the feminine article. Oh, okay, I didn’t know that. “Die Gelegenheit”.
HELENA: Exactly.
DANIELLE: And “die Vergangenheit”.
HELENA: Yes. And then the very important question which the boss asks is “Und haben Sie gelernt, wie man hochwertige Produkte beschafft?”.
DANIELLE: “Hochwertige” — what does that mean?
HELENA: That means “valuable”.
DANIELLE: Okay. But “hoch” means “high”, right?
HELENA: Uh-huh. So, of high value.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: Listen, “Wert”, “Werte”…
DANIELLE: “Werte”.
HELENA: Value. “Hoch”…
DANIELLE: Okay, “hoch”.
HELENA: “Hochwerte”.
DANIELLE: “Hochwerte”.
HELENA: And then we have the “-ig” at the end, which is, once again, something that indicates an adjective.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay! “Hochwertige”.
HELENA: And the “-ig” means something is there.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: Other examples would be “schmutzig”.
DANIELLE: I don’t know “schmutzig”. Oh, that’s “dirty”!
HELENA: Exactly, because “Schmutz” is “dirt”.
DANIELLE: Oh, so there’s dirt there.
HELENA: Dirt there. Then we have “neblig”.
DANIELLE: “Neblig”… is it “nearby”?
HELENA: No, that’s a false friend there. “Nebel” means “fog”.
DANIELLE: Oh, yeah! Okay, yeah, “Nebel”. So, it’s like there’s fog there.
HELENA: Uh-huh.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: And then we have “eisig”.
DANIELLE: So, ice cream?
HELENA: I wish! “Eis”, in this case, means like ice on the ground. It’s icy.
DANIELLE: Okay. I heard “Eis” and I got really excited.
HELENA: I know! I have the same reaction.
DANIELLE: Okay, so “eisig” means that it’s icy.
HELENA: Exactly.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: And then she responds with, “Ich habe auch Produkte für die Fotoshootings gefunden. Viele waren sehr wertvoll.”
DANIELLE: So, “I had to find the products for the photo shoot…”?
HELENA: Find objects, products. Okay, “Viele waren sehr wertvoll.”.
DANIELLE: What’s “wertvoll”?
HELENA: Okay, good question. So, here we have another word that we can break apart.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: So, remember “Wert”?
DANIELLE: “Wert”.
HELENA: Like “hochwertig”, we have the “wert-” again.
DANIELLE: Oh, so like the valuable.
HELENA: Uh-huh, and “wertvoll”, “-voll” is a suffix, once again, to describe an adjective, and it means “full of something”.
DANIELLE: Okay, so “full of value”.
HELENA: Uh-huh. See, German is so logical.
DANIELLE: I know.
HELENA: You just break it apart, you put it back together, and you have a whole new meaning, but it’s very consistent.
DANIELLE: Yeah, well, that’s easy… but not.
HELENA: So, let’s move on then to the next dialogue.
BOSS: Mia, ist die Vase schon da?
MIA:
But I wasn’t ready to come clean.
Nein, noch nicht.
BOSS: Sie ist für einen sehr wichtigen Kunden. Bitte lassen Sie mich wissen, wenn sie da ist.
MIA:
I nodded. He then noticed my hand.
BOSS: Sie sind verletzt. Was ist passiert? Sie bluten.
MIA:
Trying to downplay it, I said:
Ach, nichts! Mir geht’s gut.
He wasn’t so sure.
BOSS: Das sieht nicht nach Nichts aus. Müssen Sie zum Arzt gehen?
MIA:
Falling deeper down the rabbit hole, I assured him:
Nein, nein! Ich bin nur gestolpert. Es ist eine oberflächliche Wunde.
But he pressed:
BOSS: Das sieht ziemlich tief aus. So sollten Sie nicht weiter arbeiten. Ich glaube, Sie brauchen einen Verband.
MIA:
Suddenly, this gave me an idea — the perfect deflection in a long line of perhaps scenarios. If I could distract him with my injury, perhaps I could solve my more urgent of issues. The vase, while antique, was not unlike those in Berlin’s vintage stores. Perhaps I could find a replacement. And if I found one in time, perhaps it would all go unnoticed. A lot was riding on uncertainty, but I was ready to take the risk, so I suggested:
Vielleicht haben Sie recht. Wissen Sie, wo die nächste Apotheke ist? Ich kann schnell hin laufen.
And he agreed.
BOSS: Das wäre vernünftig. Die nächste, die mir einfällt, ist leider etwa 20 Minuten zu Fuβ von hier entfernt.
MIA:
Great! That would give me more time.
Kein Problem, es geht ja.
I shrugged it off, and he continued:
BOSS: Sie ist in der Nähe des Einkaufszentrums. Wenn Sie also direkt aus dem Studio nach links abbiegen, geht es im Prinzip nur geradeaus die Hauptstraβe entlang bis Sie dort sind.
MIA:
I knew the place.
Oh, ich glaube, ich habe sie schon mal gesehen. Ist sie gegenüber dem Haupteingang?
BOSS: Genau.
HELENA: So, the boss is suspicious.
DANIELLE: Though her plan is definitely a long shot.
HELENA: Yes, it for sure is. First, the boss asks, “Mia, ist die Vase schon da?”
DANIELLE: Okay, “Is the vase here?”.
HELENA: Yeah, and Mia is like — Oh, no! What am I going to tell him? She’s not ready to let him know the truth.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: So, but then the boss doesn’t even need to know because he notices that she’s hurt.
DANIELLE: Oh, yeah.
HELENA: And he says, “Sie sind verletzt. Was ist passiert? Sie bluten.”
DANIELLE: Oh, yeah, “Sie sind verletzt.” I was wondering about that because I thought like “to hurt” you could say like “tut weh” or “weh tun” or…
HELENA: So, that’s to describe pain.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: “Verletzen” is to show that you’re hurt.
DANIELLE: You’re hurt, okay. Interesting.
HELENA: Aber when you get hurt, then you can say something like “Es tut weh!”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay!
HELENA: “It’s hurting!” Your child maybe says that sometimes when he hurts himself.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: And then you like “pusten”, right?
DANIELLE: “Pusten”… No, what’s “pusten”?
HELENA: In Germany, when you fall down, what parents say is “Blow on it.”.
DANIELLE: Oh, really?
HELENA: Yeah, so then your mom would just get down and she would like pff-pff-pff a few times.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: And then she’s like, “Does it feel better?” And you’re like, “Yeah.” It’s a distraction method.
DANIELLE: Oh! Why? Okay, yeah, because, I guess, we say “kiss it better”.
HELENA: Yeah, I guess. But, yeah, I don’t know why, but maybe the cold air also relives a little bit of the pain. But this is a very German thing, is to say… to blow on your “awie”.
DANIELLE: Your “awie”, oh! Yeah.
HELENA: And “Sie bluten” means…
DANIELLE: “You’re bleeding”.
HELENA: Yes, the formal way.
DANIELLE: And he uses the “Sie”, yeah, okay.
HELENA: But Mia, she’s is in denial. She says, “Ach, nichts! Mir geht’s gut.”
DANIELLE: I just have this gaping, bleeding wound. That’s all.
HELENA: She’s like — It’s all good!
DANIELLE: It’s fine.
HELENA: Mia’s full of lies. She says…
DANIELLE: She’s full of lies.
HELENA: Well, first she’s like, “No, the vase hasn’t arrived.” And then she’s like, “I fell down.” It’s like — How do you get a big, like huge, like deep cut from the pavement? She says, “I just fell down.” — “Ich bin nur gestolpert.”
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: “I stumbled.”
DANIELLE: “Ges… Gestolpert”.
HELENA: Stumbled.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: And she says, “Es ist eine oberflächliche Wunde.”
DANIELLE: “Oberflächliche”.
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: So, “ober” means like “outside”…
HELENA: Or “above”.
DANIELLE: Or “above”, okay. I don’t know…
HELENA: “Flächlich”… so…
DANIELLE: It’s like “skin”?
HELENA: You know the word “flach”?
DANIELLE: “Flach” is… “flesh”?
HELENA: No, “flach” is “flat”.
DANIELLE: Ach so!
HELENA: Or “Fläche” means “surface”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: So, these words are similar to each other. That’s why I like to put them together. But “Fläche” is the surface.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: Surfaces are usually flat. So, “flach” means “flat”; “Fläche” is “surface”. “Oberflächlich”…
DANIELLE: “Oberflächlich”… so, like… oh, “superficial”!
HELENA: Exactly.
DANIELLE: Like on the surface
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: And so, this works in German for both meanings. “Oberflächliche Wunde” means a “surface wound”. Like, if you fall down, you skin a little bit of…
DANIELLE: Yeah, just a little bit off the top.
HELENA: Yeah. But “oberflächlich” also means “superficial”, like in the word it’s not very deep; it’s kind of boring…
DANIELLE: Okay, so you can use it both cases.
HELENA: Uh-huh.
DANIELLE: Nice.
HELENA: Her boss then disagrees. He says, “Das sieht ziemlich tief aus.”
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: So, “tief”.
DANIELLE: What is “tief”?
HELENA: That’s “deep”.
DANIELLE: Oh, “deep”! Oh, okay. Well, that’s… Yeah, I can kind of… I can remember it that way — deep, “tief”.
HELENA: “Tief”, then you can say “die Tiefe”.
DANIELLE: “Die Tiefe”.
HELENA: Which means “the depth”.
DANIELLE: “The depth”, oh, okay.
HELENA: Yeah, and “ziemlich”…
DANIELLE: “Ziemlich”.
HELENA: That means “pretty”, but not like “beautiful”, but “pretty” in the sense of like “fairly”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: “That looks pretty deep.”
DANIELLE: So, it’s pretty deep. Oh, okay. So, it’s like another way of saying “very”.
HELENA: Uh-huh.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: Some other words you can use to describe “very” in German would be… Do you have any ideas?
DANIELLE: I always just say “sehr”. I say “sehr” for everything.
HELENA: It’s a good go-to.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: You can also say “recht”.
DANIELLE: “Recht” like “right”?
HELENA: Yeah. Yeah, that also means “right”. So, the boss… This word actually I really like — “vernünftig”.
DANIELLE: “Vernünftig”.
HELENA: When he finally convinces her to go the “Apotheke”. She’s like — Yeah, I can use that time to go to the vase shop. He says, “Ja, das wäre vernünftig.”
DANIELLE: “Vernünftig” — what does that mean?
HELENA: “Vernünftig” means “that would be reasonable”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: “That would be practical”.
DANIELLE: That makes sense.
HELENA: And here we have, once again, the “-ig” ending, the “-ig”. Do you know what “Vernunft” means?
DANIELLE: No.
HELENA: And “Vernunft” means “reason”, and it’s a word that you use very often in German. When my mom wanted me to behave as a child, she would say “Sei vernünftig!”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay!
HELENA: “Be reasonable”.
DANIELLE: “Be reasonable”.
HELENA: Or “be put together”, you know?
DANIELLE: Which is an interesting way to get a child to behave. It’s like — I can’t be reasonable. My brain is just not functioning yet.
HELENA: Yeah, it’s actually incredible that children do not understand logic.
DANIELLE: No.
HELENA: They literally don’t. Do not try to reason with a child. It won’t work. That comes later. I think it’s really funny how in this story the boss is like, “Oh, unfortunately, the closest Apotheke is 20 minutes walking distance,” and I’m like, “There is no spot in Germany where there’s an Apotheke 20 minutes walking distance.”
DANIELLE: Right.
HELENA: There is one in every single corner.
DANIELLE: It’s like there are way too many “Apothekes” around, aren’t they?
HELENA: There are. Like, I even live in a place that’s pretty desolate. There’s not much stuff going on there, but there is an “Apotheke” within five minutes of my house. I’m wondering, in Germany, are there more “Apothekes”… like, are there more pharmacies, or are there more…
DANIELLE: Supermarkets.
HELENA: “Bäckerei” — bakeries.
DANIELLE: Oh, yeah, there are a lot of bakeries, yeah. That’s true.
HELENA: I would be interested in looking that up.
DANIELLE: Yeah, I guess there’s one of those on every corner as well.
HELENA: So, the boss, in one sentence, describes where the pharmacy is. He says, “Sie ist in der Nähe des Einkaufszentrums. Wenn Sie also direkt aus dem Studio nach links abbiegen, geht es im Prinzip nur geradeaus die Hauptstraβe entlang bis Sie dort sind.”
DANIELLE: That’s a lot!
HELENA: Yes, but how often when you’re asking for directions somewhere and the person… You’re like, “Entschuldigung, wo ist die Apotheke?”, and you’re like, “Yes, I said something in German.”
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: And then the person is like la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
DANIELLE: Happens to me all the time. And then I have to say “Langsamer, bitte!” and then they’re like, “Oh, you don’t speak Deutsch.” Like, no, not that well, yeah.
HELENA: I don’t know about you, but I cannot remember directions. As soon as somebody tells me directions, I just blank out and like, I don’t know, tango starts playing in my head. Like, I cannot remember for the life of me when somebody gives me directions.
DANIELLE: Yeah. Well, I guess, thank God for Google Maps, right? So, now, very rarely do I actually have to stop somebody to ask them for directions. This happened if my phone died, but for the most part, I’m just like, okay, I’m going to google it.
HELENA: I get asked for directions all the time.
DANIELLE: I get asked for directions a lot, too. And I’m always just like… I always mime it and they’re like, “Oh, okay.”
HELENA: Pointing is very effective.
DANIELLE: I’m like…
HELENA: Let’s talk about asking for directions.
DANIELLE: Okay. “Sie ist in der Nähe des Einkaufszentrums.”
HELENA: Yes. “In der Nähe” — what does that mean?
DANIELLE: “Near”, “it’s near”.
HELENA: And let’s go over what’s “links”.
DANIELLE: “Links” is “left”.
HELENA: And “rechts”?
DANIELLE: “Rechts” is “right”.
HELENA: Exactly. And “geradeaus”?
DANIELLE: “Geradeaus” is “straight”.
HELENA: Exactly. So, now we know how to get there. Let’s listen to the next dialogue.
DANIELLE: Okay.
MIA: Entschuldigen Sie, ich weiβ, es ist wahrscheinlich hoffnungslos, aber ich brauche wirklich Ihre Hilfe.
She had a kindness in her expression.
ELDERLY LADY: Sehr gerne. Was kann ich für Sie tun?
MIA:
I began:
Sehen Sie, ich suche diese Vase. Ich bin mir sicher, Sie haben sie nicht, aber vielleicht etwas ähnliches?
I held up the photo with my wounded hand. I don’t know if it was the softness in her approach or the sight of my injury, but I was in disarray. And as the vase had, I suddenly broke. Tears of defeat began to stream down my cheeks. The lady reached over, placed the photo on the counter, and put my hand in hers.
ELDERLY LADY: Ich denke, wir müssen uns erstmal darum kümmern.
MIA:
She walked me to a seat in the store and asked me to wait for a moment. My inclination was to run, to keep searching. But before I could, she was wrapping a bandage around my hand.
ELDERLY LADY: Es ist gut manchmal langsamer zu machen, den Kopf frei zu bekommen.
MIA:
She smiled up at me as she spoke.
ELDERLY LADY: Das ist eine schöne Vase, die Sie da suchen. Ist die für Sie?
MIA:
She wondered.
Für meinen Chef… seinen Kunden. Ich habe sie fallen gelassen. Es ist… man kann sie nicht mehr reparieren.
I sighed.
ELDERLY LADY: Es ist ein seltenes Stück. Wenn ich mich nicht irre, aus dem Jahr 1956, sehr schwer zu bekommen.
MIA:
She explained.
Ja, ein Meisterwerk von Rörstrand, vielleicht sogar ein Unikat.
I shook my head as I came to terms with my foolishness.
ELDERLY LADY: Ich befürchte, so etwas habe ich hier in meinem Laden nicht.
MIA:
She apologized.
Trotzdem, vielen Dank.
I said. I meant it. Her warmth was calming. She went to the door and held it open for me, wishing me to:
ELDERLY LADY: Passen Sie auf sich auf! Und versuchen Sie es vielleicht mit der Wahrheit. Die Dinge entwicklen sich nicht immer so, wie wir es erwarten.
HELENA: Okay. So, Mia finds herself in a second-hand shop, or more like an antique shop.
DANIELLE: An antique shop.
HELENA: And is talking with Mariam, the lovely owner of the shop, who knows quite a bit about this vase.
DANIELLE: She’s pretending she doesn’t, though.
HELENA: Yeah, maybe she’s testing how honest Mia is.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
HELENA: But here she has less to lose.
DANIELLE: Where is the shop?
HELENA: So, the shop is actually in Friedrichshain, which is a borough of Berlin.
DANIELLE: Yeah, it’s a really nice one, too.
HELENA: Yeah, I love Friedrichshain. It is pretty artsy. It has a lot of young people who are living there, lots of vegan restaurants.
DANIELLE: Yeah, and a lot of antique shops and second-hand shops.
HELENA: That’s true, yeah. I feel like there’s more clothes second-hand shops than object second-hand shops, but they do also have a flea market on the weekend. And there is quite a few old furniture and old pieces there in the flea market in Boxhagener Platz, which is in the heart of Friedrichshain. So, when Mia first approaches the woman asking her if she’s seen the vase, she starts off with saying, “Es ist wahrscheinlich hoffnungslos.” Do you know what that means?
DANIELLE: No.
HELENA: Okay. “Hoffnungslos” — this is another word…
DANIELLE: Oh, “hoff” is like “hope”. I know that word, yeah.
HELENA: “Hoffen”.
DANIELLE: Yeah, “hoffen”.
HELENA: And then “-los”. What does “-los” mean?
DANIELLE: “Losgehen” is… like, to not have… Oh! To be hopless.
HELENA: Yeah!
DANIELLE: Wow! I figured it out on my own!
HELENA: You did it! Wow, we’re really getting into practice here! That’s great! So, “hoffnungslos” means “to be without hope”.
DANIELLE: Oh, “to be without hope”.
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Oh, that’s a bit sad.
HELENA: Yeah, she says, “It’s probably hopeless.”
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: Probably a long shot…
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: That you have something that’s similar to this vase.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: And then Mariam asks, “Well, okay, what’s going on?” — “Was kann ich für Sie tun?”
DANIELLE: Oh, “What can I do for you?”.
HELENA: So, Miriam helps her take care of her wound and then she says this idiom — “Es ist gut manchmal langsamer zu machen, den Kopf frei zu bekommen.”
DANIELLE: Okay. It’s good… “manchmal”… every now and then… slow… Oh, you have to be… you have to slow down?
HELENA: Uh-huh.
DANIELLE: “Den Kopf…”
HELENA: “Manchmal…”
DANIELLE: Ja, “manchmal”…
HELENA: “Langsamer zu machen” — to slow it down a little bit.
DANIELLE: Slow down. “Den Kopf frei zu bekommen” — to free your mind.
HELENA: Exactly, to clear your head.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: So, she’s saying, you know, take it easy, it’ll be okay, but take it slow. You know, don’t rush through everything.
DANIELLE: Oh, such a nice lady!
HELENA: Yeah, she’s really “fürsorglich”.
DANIELLE: “Fürsorglich”.
HELENA: Do you know what that means?
DANIELLE: I’m assuming “nice”.
HELENA: She’s so caring.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: “Sorgen”. So, Mia explains to Mariam that the vase was a one-of-a-kind. She explains her problem. She says, “Oh, the reason I got cut is because this vase broke, and it’s for my boss” — “es ist für meinen Chef” — and “ich habe sie fallen lassen”, “I let it fall down”. And then Mariam… She shows her a picture of the vase and Mariam responds with, “Es ist ein seltenes Stück.”
DANIELLE: “Seltenes” — what does that mean?
HELENA: It’s a rare piece.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay. I know “Stück” is like “piece”.
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: Okay, a rare piece.
HELENA: “Stück Kuchen”.
DANIELLE: “Stück Kuchen”, yeah, piece of cake.
HELENA: Yeah, Mariam, once again, is being the lovely person that she is and she tells Mia some advice. She says, “Passen Sie auf sich auf!” when she’s leaving.
DANIELLE: What does that mean?
HELENA: Take care of yourself.
DANIELLE: Oh, that’s a nice sentence!
HELENA: Like “aufpassen”.
DANIELLE: “Aufpassen”, okay, “to take care”.
HELENA: Is “to pay attention”.
DANIELLE: Okay, “to pay attention”.
HELENA: “Passen Sie auf sich auf! Und versuchen Sie es vielleicht mit der Wahrheit.” Remember we talked about “Wahrheit”?
DANIELLE: The truth.
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: Okay, so she’s telling her to tell the truth.
HELENA: Yes.
DANIELLE: I see, okay.
HELENA: So, Danielle, we’re almost at the end. Let’s listen to the last dialogue.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: Bam-badoo-bam!
MIA: Ich bin sehr dankbar für Ihr Vertrauen und ich hoffe wirklich, dass Sie darüber hinwegsehen können.
With bated breath, I awaited his reply.
BOSS: Ich muss mich um unseren Kunden kümmern.
MIA:
Is all he said, and he left me. As I puzzled over his response, he entered once again, this time accompanied. It was the lady, my well-wisher, standing opposite me in the studio. In her hands was a vase identical to the one that lay hidden, shattered.
Ich bin verwirrt.
I said. With a twinkle in her eye, she answered.
ELDERLY LADY: Meine private Sammlung. Sie sind ein Set. Ich habe sehr lange nach Ihrer Partnerin gesucht.
MIA:
My heart sank.
Und ich habe sie kaputt gemacht.
But, again, through her tenderness, she spoke:
ELDERLY LADY: Wir können nicht immer alles richtig machen. Und überhaupt…
MIA:
She held up the vase as I realized I was holding my breath.
ELDERLY LADY: Manchmal kommen wir auch alleine zurecht.
MIA:
And she smiled at me, adding:
ELDERLY LADY: Meiner Vase geht’s auch allein gut.
MIA:
And, finally, I felt a release. She meant I’d be okay, and I would. I looked over at my boss, knowing what I needed to say.
Ich verstehe, wenn Sie mich gehen lassen müssen.
I gave him his way out.
BOSS: Mia…
MIA:
He said.
BOSS: Sie sind genau da, wo Sie sein sollten.
HELENA: So, this is the last dialogue and a beautiful resolution to the end of the story.
DANIELLE: Yes, it is.
HELENA: So, Mia finally comes clean with her boss and she says, “Ich bin sehr dankbar für Ihr Vertrauen.” Do you know what “Vertrauen means”?
DANIELLE: To trust.
HELENA: Yeah, “I’m really thankful for your trust.”.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: And she says, “Ich hoffe wirklich, dass Sie darüber hinwegsehen können.” This one’s an idiom.
DANIELLE: Yeah. I just… “Ich hoffe wirklich” I’m assuming would mean like “I really hope”. And then I don’t know the rest.
HELENA: Okay. Yeah, that’s really tricky. Then she says, “Ich hoffe wirklich, dass Sie darüber hinwegsehen können.” So, that basically means “I hope that you can see past it.”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: So, thank you for your past trust and I hope we can move forward and that you still continue to trust me in the future and that we can see past this mistake. So, the boss rushes out and then returns with Mariam.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: And she’s now in the room, holding a vase.
DANIELLE: Oh!
HELENA: That’s similar or nearly identical to the one that she broke.
DANIELLE: Okay.
HELENA: So, what happened was Mariam is actually a witch and she used her magic spell to bring the vase back together. Reparo! Just kidding.
DANIELLE: Okay, you just rewrote the story.
HELENA: So, no, she comes back with the identical vase. And Mia is looking at Mariam; she’s looking at the vase; she’s looking at her boss; and she says, “Ich bin verwirrt.”
DANIELLE: “Ich bin verwirrt.”
HELENA: What does that mean?
DANIELLE: “I’m confused.”
HELENA: Yes, exactly. She doesn’t understand what’s going on.
DANIELLE: Yeah. It’s a confusing moment for sure.
HELENA: Yeah, it is.
DANIELLE: It’s like — I just apologized for breaking this vase and then somebody just walked in with the vase, this woman that I just saw not too long ago.
HELENA: So, another word for “verwirrt”, or for “confused about something”, is “irritiert”.
DANIELLE: “Irritiert”. Oh, that kind of reminds me of “irritated”.
HELENA: Yeah, it does, and that’s why I bring it up, because it’s a false friend. You don’t want to… Sometimes, when a German says “Ich bin irritiert.” and you think, oh, they’re irritated about something I said, no, it just means they’re confused.
DANIELLE: Okay, good to know.
HELENA: Yeah. So, we find out that it ends up being a vase that Mariam actually has in her own collection, and she was the client that was trying to get the vase into her collection.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: She wanted both of the vases, and Mia feels really bad about it and she says, “Oh, nein, ich habe sie kaputt gemacht.” “Kaputt gemacht”, “kaputt machen” — what does that mean?
DANIELLE: I broke it.
HELENA: Yeah. But Mariam, once again, full of wisdom, she says it’s okay. “Manchmal kommen wir auch alleine zurecht.”
DANIELLE: What does that mean?
HELENA: So, do you know what “alleine” means?
DANIELLE: Alone?
HELENA: Yeah. “Manchmal kommen wir auch alleine zurecht.” means “Sometimes we also manage alone.”.
DANIELLE: Oh, okay.
HELENA: So, that’s kind of a nice life wisdom, you know. You can do it by yourself, you can make it by yourself, and she’s also now referring to the vase. And she says, “Meiner Vase geht’s auch allein gut.”
DANIELLE: I see, okay. So, the vase is going to be okay by itself.
HELENA: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Yeah, that’s sweet.
HELENA: She’s such a nice lady! I want her to be my friend. Which antique shop is this woman working at? I’m going to go there.
DANIELLE: Yeah, we can go there after this. Sounds good.
HELENA: All right, so that’s the end of the dialogue.
DANIELLE: Yay!
HELENA: Thanks so much, Danielle, for joining us this week.
DANIELLE: Thanks for having me.
HELENA: And I’ll see you next week for our final episode of season one.
DANIELLE: Wow, we’re coming to an end!
HELENA: So sad! But we will be making season two at some point.
DANIELLE: Yeah.
Grammatically Speaking
[44:55]
HELENA: So, as you guys know, I’m not an official language teacher, but we have our two incredibly intelligent, talented teachers in the house.
STEFIE: Oh, thank you for that, Helena!
HELENA: Inda and Stefie are here again. So, this week, we’re going to talk a little bit about this word “müssen”. We talked a little bit about it in the Breakdown. Danielle asked, “Does it mean ‘must’?” And we’ll find out that it doesn’t. But we’re going to talk about this false friend which means “have to”. So, to be more specific, in this part of the story was when Mia tells her new boss in an interview what her role was in her previous job. So, she says, “Ich musste immer erreichbar sein.” — I always had to be available. Or she says, “Ich musste vor allem die Termine meines Chefs organisieren.” — I had to organize the appointments of my boss. So, what kind of verb is this? When do we use it? What are some other examples?
STEFIE: Okay. So, yeah, we’re talking about the verb “müssen”, and it’s a modal verb, “Modalverb”. There are a couple in German — “müssen”, “wollen”, “dürfen”, for example. So, this verb helps set a tone in the sentence. So, for example, if you’re using “müssen”, you’re saying you have to do something. But if you’re using “wollen”, you’re saying you want to. I’ll give you a couple of examples. “Ich muss heute diesen Podcast aufnehmen.” — I have to record this podcast today because otherwise we won’t make the deadline, so I have to do it today. Or you can say “Ich will heute diesen Podcast aufnehmen.” I’m using…
HELENA: I want to.
STEFIE: Yeah, I’m using “wollen”. I want to record this podcast because it’s so much fun and I like doing it.
HELENA: Interesting. So, what about “Ich darf heute diesen Podcast aufnehmen.”?
STEFIE: You have someone else’s permission to do that.
HELENA: That’s actually interesting. I have a housemate who is not a native German speaker and she often uses “müssen” when usually it’s more socially correct to say that she “will”, she wants to do something. She often mixes them up, which kind of shows that it’s actually really setting a tone, you know? It’s not maybe so inherent always from other languages to know which one to use — “wollen”, “dürfen” — because they’re often just use to describe something that is needed to be done, but the question is how.
INDA: Yeah, I think one of the confusions might be as well that “ich will” doesn’t mean “I will”. That is another false friend. “Wollen”, it’s regular conjugation — we’ll talk about conjugation in a second — so, when you say “ich will”, it means “I want to” or “I would like to” or something like that, and not “I will”. It’s not a future sentence as you might think if you compare those two verbs.
HELENA: But this word “will” is also tricky because sometimes it’s not polite to say “ich will etwas”. Like, “Ich will Eis.”, you know. I want ice cream!
INDA: Right.
HELENA: You should rather say “ich möchte”.
INDA: Right, this is the other modal verb we have, and we use “möchten” rather for wishes and things we want in a soft way.
HELENA: So, Stefie mentioned that, at the beginning, that the type of verb is a modal type of auxiliary verb. Can you explain a little bit what that means?
INDA: Yeah, I mean, modal comes because of mode. It’s modifying the verb that you’re using in combination with this modal verb. So, here, in the example Stefie gave, is to record the podcast. Is it that you want to record the podcast, that you are allowed to record the podcast? So, this verb is modifying another verb.
HELENA: So, they’re always with each other. You cannot have a modal verb without another verb that is explaining it.
INDA: Exactly.
HELENA: So, how would you then say a sentence that uses a modal verb in it? Like, how does the sentence structure work with modal verbs?
INDA: Right. It’s the same structure that we have seen before in the past tense constructions. We have the conjugated verb in the second position and the rest, the other verb, in the end of the sentence.
HELENA: So, the conjugated verb would be the modal verb, like “müssen”…
INDA: Exactly.
HELENA: Or “wollen” und “dürfen”, and then “aufnehmen” for the podcast will then come at the end.
INDA: Just the infinitive version, no conjugation here, just the way that you find it in the dictionary. That’s how you use it.
HELENA: With the “-en” ending then.
INDA: Exactly.
HELENA: Okay.
STEFIE: Yeah, so, to put it simply, the verb that changes, depending on the person, goes in the second position, and the one who doesn’t change, in the last.
HELENA: The one that’s being modified.
STEFIE: Exactly.
HELENA: Okay. So, maybe we can have sentences that uses this structure as an example.
INDA: “Ich muss gehen.”
HELENA: “Ich muss gehen.” — I have to go.
STEFIE: Yeah, or “Ich will heute mit meinem Hund spazieren gehen.”.
HELENA: I’d like to take my dog for a walk.
STEFIE: Exactly.
HELENA: There we go! Okay. So, you say you have to conjugate the first word, but if I remember correctly, when you say “ich muss” to do something, it’s not “ich müsse”. You say “ich muss”. So, if you have to do something, it doesn’t sound like you conjugate it regularly.
STEFIE: Exactly. So, this is actually very helpful to know. So, all modal verbs are… The singular, like the first person, “ich”, the “du”, the “er” or “sie” are irregular, so it’s not “ich müsse” but “ich muss”, “du musst”, “er muss”. These are irregular. All the other forms are regular — “wir müssen”, “ihr müsst”, “sie müssen”.
HELENA: Oh, that’s right! In German, it’s always only those two forms that are irregular.
INDA: Usually, the irregular verbs are only irregular in the second and third person singular.
STEFIE: The “du” and “er”, “sie.
INDA: The “du” and “er”, “sie”, exactly.
HELENA: Okay.
INDA: But in the case of the modal verbs, we have a special exception, which is…
HELENA: Extra special exception.
INDA: It’s an exception within the exception, which is basically it’s irregular in all the three singular conjugations and, additionally, the “ich” and “er”, “sie” form are always the same.
STEFIE: So, it’s “ich muss” and it’s “er” or “sie muss”. So, it’s exactly the same. And this is…
HELENA: That’s pretty easy. It doesn’t change.
STEFIE: This is for every modal verb.
HELENA: Okay.
STEFIE: That this happens.
INDA: So, “wollen”, “ich will”, “du willst”, “er, sie will”.
HELENA: Or “ich darf”, “du darfst”, “sie darf”.
STEFIE: Exactly.
HELENA: So, Danielle noticed in the Breakdown that “müssen” sounds a lot like “must”, but we know that it’s not actually a correct translation, right?
INDA: Yeah, I mean, there are several problems here. One of the problems is that “must” is not very widely used, especially in America. I don’t hear people using “must” so often. You usually say “have to”.
HELENA: You must clean your room.
INDA: Right, you usually say “have to”. And German uses “müssen” for the cases in which you say “have to” or “must” — some British speakers say that. So, the problem actually appears when we are trying to negate the verb, so “mustn’t”. “Mustn’t” is something that you’re not supposed to do, right? You mustn’t drive here, for example. And in German, you wouldn’t say “du musst nicht fahren” because that would mean you don’t need to drive here, you don’t have to drive here. What you want to say is that you’re not allowed to, you’re not authorized to, you’re not permitted to, and then you have to say “dürfen”, “nicht dürfen”.
HELENA: “Du darfst hier nicht parken.”
INDA: Right.
HELENA: Okay.
INDA: So, when you’re trying to negate “müssen”, or “must”, you have to say” nicht dürfen”.
HELENA: Interesting.
INDA: Yeah.
HELENA: That’s so interesting. It doesn’t work both ways, yeah. So, can you give me maybe some more examples, because that’s pretty much all we have for the grammar today? But I think it’s great if we put in a few more examples so our listeners can maybe grasp the concept a little bit better. And I thought something that fits really well with the German culture would be talking about driving roles and what you can and can’t do in Germany. So, can you give me maybe three sentences using the modal verbs, that have to do with traffic regulations?
STEFIE: “Man darf nicht Alkohol trinken.”
HELENA: Okay. You’re not allowed to drink alcohol when you drive, right? Okay.
INDA: Actually, if you’re planning to come to Germany and you want to drive in Germany, you’ll find yourself lost in the jungle of street signs. And, indeed, because there are over 500 street signs in Germany.
HELENA: 500?
INDA: Over 500 different traffic signs.
HELENA: That explains why I’m afraid to drive here.
INDA: Right. And they’re placed over 20 million times in German streets and “Autobahns” and things like that. So, I got my license 10 years ago here in Germany. I had to learn all these 500 signs.
HELENA: Which you forgot.
INDA: Of course I forgot. I forgot all of them basically. But there is one thing that I remember and I think it’s useful to know, which is there are two types of signs that you should remember — the red ring. If you see a ring in red, that means prohibition. That’s the “darf nicht” sign.
HELENA: So, in America, usually there’s a line through it, but in Germany it’s a circle with a red perimeter.
INDA: Right. And then you have something inside. Maybe it’s a bike; it means that bikes are not allowed. “Man darf kein Fahrrad fahren.”
STEFIE: Isn’t it crossed as well?
INDA: No, it’s not, and that’s confusing.
STEFIE: That’s why I don’t have a driver’s license. Oh, my God! And I have been learning for it. Yeah, well, okay.
INDA: And, as in most places in the world, the red triangle is the caution…
HELENA: Okay.
INDA: Sign. So, whatever it’s inside, they might warn you about animals, dangers.
HELENA: So, deer means like “Caution! Deer crossing!”.
INDA: Right. How well do you know the fun laws in Germany?
STEFIE: Fun laws in Germany.
HELENA: Because Germany has a lot of laws. But, Inda, you have a quiz prepared for us?
INDA: I have a quiz.
HELENA: German law quiz?
INDA: Things we “dürfen” and things we don’t. Okay, so are you ready? Question number one. “Man darf nicht auf der Autobahn anhalten.” — It’s illegal to run out of fuel on the “Autobahn”.
STEFIE: True.
HELENA: It is illegal.
INDA: Is it illegal? Do you think so?
HELENA: “Es ist nicht legal.”
INDA: That’s true. It’s actually illegal to pull over on the “Autobahn” without a really good reason, so that’s why if you pull over because you run out of fuel, they consider that negligence and, therefore, you have to pay a fine.
STEFIE: Yup.
INDA: That’s how the no speed limit works. You can’t stop. Okay, number two. “Man darf nicht in einem Burö arbeiten ohne Fenster.” — It’s forbidden to work in an office without window.
STEFIE: True, you need to have windows.
HELENA: Yeah, circulation is extremely important for Germans. It’s true.
STEFIE: There is a verb for that, you know?
INDA: “Lüften”.
HELENA: “Lüften”, yeah, “to get air circulation”.
INDA: It’s actually false.
HELENA: Oh!
INDA: Yeah, you don’t have a right to an office with a window in Germany. Many blogs and English resources have reported that wrongly. And, actually, there is a law that says it’s illegal to work in an office without sufficient air, but you can provide that with the air conditioning.
STEFIE: Or a fan.
INDA: Or a fan.
HELENA: Or a ventilation system.
INDA: Right. So, it’s not the window that is required by law, but a good temperature and sufficient air. So, number three. “Es ist verboten die Wäsche,” so, the laundry, “am Sonntag aufzuhängen.”
HELENA: It’s illegal to hang up laundry on Sunday. According to my grandmother, yes.
STEFIE: Yeah.
INDA: That’s another false. That’s a myth floating I’ve heard on the internet and I think people say. But it’s true that in some regions in Germany, that’s… yeah, your neighbors might criticize you for doing that.
STEFIE: For hanging… Why do they care?
INDA: Because you’re not supposed to work on Sunday.
HELENA: My grandmother would totally do that. I would be doing… calling her up on Sunday and I’m like, “I’m doing my homework,” and she’s like, “Today’s God’s day. Stop!”
INDA: Yes. It’s God’s day. Exactly, that’s what they will say.
HELENA: You’re not allowed to work.
INDA: Okay, number four. “Es ist verboten um Mitternacht Klavier zu spielen.”
HELENA: So, it’s illegal to play piano at midnight.
INDA: Yeah, “man darf nicht”.
STEFIE: It’s not allowed, yeah. I guess that’s true.
HELENA: Well, yeah, there actually are pretty strict sound laws in Germany.
INDA: Exactly, Germans love their silence.
HELENA: Yeah, which is great actually.
STEFIE: I think that’s amazing. I actually love that.
HELENA: Yeah, I just wish that the “Bauarbeiter” were only allowed to start a little bit later.
STEFIE: Yeah, I think they are allowed to start at 6, right?
HELENA: Yeah, it’s still too early.
STEFIE: Or 7? Yeah.
INDA: So, what are the times that you can play the piano? Do you know that?
STEFIE: From 6 to 1?
INDA: 6 AM?
STEFIE: 6 AM to 1 PM? And then you have like a little pause.
HELENA: No, 10… 6 to 10.
INDA: That’s too late.
STEFIE: 10 what? PM? No, no, to 1, and then you have a like little pause for a siesta.
INDA: It’s true, it’s true.
STEFIE: To take a little nap, and then from 3 till 6 or something.
HELENA: This isn’t Spain. This is Germany.
STEFIE: No, but you have like “Mittagsruhe” I think it’s called.
HELENA: Really?
INDA: You do have. It’s from 8 to 12 and from 2 to 8.
HELENA: No way!
INDA: That’s when your inspiration should strike and not… And if outside those hours, tough luck.
HELENA: So, that’s why headphones were invented.
INDA: Okay, last one. “Es ist verboten Alkohol zu trinken und Fahrrad zu fahren.”
HELENA: Illegal to ride your bike and drink alcohol.
STEFIE: Yeah, I think that’s not allowed, but I’ve done it a couple of times.
INDA: What do you think, Helena? I mean, you’ve…
STEFIE: You drink… Like, yeah, you drive a bike.
INDA: Well, let’s say you’re coming back from a party, and you have had a few drinks. Are you allowed to drive your bike?
STEFIE: No, you’re not. Not allowed.
HELENA: Yeah, it’s up to a certain point.
INDA: Up to a certain point…
HELENA: It’s actually higher than cars, I think.
INDA: Yes, that is true.
HELENA: I do know this law.
INDA: So, cycling whilst drunk is “verboten”.
STEFIE: “Verboten”.
INDA: Yeah, but you can have a level of alcohol up to 1.6%.
HELENA: I find that I ride my bike better when I’m drunk.
INDA: I heard a lot of people say that.
STEFIE: Well, I think you think that and other people would say something different.
INDA: So, “Man darf nicht betrunken Fahrrad fahren.”.
STEFIE: Okay. You can actually get some points off of your license that way, right?
INDA: Well, if you’re very unlucky, they might take your bike. They have also like a psychological test that you have to do, and if you don’t pass that one, then you’re in serious trouble.
STEFIE: While you’re drunk?
INDA: No, no, the test…
HELENA: Afterwards.
INDA: The test is only when you’re hangover.
HELENA: So, let’s recap what we learned today in our quiz.
INDA: Okay.
HELENA: First one?
INDA: “Man darf nicht auf der Autobahn anhalten.”
HELENA: Not allowed to stop on the highway. Number two?
STEFIE: “Burös müssen keine Fenster haben.”
HELENA: Okay. So, office buildings don’t have to have windows. So, number three would be “Man darf am Sonntag die Wäsche aufhängen.”.
INDA: Ja.
HELENA: So, you’re allowed to put your laundry up on Sunday. Number four?
INDA: “Man darf kein Klavier spielen um Mitternacht.”
HELENA: No piano playing at night. And number five is “Man darf nicht betrunken Fahrrad fahren.”. Well, I think we learned a lot today. We learned about modal verbs, we learned about driving in Germany, and we learned about laws here. So, that’s a wrap, I think, for this Grammatically Speaking. Thanks, Inda and Stefie, for helping us.
INDA: You’re welcome.
STEFIE: Thanks, Helena, for helping us!
HELENA: And we’ll see you next week.
INDA: See ya!
STEFIE: Bye!
HELENA: Well, that’s a wrap. Vielen Dank to Danielle, Inda, and Stefie for joining us. And a special thank you for actor Madlen Meyer for the 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, bis dann. Tschüss!
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