1. Welcome
Hello, welcome to the Better German podcast. My name is Susi. I’m your host. I’m a German teacher, and my mission and vision are to help all learners of German, you, to learn German without any complicated rules that sometimes make German learning difficult. In this episode, I’m going to go over some key terms.
By the way, we have a super fun German Community that you can join for free and enjoy live lessons, resources, and friendly help! In there, you will find the PDF worksheet for this episode, which is a list of these words with a translation and an example sentence.
2. What Are They?
[00:00:46] Key terms — German words that you may find when you’re looking to find a German course, and some very basic terms that you may need in a German course.
Sometimes when you do a German course in Austria or Germany, it’s all German, meaning that the teacher and the material are all in German. This is problematic if it’s a beginner course. It’s sometimes hard to make German courses in all the languages because there are people from many different countries in the world here that live here, have moved here, want to live here, study here, and are refugees. So it’s hard to make German courses in all of these different languages. However, as a beginner, if you have any choice, I advise you to ideally have a course where the person speaks your language, or at the very least, as you’re, listening to this, I suppose you speak English, so then at least, the teacher having to speak English to you. All of my materials are designed for people who speak English; however, not necessarily as their first language. I’m also trying to keep the English a little simpler, so everyone will understand it, whether it’s their native language or their second language.
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3. Let’s Get Started!
Words
[00:02:42] This is Episode 3. For all the notes, additional material, which is a list of the words that we’re going through, plus the translation, and some example sentences and the translation of the example sentence, you can go to my homepage. This is bettergerman.info/3. So, also for the future, for every episode, you find show notes, additional info, the link to download the transcript, plus any other links that are mentioned, at bettergerman.info/ and then the number of the episode, for example, 3, for this episode.
🎧 Missed the episode? Listen to Episode 3 of the Better German Podcast here and follow along as you read!
Let’s get started with
1. The first word is:
Kurs – Course
An example would be:
“I would like to do a course.“
2. The next word is:
Deutsch – You probably have heard that already. If you’re thinking of learning German, Deutsch is what we call German in German
Example:
Ich spreche Deutsch – I speak German.
3. Anfänger – beginner.
Yeah, when you want to do a course. You’re going to do a course for “Anfänger”
Example:
Ich suche einen Anfänger-Kurs – I’m looking for a beginner’s course
4. Fortgeschritten. This is when you are no longer an Anfänger, which means you are advanced. In Austria, usually when we give information like that, it is: Anfänger and Fortgeschritten – beginner and advanced. Not always do we put intermediate in there, because there is no real word for intermediate in German. You may find instead the English word written “intermediate” for something between beginner and advanced.
5. The next word is actually not a word, but an abbreviation. And it’s:
A1. You may have already come across it, but if not, there is a whole episode I’m going to do which is about a system of giving the information of how advanced or not advanced someone is in a language. So A1 would be the very first language level you could do.
A1 would be the very first course that you take. If you have a classification, it could be A0, but the course would be an A1 course. Sometimes it’s called “A1.1”. So if you’re looking for a beginner’s course, it could be called something with A1. There is going to be an episode on this whole thing coming up. I’m going to link it in the show notes as soon as it’s done.
6. [00:06:36] So when you want to do a course, you do it at a school. And this is in German:
School
Example:
Oder Ich suche eine Schule – I’m looking for a school.
7. So we already have the next word in here:
Lernen – Learn
Example:
Ich möchte Deutsch lernen – I would like to learn German.
8. Next up is: Lehrplan – is a curriculum, a plan of the things that you’re learning or all the materials that the teacher’s going to go through in your course.
Lehrplan, then, is the teaching plan, if you do it literally. Lehrplan, curriculum, or teaching plan.
9. Next word is:
wiederholen – that’s to repeat.
Example:
Können Sie das wiederholen? – Can you repeat that?
10. Then the next word is:
Einstufungstest – That’s a placement exam. Very often, when you start a course, you may do an Einstufungstest, a placement exam.
Of course, if you’ve never learned any German before, then you probably do not need a placement exam, an Einstufungstest, because you have to start with the first course.
These words that we’re going over are not necessarily words that I want you to learn. They are words you may meet, or have already encountered, and you’re trying to figure out what they mean. And if you haven’t, well then, you’ve heard them for the first time now. If you ever meet them again, you can come back to this and listen to this episode again.
11. [00:08:52] Next word:
Vorstellen – Introduce. We use it with sich.
In German, we have many words where we say “introduce yourself,” and this yourself is sich. Very often, if you open a book about German or do a first lesson, it’s going to be about that. So, if you see sich vorstellen, then that could be a beginner’s lesson. It means “introduce yourself”. I would say, for example: Ich möchte mich vorstellen – I would like to introduce myself.
Ich möchte mich vorstellen – I would like to introduce myself.
12. Grammatik – that’s (maybe you could guess) grammar.
That’s, of course, the system of how to put words together so that it makes sense.
Very often in German or probably any language course, there is a lot of grammar that you need to learn. Grammar is very necessary. However, I believe it should be done way less than it is for many courses in the beginning. There should be fewer theoretical grammar rules taught, and there should be more practical.
For example, when I teach, there are very few grammar rules. I teach grammar for beginners not as a theoretical set of rules, but by explaining to you how you are going to say this, using sentence patterns. You can learn more about that in the next episode, number four. I will be going over how I teach and why I teach it like that. It could be very helpful for you because it can give you an idea of an approach to learning German. This applies even when you’re not doing a course and learning by yourself, or maybe picking a course. You could say grammar is the rules for how to make a language work. Don’t get me wrong, grammar is very important, because just learning words will never give you the ability to speak very well. However, in the beginning, you first need to focus on words. All the Grammar should be from a very practical approach.
For example, if you want to say:
This is a ________,
You say:
Das ist ein ________.
And now you can say:
Das ist ein Tisch.
This is a table.
Das ist ein Bild.
This is a picture.
The examples given here are not a theoretical set of rules with big, huge word. We’re not using so many words but rather much practical as possible. But anyway, the word is Grammatik, and that’s Grammar.
And a sentence would be:
Grammatik ist wichtig – Grammar is important.
Still, as I said, everything is at its time.
13. Lesen – Read. Whenever you learn German or any language, you obviously need to learn to read that language.
Example:
Ich lese gerne – I like to read.
14. [00:12:35] Schreiben – That’s to write. So, when you learn German, you will need to learn to write German correctly.
Example:
In der Schule lernen wir schreiben – In school we learn to write.
15. Verstehen – That means to understand.
Example:
Ich verstehe Deutsch – I understand German.
And you will understand German too, very fast!
16. Sprechen – means to speak.
Example:
Ich spreche Deutsch und Englisch – I speak German and English.
17. The next word is die Aussprache
That’s the pronunciation. That’s how you say something that is written. If you read the letters and then you want to figure out how to say it, that’s “die Aussprache.”
You will learn, or you should learn, the correct pronunciation, right from the beginning.
For example, that’s an example sentence in English. I should give you a German one. So: Wir üben jetzt die Aussprache – We are practising the pronunciation now.
18. The next word is Prüfung
That’s an exam. You should never only learn just for an exam.
So you should never only learn just for an exam. You should always focus on how can you use what you learn. I’ve actually covered this relatively detailed in the last episode, which is the second (2) episode of the podcast and it’s called: Reasons to Learn German. If you’re interested in that and you haven’t heard it, go there and listen to it.
However, the word Prüfung of course is interesting and important. And in English, it’s an exam.
The word Prüfung is interesting and important. An example sentence could be: Ich habe die Prüfung bestanden – I passed the exam.
19. Another word that is kind of related to this is a Test. Now, a “test” is usually a written, maybe shorter exam than a Prüfung.
So, for example, at the end of the lesson, you could have a test.
Am Ende der Lektion gibt es einen Test – At the end of the lesson, there is a test.
20. Abschluss – That’s the completion. It doesn’t have to be a course. It’s the finish of pretty much anything, and is, of course, applied to a course.
Example:
Nach dem Abschluss des Kurses gibt es eine Prüfung – After the completion of the course, there is an exam.
Sometimes it’s also like that: you have a course, you do the course, you complete it, and then after that, you CAN take an exam, and it’s not mandatory. It depends on how it’s organized, where you are learning. Anyway, if you put that in a sentence, it would be:
Nach dem Abschluss des Kurses kann man eine Prüfung machen – After the completion of the course, you can take an exam.
Six Terms
[00:15:53] For the six terms we’re going to do here, it’s more about the content of a course, the material that you find within a course. I’ve tried to take a few key ones that I feel are very important.
- The first one is eine Wortart – In English, it’s called a part of speech. We have different kinds of words. Depending on what function they have or what kind of word they are, each type is a different part of speech. In German, this is called “eine Wortart”, which means word-type. Die Wortart. Good.
We’re just going over three of those types of words, the most important ones. I know I’ve said we don’t want to have too much grammar, but these are just very basic ideas, just so you know them and what they are. There is going to be an episode where I’m going into this a little bit more in detail. I’m going to link the show notes of this episode to that episode once they’re done, or I’ll let you know when you can expect them. There’s also going to be a whole grammar course coming up. Maybe by the time you listen to this podcast episode, it will have already been released. I’ll provide you with a link to that if that’s the case.
- The first “Wortart”, the first part of speech, is a noun.
In German, it’s called das Nomen. Or sometimes called a Substantiv. It’s exactly the same thing. There is no difference between a Nomen and a Substantiv. For some reason that only the gods of grammar know, there are these two different words for the same thing. In some books, you may find the word Nomen, and in some other books, you may find the word Substantiv. Both of them are used.
- The next word is der Artikel – It’s an article. In English, there are just two of these articles, “A” and “the”. This means that you talk about a general thing, like a table is ein Tisch, meaning that it could be any table. And the other kind of article means that you’re talking about a particular table. The table would be der Tisch. I don’t want to go into the whole significance of this in German.
There is actually an episode coming up. It’s going to be Episode Five (5). And I’m going to link it in the show notes. It’s an introduction to articles and I’m going to go a little bit into why we have them. And maybe, if your native language is English or another language that uses articles, then this is probably not as difficult for you. There are other languages like all the Slavic languages that I know of, I don’t know of so many, but I know for example, in Russian or in Ukrainian and Czech, there are no articles at all. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know, there are no articles in any of those languages.
[00:19:40] In any case, I think if you are new to learning German or haven’t learned German for a long time, this episode could be helpful to you. I’m going to give you an idea of why we have these articles and why it’s important to learn them. Why are they coming up so early? Because I hear from many German students that it’s hard for them. The biggest problem they have is these articles. I want to help you a little bit with that, so it’s not such a big problem. So that’s the upcoming episode on articles, and it shows you: Are you talking about a specific or general thing? And in German, it shows you a little bit more.
- Adjektiv – is an adjective. An adjective is a word that describes how something is. It’s a word like big, small, tall, old, young, or new. These words are adjectives. Adjektiv in German.
- And then the last word that has actually a connection to the article that we had before, is Geschlecht – it’s the gender.
So, as an introduction to the next podcast episode, I’m going to let you in on a fact: In German, we have an idea of three different genders, so any object, or actually any noun, is considered to be either male, female, or neutral. Male is what we connect with a man or a boy. Female would be what we connect with a woman or a girl. And neutral, that’s the third one, is something that is neither that nor the other. It could be an object or just not male or female.
So every noun in German – and this is just grammar – is considered one of those three. That can be very interesting, and there are historical reasons for how this came about. I think this gender thing, the Geschlecht, is present in many languages. It does not really exist in English or very rudimentarily, like just very small parts of it. In English, we have “he” for a man or a boy, and we have “she” for a woman or a girl, and we have “it” for any object. In German, every object, or every noun, has one of those three. So that’s the Geschlecht. I’m not going to go into more of that, I just want you to know that “der”, “die” oder “das” are articles and also show the gender. They show you whether they are male, female, or neutral.
4. In Closing
Okay, cool. So if you have the keywords… I absolutely advise you to go download them. Go to bettergerman.info/3, because that is Episode 3. And go there and download the PDF, which is a list of these words with a translation and an example sentence. And also, when you go there, you will find links to everything that I mentioned.
I hope you enjoyed the episode. Please let me know if there’s anything particularly you would like to see or hear. See you next week or hear from you next week!
Bye-bye.
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