Coffee Break German Lesson 03 Study Notes Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 1 of 15
LESSON NOTES ICH KOMME AUS DEUTSCHLAND. UND SIE? In this lesson of Coffee Break German we will learn to talk about where we come from, and ask other people where they come from. We ll cover the names for a number of countries, and learn greetings used in different parts of the German-speaking world. INTRODUCTION Following a brief review of the question wie heißen Sie? Thomas and Mark began the lesson with a short conversation: Mark: Bist du fertig? Thomas: Ja... Mark: Dann lass uns anfangen! We have encountered the phrases bist du fertig? (are you ready?) and lass uns anfangen (let s begin) before. The additional word to consider here is dann: dann then, so Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 2 of 15
dann lass uns anfangen then let s begin / so let s begin SIE AND DU In lesson 2 we learned the question wie heißen Sie? meaning what is your name? This is the formal version of this sentence: as we learned last time there are two forms for you in German, just as there are in many other languages. Our Grammar Guru Kirsten will tell us more about this later in the lesson. For now, let s consider the informal way of asking the question, what is your name? : wie heißt du? what is your name? (informal) Note that heißen becomes heißt when using the informal form. We will study this pattern later. WHAT ABOUT YOU? If you are asked a question in German, you can direct the same question back to the person who asked you the question by using the phrase: und Sie? and you? (formal) Here is an example of this phrase in a conversation: Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 3 of 15
Mark: Wie heißen Sie? Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas. Und Sie? Mark: Ich heiße Mark. Of course, if you are using the informal form, you can replace the Sie with du: und du? and you? (informal) Mark: Wie heißt du? Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas. Und du? Mark: Ich heiße Mark. TALKING ABOUT WHERE YOU RE FROM Using the formal form, to ask someone where do you come from? or where are you from? you use the following phrase: woher kommen Sie? where do you come from? The word wo means where, and woher means where from or from where, so the sentence literally means where from come you? To answer the question, Thomas says: Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 4 of 15
ich komme aus Deutschland I come from Germany Since Mark is from Scotland, he has to say: ich komme aus Schottland I come from Scotland Thomas and Mark have a role-play conversation in which they meet each other in a business context and introduce themselves. This conversation uses a number of phrases we have covered so far in our lessons. Mark: Guten Tag. Thomas: Guten Tag. Wie heißen Sie? Mark: Ich heiße Mark. Und Sie? Thomas: Mein Name ist Thomas. Woher kommen Sie? Mark: Ich komme aus Schottland. Woher kommen Sie? Thomas: Ich komme aus Deutschland. Mark: Sehr gut. Auf Wiedersehen. Thomas: Danke, tschüss. Another phrase which could be useful in this context is the German for it s nice to meet you or pleased to meet you : es freut mich it s nice to meet you Note that you can shorten this expression to freut mich. It literally means it s a joy to me. Es freut mich is already a shortened form of this longer phrase: Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 5 of 15
es freut mich Sie kennenzulernen it s a pleasure to get to know you We can add this phrase to another sample conversation: Thomas: Guten Morgen. Mark: Guten Morgen. Wie geht s? Thomas: Gut, danke. Wie geht s Ihnen? Mark: Mir geht s ausgezeichnet. Woher kommen Sie? Thomas: Ich komme aus Deutschland. Und Sie? Mark: Ich komme aus Schottland. Ich heiße Mark. Wie heißen Sie? Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas. Mark: Es freut mich. Thomas: Es freut mich auch. Note the word auch used by Thomas in this conversation: es freut mich auch I m also pleased to meet you The word auch can be used with a subject pronoun (e.g. ich, du, Sie, etc.): ich auch me too du auch you too (informal) Sie auch you too (formal) Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 6 of 15
Note in particular with ich auch, the literal translation is I too, rather than me too. It s important to note little nuances of this to avoid mistranslating in the future. Note also the word order in this sentence: ich komme auch aus Schottland I also come from Scotland mir geht s auch gut I m also well / things are also good for me ICH KOMME AUS... Listed below are some other countries within the context of the phrase I come from... : ich komme aus England I come from England ich komme aus Irland I come from Ireland ich komme aus Wales I come from Wales ich komme aus Amerika I come from America ich komme aus den U.S.A. I come from the U.S.A. Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 7 of 15
Note that since you re talking about the United States you need the definite article den here. We ll explain more about definite articles in future lessons. The actual translation of the United States is die Vereinigte Staaten. It s probably easier to stick to ich komme aus den U.S.A. for now! ich komme aus Kanada I come from Canada ich komme aus Autralien I come from Australia ich komme aus Österreich I come from Austria ich komme aus der Schweiz I come from Switzerland CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT Hello from me, Julia, your Cultural Correspondent. Last time I told you about the different parts of the world where German is spoken. It s also important to know that even within Germany itself there are different cultures. There are some things which are associated with the country as a whole, but you ll find that there are other aspects, whether that be food or architecture, or traditions which are very different from one place to another. Historically Germany was like a patchwork of different kingdoms, so if I explain to you that, for example, we have sixteen different Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 8 of 15
school systems in the different federal states of our country, I think you ll understand what I mean! The other big difference is the accent and dialects used. I m sure you know by now that Thomas is from the south and he pronounces some words a bit differently from me. That s ok, I understand him perfectly, but I thought it would be nice to teach you some greetings you ll come across in the different parts of the German-speaking world. Let s start in the north: near the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts, you ll hear moin or moin, moin, meaning Morgen, or good morning, but you can use this at other times of the day too. In the south of Germany and throughout Austria you ll often hear servus, a greeting both for saying hello and goodbye. Greetings in different parts of the German-speaking world: Moin in the north, Servus or Grüß Gott in the south and in Austria, and Grüezi in Switzerland. Another southern German and Austria expression for hello is Grüß Gott. This literally means, greet God, which might sound a bit strange, but these areas are traditionally Catholic, so it Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 9 of 15
makes sense. In fact, I guarantee that you ll hear Grüß Gott when you walk into a shop anywhere in Austria! One last greeting, this time from Switzerland, is Grüezi, and like Grüß Gott, it s only used when you meet someone, not when you re saying your goodbyes. So you re now fully equipped to greet native German speakers anywhere you go. GRAMMAR GURU Today we ve introduced you to the two forms of the word you in German. As Thomas explained, du is the informal form, and it s used for talking to someone you know. Sie is the formal form, and that s used for talking to someone you don t know. If you re a school pupil, for example, you d use this when talking to your teacher. If you ve ever studied French, it s the same idea as tu and vous, and it s like tú and usted in Spanish. Although we only use one form of you in English nowadays, we actually used to have two: we used thou for informal situations, and you for formal ones. In fact this usage still exists in parts of the English-speaking world today. Anyway, two forms for you : du and Sie. So far, so good! But we ve also learned that these different forms cause changes to the verbs which follow them. We learned du heißt, but Sie heißen, so you can see that the verb has a different ending after each one. We can see the same endings if we use those formal and informal forms with the other verb you ve learned today, kommen, which means to come. We had the formal question woher kommen Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 10 of 15
Sie? and then the informal version of that sentence would be woher kommst du? Does that make sense? So that you can see these changes more clearly, let s consider these verbs side by side: informal first, followed by formal. INFORMAL FORMAL du heißt Sie heißen du kommst Sie kommen I ll be explaining exactly how to make these changes later in the course. For now, try to focus on the pattern of the formal Sie heißen changing to du heißt for the informal form; and Sie kommen becoming du kommst. Hopefully this makes sense, and you ll learn more about verbs in future lessons. Ready for more? Turn the page to continue with the bonus materials for this lesson. Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 11 of 15
BONUS MATERIALS In each edition of Coffee Break German we cover the basic language you need to communicate. As part of the study pack we provide some additional vocabulary to help you increase your range of expression. This section of bonus materials provides additional content to help you master the words and phrases contained in the lesson. Start with the Bonus audio lesson, our review podcast Review the Core Vocabulary and learn the Bonus Vocabulary CORE VOCABULARY grüß Gott greeting in the south of Germany and Austria, literally meaning greet God wie heißt du? what is your name? (informal) und Sie? and you? what about you? (formal) und du? and you? what about you? (informal) woher kommen Sie? where do you come from? (formal) Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 12 of 15
woher kommst du? where do you come from (informal) ich komme aus... I come from Deutschland Germany Schottland Scotland England England Irland Ireland Wales Wales Amerika America ich komme aus den U.S.A. I come from the USA Australien Australia Österreich Austria Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 13 of 15
der Schweiz Switzerland ich komme aus der Schweiz I come from Switzerland es freut mich I m pleased to meet you (shortened form) es freut mich Sie kennenzulernen I m pleased to meet you (full phrase) Sie auch? you too? (formal) du auch? you too? (informal) ich auch me too BONUS VOCABULARY Japan Japan Südafrika South Africa Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 14 of 15
China China Italien Italy Frankreich France Spanien Spain Niederlande the Netherlands Belgien Belgium Norwegen Norway Dänemark Denmark Indien India Schweden Sweden Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 15 of 15