Talk #1 - A1-A2: German conjunctions (Konjunktionen)

[0:00 – 19:16]

[Tom]
Hallo und herzlich willkommen zum Expertly German Podcast, dem Podcast um Deutsch zu lernen. Heute mit dem Thema Present Perfect oder Perfekt. Und auch heute an meiner Seite ist Louise, hallo Louise.

Und sie wird mir helfen, dieses Thema zu entdecken. However, the plan that I have today is that, well, I’m saying a sentence in English and Louise has to say it in German and then I help her to go through that. And whilst we’re doing this, I teach you a little bit about the present perfect. How does it sound?

[Louise]
Sounds good to me.

[Tom]
Cool, alright. Dann lass uns loslegen. The first sentence is, how would you say, I ate a bread.

[Louise]
I ate a bread.

[Tom]
Ja.

[Louise]
Ich habe ein Brot gegessen.

[Tom]
Ja, ich habe ein Brot gegessen.

[Louise]
Ein Brot gegessen.

[Tom]
Ein Brot gegessen. The first one was pretty good, so now how would you say, I played guitar.

[Louise]
Ich habe das Gitarre gespielt.

[Tom]
Die Gitarre gespielt.

[Louise]
Die Gitarre. Gitarre.

[Tom]
Gitarre.

[Louise]
Ich habe die Gitarre gespielt.

[Tom]
Yes, exactly. And you can also just say, ich habe Gitarre gespielt. It’s kind of like in English, I played guitar, I played the guitar. That’s something you could say. Exactly. The next one, we worked yesterday.

[Louise]
Wir haben Arbeit gespielt. No, that is not what happens in our work. Wir haben Arbeit gearbeitet. Wir haben gestern gearbeitet.

[Tom]
Yes, wir haben gestern gearbeitet. How would you say, you worked yesterday.

[Louise]
Du hast gestern gearbeitet.

[Tom]
Ja, du hast gestern gearbeitet. Exactly. High five. Chaka. How would you say, I wrote a book on Monday.

[Louise]
Very busy week.

[Tom]
Oh, yeah.

[Louise]
Okay. I wrote a book. So this is the thing where I’m a bit like, what’s my order? So, ich habe.

[Tom]
Ja.

[Louise]
So is it like, am Montag ein Buch geschrieben.

[Tom]
Geschrieben.

[Louise]
Geschrieben.

[Tom]
Ich habe am Montag ein Buch geschrieben. Yes, exactly. And if you’re not sure about where to put which words, it’s like, ich habe, that’s pretty clear, the subject, we have this, and then, but in the middle, it’s go, usually by the order of time, manner, place.

And so time is like am Montag, and then ein Buch, I guess that the manner, something like that, and then place, we don’t have one.

[Louise]
Yeah, okay. You’re going to throw that in the mix next, aren’t you now?

[Tom]
Okay. You could say, ich habe am Montag ein Buch zu Hause geschrieben.

[Louise]
Right.

[Tom]
Yeah, so that’s how you do the word order usually. Obviously, German is not as strict as VO language, so you could also say, ein Buch habe ich am Montag geschrieben. So, we do not always have to put the subject in the first spot in the sentence.

[Louise]
I’m going to keep my rules for now.

[Tom]
Keep those rules.

[Louise]
I’m going to stick with my nice, simple structure.

[Tom]
Yeah, okay. So, how would you go, how would you say, I went to the park on Friday?

[Louise]
I see what you’re trying to do. I went is therefore not ich habe at the start.

[Tom]
Oh, yeah.

[Louise]
What was that? I went to the park on Friday. On Friday.

[Tom]
You can also pick another day, but Friday sounds good.

[Louise]
So, this is an ich bin am Freitag der Park. What was I doing?

[Tom]
Ging or something. You went. You went on Friday to the park.

On Friday, I went to the park. In the park.

[Louise]
In the park. Oh, gegehen? Apart from all of those mistakes, are they right?

[Tom]
Yes. Okay. Well, let me say ich.

You can also say am Freitag bin ich. But let’s go with ich bin am Freitag in den Park.

[Louise]
In den Park.

[Tom]
Den with an N. Do you know why it’s in den? Because of the cases. In which case do we have here?

[Louise]
I don’t remember, but I know that that’s why.

[Tom]
It’s the accusative case. Why is it the accusative case? Because we have the verb. Sorry, not the verb. We have the word in here. The preposition in. And that is a two-way preposition. What does two-way preposition mean? You can use it in two ways. Either the accusative or the dative case.

[Louise]
Never met someone who enjoyed the place as much as you.

[Tom]
So when it is about movement or change.

[Louise]
Yeah.

[Tom]
In this case, it’s movement, right? You go to the park. Then we use the accusative case. If it’s about location. So where am I? I am in the park. Then it would be dative. Ich bin im Park. In dem with an M. Like mother, park. But if it’s about movement. Ich gehe in den Park. Then it’s the accusative case. Simple, right? Okay, if you don’t understand this, guys, you can also go to my course and learn more about it. Or book a one-on-one lesson with me.

[Louise]
Book a one-on-one lesson with you.

[Tom]
Anyway, let’s continue. No, let’s repeat that one again.

[Louise]
Ich bin am Freitag in den Park gegangen.

[Tom]
Gegangen. Yes, exactly.

[Louise]
Pretty good.

[Tom]
So you can also say, am Freitag bin ich. And how do you finish that?

[Louise]
Am Freitag bin ich in den Park gegangen.

[Tom]
Yeah, the same. But the auxiliary verb or the conjugated verb always needs to be on the second spot. The bin always needs to be on the second spot. Got it. Yeah, cool. Alright, next one. What else can we say? Let’s say, she cooked a cake yesterday.

[Louise]
Sie hat ein Kuchen gekocht.

[Tom]
Well, actually, you’re right. You should teach me German. Yeah, you’re right. We would say, gebacken. Because you bake a cake, you don’t cook a cake, right?

[Louise]
Yeah.

[Tom]
Well, you know, I cook a cake, you bake a cake.

[Louise]
I will, yeah.

[Tom]
So, yeah, but you’re right. Gebacken.

[Louise]
Gebacken.

[Tom]
Ich habe ein…

[Louise]
Sie hat…

[Tom]
Sorry, yeah. Sie hat ein…

[Louise]
Who’s running the lesson here?

[Tom]
Sie hat einen Kuchen gebacken. Why? Because it is der Kuchen. And which case do we have here?

[Louise]
Accusative. Accusative.

[Tom]
Exactly. And so because the ein then changes to einen.

[Louise]
Yeah, I need to work on my cases, sorry.

[Tom]
Simple. Simple. The cases we do another time, yeah, so be ready for that one. What else can we say? Can you think of any sentence? Can you say something with dancing?

[Louise]
That one I know. Tanzen.

[Tom]
Tanzen.

[Louise]
Tanzen.

[Tom]
Yeah. Sounds like a funny word, right?

[Louise]
Tom hat… …am Donnerstag…

[Tom]
Yeah.

[Louise]
…in den Disco…

[Tom]
In der Disco.

[Louise]
…in der Disco getanzt.

[Tom]
Yes, correct. It is Tom hat am… Donnerstag.

[Louise]
What did you say?

[Tom]
Donnerstag.

[Louise]
…in der Disco…

[Tom]
In der Disco. …getanzt. Yes, exactly. Correct.

[Louise]
Donnerstag ist der neue Freitag.

[Tom]
Donnerstag ist der neue Freitag. Sehr gut. What else can we say? Last time we had some conjunction words.

[Louise]
Okay.

[Tom]
Can we say something like using… Do you remember any of the conjunction words from last time? I remember.

[Louise]
Yeah. Außerdem.

[Tom]
Außerdem. Was that not therefore? Something like… Yeah. How would you translate it? Yeah. Therefore. No, no. In addition.

[Louise]
In addition. So Tom hat am Donnerstag getanzt. Außerdem war er spät für Arbeit am Freitag.

[Tom]
Außerdem war er.

[Louise]
Oh, because then we still do the swapping thing.

[Tom]
Yes, because außerdem is in the third group. It’s a conjunctive adverb. Right? And that’s kind of like a verb attractor.

[Louise]
Außerdem war er spät für Arbeit am Freitag.

[Tom]
Yeah, but you usually don’t mix the times. So when you first use the present perfect, you can’t use the präteritum now. So you have to say… Außerdem ist er spät auf Arbeit gewesen. So you have to use… Because you use the präteritum, which is the English simple past. You can’t say in the first part of the sentence the present perfect.

[Louise]
And then swap midway through.

[Tom]
Yeah, exactly. So you have to stick with the same one. But you were pretty close. It was good. It was good. Can we say it one more time? What was it?

[Louise]
Oh, yeah. I didn’t quite sink in how I was supposed to say it.

[Tom]
Yeah, I helped you.

[Louise]
Okay, so if I say it in English. Tom was drinking… No, Tom was dancing on Thursday night.

[Tom]
Yeah.

[Louise]
Therefore he was late to work on Friday morning.

[Tom]
Yeah.

[Louise]
How would you say it?

[Tom]
Well, it’s not therefore. Then I would use deshalb. So Tom war… Tom ist am Donnerstag tanzen gewesen. Oder Tom hat am Donnerstag getanzt. Deshalb ist er spät zur Arbeit gekommen am Freitagmorgen. Deshalb ist er am Freitagmorgen spät zur Arbeit gekommen.

[Louise]
Maybe I made that too hard.

[Tom]
Well, no, no. That was pretty good. We have to combine and this is how you kind of get better. But here I would use deshalb, which is better therefore. Außerdem is more like in addition, right? So we would use deshalb.

D-E-S-H-A-L-B. That’s how you spell deshalb. Okay, and another one. How would you say… We recorded a podcast episode on Monday.

[Louise]
Wir haben ein Podcast. How do you say recorded?

[Tom]
Aufnehmen.

[Louise]
Aufnehmen. Like take.

[Tom]
Well, like on take. Something like that.

[Louise]
Okay, wir haben ein Podcast aufnehmen.

[Tom]
Wir haben einen Podcast. Where do you need to put the G-E?

[Louise]
Oh.

[Tom]
Separable verbs.

[Louise]
Okay. Wir haben auf ein Podcast genommen.

[Tom]
Wir haben einen Podcast aufgenommen. So this is super difficult. So aufnehmen is a separable verb. And the prefix, it’s called the prefix, is auf. And the main one is nehmen. And then you put the G-E in between the auf and the nehmen. But aufnehmen or nehmen is also like a strong verb. And so you have to change nehmen to nomen. Auf-G-E-Nomen, all one word.

[Louise]
I knew I should split it and I knew I should stick the G in the middle, but I wasn’t sure where to put the beginning thing.

[Tom]
You just keep it there.

[Louise]
What’s the lesson I need to find for that? What is that?

[Tom]
It’s called trennbare Verben or separable verbs.

[Louise]
Separable verbs, okay.

[Tom]
Can you say that sentence one more time? No. Try it.

Come on.

[Louise]
What was it again?

[Tom]
Tom recorded a podcast on Monday.

[Louise]
Wir haben am Montag einen Podcast aufgenommen.

[Tom]
Yeah, exactly, perfect.

[Louise]
Thanks.

[Tom]
Wir haben am Montag einen Podcast aufgenommen. Cool. Na klar.

[Louise]
What did my neighbors do last night?

[Tom]
Was haben meine Nachbarn letzte Nacht gemacht?

[Louise]
Ich weiß nicht.

[Tom]
Meine Nachbarn haben laut Musik gehört. What does that mean?

[Louise]
My neighbors played loud music last night.

[Tom]
Or listened to, not played, but listened to music loud. Was hat deine Schwester am Wochenende gemacht?

[Louise]
Meine Schwester hat viele Dinge gemacht. I don’t know where I’m going with this. Is that right?

Meine Schwester hat…

[Tom]
Ja, meine Schwester hat viele Dinge gemacht. Perfekt. Wie würdest du sagen, my sister did a Skype call with me?

[Louise]
Meine Schwester hat ein Skype call mit mir.

[Tom]
Ja, ein… Gemacht. Gemacht, yeah.

[Louise]
You should have gemacht on the end and it’ll be readable.

[Tom]
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Meine Schwester hat ein Skype-Telefonat mit mir gemacht. Oder meine Schwester hat mit mir telefoniert. Oder meine Schwester hat mit mir via Skype telefoniert. Telefoniert is a verb that ends with an iren in the infinitive form, which means there is no ge at the beginning. There is no ge telefoniert. Telefonieren just becomes telefoniert. How would you say, I trained yesterday. I trained.

[Louise]
Like worked out.

[Tom]
Yeah, and we use trainieren.

[Louise]
Ich hat…

[Tom]
Ich habe…

[Louise]
Oh, dann… Ich habe gestern getrainiert.

[Tom]
No, just trainiert without the ge in the front.

[Louise]
I wasn’t paying attention to that part. Sorry.

[Tom]
Okay, again, when we have a verb like trainieren, telefonieren…

[Louise]
I don’t know which one, okay.

[Tom]
They all end with an iren. Yeah, they all end with an iren. And when they end with an iren, then you create the past participle out of that by not putting a ge in the front. Just leave it like that, but instead of iren, you say iert. Telefoniert. Trainiert. Studiert. There are actually many. I can’t think of others right now, but there are many verbs like that.

[Louise]
How would I ask something like, where did your parents go on holiday?

[Tom]
Yeah, how would you say that?

[Louise]
How would you say that?

[Tom]
Wo sind deine Eltern im Urlaub gewesen? However, here you could also say, wo waren deine Eltern im Urlaub? That is then the präteritum.

[Louise]
No, but using this particular lesson.

[Tom]
Wo sind deine Eltern im Urlaub gewesen? Gewesen is the bin. Gewesen is the past participle of to be, of sein. Meine Eltern haben in Spanien Urlaub gemacht.

[Louise]
So even though they went to Spain, you use haben in that context?

[Tom]
Yeah, because I say gemacht. And with gemacht, we use… A funny one is actually bleiben, which means to remain, and that one we use with the verb to be. Ich bin zu Hause geblieben. There is no movement, there is no change, but we still use it with the verb sein.

[Louise]
I stayed at your house or I stayed at their house.

[Tom]
Yeah, but if I use something like, Ich bin in den Park gegangen. Ich bin zur Arbeit gefahren. Then there we use the sein as well, because that’s all movement, it’s all change. Ich bin auf den Tisch gesprungen. I jumped on the table. And then most of the verbs are all haben.

I hope you guys, you listeners, learned something today, whilst we had a bit of fun talking about some weird German grammar. Louise, did you understand a bit of what I taught you today? Probably rehearsed a little bit of stuff that we’ve done today.

Guys, if you want to learn more, go to my website, expertlygerman.com. There you can find free e-books, you can find blog articles, you can find more information about my course, you can also see that you can book one-on-one lessons with me, and all sorts of stuff for you to learn.
So, thank you guys, cheers and bis bald!