Survival German: Speak with Confidence in Real Life

Want to speak real German from your very first lesson? Get instant access with your free lifetime account at langadvance.com. Before we jump into the course in a moment, just a few words about me. My name is Alex. I'm your native German teacher. I am 49 years old and I was born in Bonn, which is the former capital of Germany before the capital status went to Berlin again. Now I'm living in the area of Cologne, which is near Bonn. But I've been living a few years in different German cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Düsseldorf and I've also spent a few years in Vienna in Austria. I have more than 20 years of teaching experience. So I've started teaching when there was no online teaching. I started one-on-one group classes, in-person teaching and I moved more and more to online teaching since the pandemic. So teaching is not my hobby, it's really my profession. I've written a few books of how to learn the German language. So if you are interested in books, I can always give you a recommendation. Just drop me a message. At the moment I have 8000 followers on Facebook. So I love the social media community. If you want, you can follow me there. Or if you bought this course, you can also join our German learners group, where you will get a lot of support and a lot of tips learning the German language. Herzlich willkommen! A warm welcome and thank you for choosing this course. I am very glad and thankful that you registered for this survival German course. If you have any questions, requests, comments or suggestions for improvement regarding this course, please do not hesitate to contact me at any time. Ich freue mich sehr und bin dankbar, dass du dich für diesen Survival Deutsch Kurs angemeldet hast. Wenn du Fragen, Wünsche, Anmerkungen oder Verbesserungsvorschläge zu diesem Kurs hast, zögere nicht und kontaktiere mich jederzeit. Let's start into our course. And of course we will start from the beginning with introductions and greetings. So say hello and say goodbye. The shortest version of saying hello in Germany is Hallo. It sounds almost like the English hello, just with an A in the middle. Hallo. If you want to say good morning, in Germany we say Guten Morgen. In the middle of the day or during the day we usually say Guten Tag. Good day. So maybe from 11am until 6pm we can say Guten Tag. And in the evening we would say Guten Abend. Which is good evening. So how do we say goodbye in Germany? The informal shortest way to say goodbye in Germany is Tschüss. Tschüss. Not easy to pronounce. It is the same as the English bye. To make it a bit more formal, we could also say Auf Wiedersehen. Which is goodbye in English. And if we would translate it word by word, it would mean something like on again. Seeing. Auf Wiedersehen. To make it a bit more informal again, we can also say Bis bald. See you soon. Or word by word something like until soon. And we can also say Bis später. See you later. Or word by word until later. Now it's your turn. Let's start with a little exercise. I will say a word in English. And then I will make a pause so that you can say the word in German. And then I will say the word in German. Let's get started. Hello. Hallo. Good morning. Guten Morgen. Good day. Guten Tag. Good evening. Guten Abend. Bye. Tschüss. Goodbye. Auf Wiedersehen. See you soon. Bis bald. See you later. Bis später. Thank you very much for attending this first lesson. And you will see us in the next lesson. Let's do a little bit of small talk. You could ask for example, how are you? Wie geht es dir? If we translate it word by word, it would be something like, how goes it to you? Mir geht es gut. Danke. Und dir? I am fine. Thanks. And you? As a word by word translation, we would say in German, to me goes it good. Thanks. Ask about the weather. Wie ist das Wetter heute? What's the weather like today? Or word by word, how is the weather today? And an answer could be, das Wetter ist heute sehr schön. The weather is very nice today. So here we have also another word order than in English. We say, the weather is today very beautiful. If we translate it word by word. Let's talk a little bit more about ourselves. For example, if you want to say, where we are from. In German we say, ich komme aus. Which is exactly word by word the same as, ich komme aus. It's the same as, I come from. Ich komme aus Deutschland. I come from Germany. We would also say, ich komme aus England. I come from England. To tell the other person how old we are, we usually say, ich bin. Like, I am. Ich bin 49 Jahre alt. I am 49 years old. And you see it here on the slide. In German we would say something like, I am 49 Jahre alt. So it's a bit another order to say the numbers. But we will get back to this in another lesson. To give more details about your profession. Or about what you are doing in this location or situation. We also use the term, ich bin. Like, I am in English. Ich bin Tourist. I am a tourist. Or something like, ich bin Lehrer. I am a teacher. If you want to refer to where we are living. You would say something like, ich wohne in. I live in, word by word, the same order and the same words almost as in German, in English. So I say, ich wohne in Köln. I live in Cologne. You could also say, ich wohne in England. I live in England. Or, ich wohne in London. I live in London. Now let's talk about how to introduce yourself in German. Sich vorstellen. To tell your name, you just say, mein Name ist Alex. Which is the same as, my name is Alex. You could also say, ich heiße Alex. Which translates also to, my name is Alex. Word by word, it is something like, I'm named Alex. But not exactly, it's a very special construction here in German. But very common to say, ich heiße Alex. To ask someone, what's your name? You say, wie heißt du? Wie heißt du? So this is the informal way to ask someone. But the informal way is very, very common in Germany. So for this course, I think we can go with the informal versions of these sentences. What we do not say usually in German is something like, wie ist dein Name? Which would translate word by word to, how is your name? We can say it if someone told us his or her name a few times and we really did not understand it. Then we maybe ask this question. But usually if we just want to know, what's the name of the person we are talking to, we would ask him or her, wie heißt du? Let's talk a bit about you and your family. We have a lot of similar and even identical words in English and German. And in this field, we have a few examples of that. Let's start. Ich bin single. I am single. Exactly the same word. Ich bin in einer Beziehung. I am in a relationship. Ich bin verheiratet. I am married. Meine Frau heißt Julia. Oder meine Partnerin heißt Julia. Mein Mann heißt Alex. Mein Partner heißt Alex. My wife or my partner is called Julia. My husband or my partner is called Alex. So in Germany, if we talk about Frau und Mann, we usually refer to my wife or my husband. But if we are in a relationship and not married, we often say Partner for the male version and Partnerin for the female version. Let's talk about children. Ich habe zwei Kinder. I have two children. Ich habe eine Tochter und einen Sohn. I have a daughter and a son. So here we have two very similar words. Tochter, daughter, Sohn, son. Meine Tochter ist acht Jahre alt. Mein Sohn ist zwölf. My daughter is eight years old. My son is twelve. Ich habe zwei Geschwister. Einen Bruder und eine Schwester. I have two siblings. A brother and a sister. And here again we have two very similar words. Bruder, brother, and sister, Schwester. Let's talk about how to express preferences. Präferenzen ausdrücken. Expressing preferences. If you want to ask what do you like or do you like something, you say in German Was magst du? What do you like? Or Magst du? Following a word which we are asking for. For example Magst du Tomaten? Do you like tomatoes? As an answer we say Ich mag. Which is the same as I like. Or if we don't like something we can say Ich mag Tomaten nicht. So I do not like something. The not in German is at the very end of the sentence here. If we want to say that we prefer something, we say Ich bevorzuge. I prefer. And then we put the word in there which we prefer. Let's look at some examples. Ich mag reisen. I like traveling. Oder ich mag laufen. Or I like running. Ich mag wandern. I like hiking. Ich mag reisen und lesen. I like traveling and reading. We can of course also do the sentence with a noun. Ich mag Berge, Autos, Hunde, Katzen. I like mountains, cars, dogs, cats. So anything we can put a verb. We can also put a noun after Ich mag. And of course this also goes very well for food and drink. Ich mag Tomaten. I like tomatoes. Oder ich mag Fleisch nicht. I do not like meat. Ich mag Fisch. I like fish. Ich mag wandern nicht. Ich bevorzuge schwimmen. I do not like hiking. I prefer swimming. So now it's your turn. Let's do some exercises. And maybe you can translate first these few little sentences which I wrote here. And after that, which is even more important, please form your own sentences. Take the time to look up some words which you like and which you don't like. And then form some sentences like Ich mag oder Ich mag nicht. But let's do some translations first. I like traveling. Ich mag reisen. I like tomatoes. Ich mag Tomaten. I like cats and dogs. Ich mag Katzen und Hunde. I do not like fish. I prefer meat. Ich mag Fisch nicht. Ich bevorzuge Fleisch. Let's do some of their own sentences and then see you in the next lesson. Let's talk about prices and price information. Preise und Preisangabe. If you want to know what something costs, something like what does it cost or how much does it cost, you would ask in German Was kostet das? oder Wie viel kostet das? This costs 5,90 Euro. In German you would say Das kostet 5,90 Euro. Die Milch kostet 2 Euro. The milk costs 2 Euro. We have different possibilities how to talk about the price. We can say, for example, 5,90 Euro. We could also say something like 5,90 Euro. Or we could even say 5,90 Euro. And the most common ones are the two last ones. Das ist nicht teuer. This is not expensive. Es ist günstig. It's inexpensive. Das ist billig. That is cheap. Now it's your turn again. Let's translate some of these sentences here. What does it cost? How much does it cost? Was kostet das? Wie viel kostet das? The fish costs 8,90 Euro. That is very expensive. Der Fisch kostet 8,90 Euro. Das ist sehr teuer. The meat costs 3,75 Euro. That is cheap. Das Fleisch kostet 3,75 Euro. Das ist billig. What does the milk cost? Was kostet die Milch? The milk costs 1,50 Euro. That is inexpensive. Die Milch kostet 1,50 Euro. Das ist günstig. Just a few sentences that could be helpful if you meet your host. Treffe deinen Gastgeber. So at the beginning we could say Guten Tag. Ich habe ein Zimmer reserviert. How do you do? Good day. I have reserved a room. Another word order in German we say I have a room reserved. And maybe we can ask a question like Wann ist das Frühstück? When is the breakfast? Or maybe the host is asking us a question. Something like Wie möchten Sie bezahlen? How would you like to pay? Or another word order here also again How like you today? I pay in cash or I pay in card. In German we would translate this into Ich zahle bar. Oder ich zahle mit Karte. Now let's talk about ordering in a restaurant. Im Restaurant bestellen. Die Speisekarte bitte. The menu please. Then the waiter could ask you Was möchten Sie trinken? Oder was möchten Sie essen? What would you like to drink? Or what would you like to eat? And then we could order in a quite easy way like Ein Wasser bitte. Eine Cola bitte. Ein Bier bitte. A water please. A Coke please. Or a beer please. Or something like this. Steak mit Pommes bitte. Die Nummer 22 bitte. Steak and chips please. Number 22 please. The waiter would ask you later Sind Sie zufrieden? Or in the informal way Bist du zufrieden? Or he could ask you Ist alles in Ordnung? War alles in Ordnung? These are questions like Are you satisfied? Is it? Is everything okay? Or was everything okay? If you want to order the bill If you want to pay You could ask Die Rechnung bitte. The bill please. And then the waiter would ask you Wie möchten Sie zahlen? Or in an informal way Wie möchtest du zahlen? How would you like to pay? And your answer could be I pay in cash. Or I can say I pay by card. Ich zahle bar. Oder ich zahle mit Karte. And now it's your turn again. Let's do a little translation of these five statements. Good morning. Sorry, good evening. Guten Abend. The menu please. Die Speisekarte bitte. A steak and a beer please. And number 72. Ein Steak und ein Bier bitte. Und Nummer 72. The bill please. Die Rechnung bitte. I pay in cash. Ich zahle bar. In the following minutes I would like to give you a quick overview about this survival German course. This course is meant as an introduction and guide for some everyday situations. So it is not a complete A1 course. It's just an introduction and a guide to some everyday situations. We use up-to-date, modern, everyday language. As I'm a native speaker I can provide you with the actual, real-life words for every situation. And I've also put together a lot of exercises to help you take action. Of course I also have added a lot of further learning materials. So in each lesson you find some attachments and some further learning tips. To get the most value out of this course please do the following four things. First, do the exercises. In every lesson there will be exercises sometimes in the video sometimes as an additional PDF. Please do the exercises to get used to the words and to the phrases. Please also, number two, download our workbook. The workbook is helping you to get deeper into the topics and to do further trainings for each situation. Number three, you can also train the words using our flashcards. So we provide flashcards online, of course, that you can use to train the words and expressions we introduce in this course. Last but not least, number four, please join our Facebook community to get in touch with other learners who start learning the German language and also to get a lot of further tips and further real-life situation examples to help you learn more about the German language. Here are some of the introductions and some of the phrases and topics which are covered in this course. So I will not read them all aloud now, but you see, we have quite a few everyday situations and quite a few basic chapters here put together and important for you. I am also trying to update this course on a regular basis. So please check back anytime, from time to time, to get the updates and see new chapters here. Let's talk about the numbers. The system of the numbers is quite similar to the English system. So from 0 to 12 we have one word and then from 13 on the system changes. So let's start with the numbers from 0 to 12. zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwölf. Try to repeat it. Stop the video now and try to repeat it with these numbers for you aloud. Let's continue with the numbers from 13 to 22. So the system changes here. In Germany we say three ten, which is dreizehn, vierzehn, fünfzehn, sechzehn, siebzehn, achtzehn, neunzehn, zwanzig. And after that the system changes again. So from 21 on we say one and twenty or five and forty. Something like this. So we say ein und zwanzig, zwei und zwanzig and so forth. Let's continue with the numbers from 30 to 1000. Die Zahlen von dreißig bis eintausend. So the terms here. dreißig, ein und dreißig, one and thirty, vierzig, fünfzig, sechzig, siebzig, achtzig, neunzig, einhundert, one hundred, eintausend, one thousand. So now it's your turn. I have a little exercise here for you. You can read the numbers or the sentences, translate the sentences which are here. And I will make a small pause and afterwards I will read or tell you the solution. Let's start with the first exercise. Read these six numbers in German. fünf, eins, neun, sieben, drei, zwei. Then let's go to the second line and read these four numbers. elf, zwölf, zwei und vierzig, two and forty, fünf und siebzig, five and seventy. Now let's try to translate the first sentence. I am thirty years old. Ich bin dreißig Jahre alt. Good day, my name is Peter. I am forty-five. Guten Tag, mein Name ist Peter. Ich bin fünfundvierzig. So as in English we can say I am forty-five. Ich bin fünfundvierzig. And just leave out the years old. Jahre alt. Let's try to say something about you. Something like, good evening, my name is Gep. I am Gep. Guten Abend. Mein Name ist Alex in my case. Ich bin neunundvierzig Jahre alt. Now we talk about the times. Jetzt sprechen wir über die Uhrzeiten. Wie spät ist es? Oder auch, wie viel Uhr ist es? These two questions are perfect to ask about the time in Germany. Es ist neun Uhr. It's nine o'clock. Very easy. Es ist zehn Uhr dreißig. It is ten thirty. In Germany we say ten o'clock, thirty. Es ist einundzwanzig Uhr zehn. It is ten past nine or twenty-one and ten minutes. Neun Uhr fünfzehn. Es ist neun Uhr fünfzehn oder es ist viertel nach neun. So we can say it is like nine o'clock fifteen. Or usually we say it is quarter past nine. If it's half past nine, we would say es ist neun Uhr dreißig. Or even better, es ist halb zehn. And this is very important, it is half ten. So we do not say half past nine, we say half ten. If it's a quarter to ten, we say es ist neun Uhr fünfundvierzig. Or even better, es ist viertel vor zehn. It is quarter before ten. We also can say something like this. Es ist zehn nach neun oder zehn Minuten nach neun. It is ten minutes after nine. But we also can say es ist fünf vor halb zehn. So instead of neun Uhr fünfundzwanzig, we say it is five before half ten. Fünf vor halb zehn. Also in the other direction of course, es ist fünf nach halb zehn. It is five after half ten. So now it's your turn again. I have a few times for you. And please take a few seconds or a minute to translate these and tell the times in German. What time is it? Wie spät ist es? Oder auch wie viel Uhr ist es? Eight o'clock. Acht Uhr. Eleven fifteen. Elf Uhr fünfzehn. Oder viertel nach elf. Half past two pm. We can say vierzehn Uhr dreißig. Or we can say halb drei. And we have twenty forty five. You would say es ist zwanzig Uhr fünfundvierzig. Oder viertel vor neun. So usually we use the twenty four hour system in Germany. But a lot of people, they say like viertel vor neun. And then it is usually clear from context if they want to say it is am or pm. Let's move on and let's go to a bakery. In der Bäckerei. In the bakery. Usually the people in a bakery would ask something like Was darf es sein? Was möchten Sie haben? What would you like? Or word by word translated what may it be. What would you like to have? You could order something like Brötchen. Croissants. Brot. Oder Teilchen. Which would translate into rolls, croissants, bread and pastries. Fünf Brötchen und zwei Croissants bitte. Five rolls and two croissants please. Usually the clerk in the shop in the bakery would ask you Außerdem. Or sonst noch etwas. Which would translate into besides that, anything else. And if you have everything you need you could say Das ist alles, danke. That's all, thank you. Das macht 4,85 Euro bitte. Oder das sind dann 6,10 Euro bitte. These are two ways they would ask you for the money. That's 4,85 Euros please. Translated word by word we say something like That makes in German. Or that are then 6,10 Euros. How would you like to pay? You already know this expression. Wie möchten Sie zahlen? And you could answer Ich zahle bar. I pay in cash. Now it's your turn again. Let's do a few little translations here. Good morning. Guten Morgen. Three rolls and three croissants please. Drei Brötchen und drei Croissants bitte. That's all, thank you. Das ist alles, danke. By card. Mit Karte. Thank you for attending this short lesson. And see you again, see you soon in the next lesson. Let's talk a few words about being at the supermarket. Im Supermarkt. For example we could ask where we can find something. Guten Tag, wo finde ich... and then fill in the gap. Good day, where do you find... and then fill in the gap. Maybe the clerk answers Da drüben. Oder da vorne. Rechts oder links. Which would translate into Over there. Or front. Vorne. Right. Rechts. Or left. Links. Also a lot of similar words here again. Haben Sie Tomaten? Do you have tomatoes? Haben Sie Milch? Do you have milk? And as always, you know it already. Ich zahle bar. Oder ich zahle mit Karte. I pay cash. Or I pay by card. Some important words and phrases for how to ask for help. Um Hilfe bitte. Please help me. Bitte helfen Sie mir. Ich brauche Hilfe. I need help. Es ist sehr dringend. It is very urgent. Es ist ein Notfall. It is an emergency. Bitte rufen Sie die Polizei. Please call the police. Bitte rufen Sie einen Krankenwarten. Please call an ambulance. Oder auch Bitte rufen Sie die Feuerwehr. Please call the fire department. So let's hope that you don't need these phrases but they are always good to know. In this chapter we will talk a little bit about the colors. Die Farben. We talk about a few frequent colors. Acht häufige Fragen. Eight frequent colors. The gradations of colors. Abstufungen von Farben. And also the simple use of adjectives such as colors and the advanced use of adjectives such as colors. Let's go to the colors. Here are eight common very frequent colors that we usually start with. Some of them are very similar in English and in German and some are very different. We start with the similar ones. Let's go to the other ones. Schwarz. Black. Weiß. White. And Gelb. Yellow. We can also give a gradation of these colors like light blue or dark blue. In German we would say In German we can as in English use the adjectives very simple with the verb to be, mit dem Verb sein. We could say something like this. Of course we also have a plural of these things like The cars are blue. Now it's your turn. I have a little exercise for you here. Please translate the colors in this first exercise and afterwards we will have another exercise which is a bit more difficult. Let's start here. Gras ist grün. Der Himmel ist blau. Schnee ist weiß. Der Stein ist grau. Und das Holz ist braun. Let's make it a little bit more difficult. Here you can insert the words which fit to your environment. I'll just do a few examples here. My table is white. Mein Tisch ist weiß. Die Wand ist blau. The wall is blue. Take a minute. Stop the video now. And try to form some sentences by yourself here. We already talked about Same words and false friends. So I'd like to give you a few more examples of these same words. Usually we say we have more than 400 same words in the English and the German language. And the really same ones are usually the adjectives and the nouns. Words like, and I will pronounce them in German, Some other nouns to follow. Butter. Explosion. Instrument. Museum. Radio. We also have some words which we took over from the English language. And we have these as verbs usually. And we conjugate them as if they were a German verb. Some examples are Of course we also have very, very similar words. For example In other words So we have a lot of very similar ones and a lot of really same ones. But of course we also, and I said it before, we also have a lot of false friends. And there are also more than a hundred. And here are just a few examples. Spenden in German means to donate and not to spend. To spend in English, if we say to spend money, we would say Or if we would say to spend time, we would say If we say chef in German, we usually refer to a boss. The English word chef translates into the German Koch. If we talk about a Brand in German, this is a fire. The English word brand translates into the German Marker. Last but not least, if we say Fabrik in Germany, we would refer to a factory. The English word fabric translates into the German word Stoff. I would like to talk a few minutes about girl-oriented learning. I would say this is one of the most important things that you can do when you learn a language. Ask yourself, why do you learn the German language in this example? What are your goals regarding the German language? And be as specific as possible. It makes sense to really write it down. Why do you learn the language? And set a SMART goal. You know it. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Set a goal. For example, in three months I want to go in Berlin to a restaurant, order my food in German. And then I want to meet some people and have a small conversation with them about where they are coming from, what are they doing as a profession, what do they like, what they don't like. Just as an example. Now that we are at the end of this introductory German survival course, I want to say thank you for completing this course. I'm really proud of you that you continued learning and did the full course and arrived at the end. How can you learn further the German language? Please have a look at my other courses about the German language. So maybe there is one that interests you or that can help you continue your learning journey. Please also join our German Learners Community on Facebook. There you will find a lot of further resources, a lot of further tips how to learn the German language and a lot of other exercises to practice what you learned in this course. So again, thank you very much. Take care and never stop learning. See you soon.