Speak German Like a Native: Real Conversations & Expressions

Want to speak real German from your very first lesson? Get instant access with your free lifetime account at langadvance.com. Schönen guten Tag, meine lieben Deutschlernende. Good day, my dear learners of the German language. In this module, we will do not focus at all on grammar or on orthography or on anything boring. It is all about how the natives speak German. This is basically something which you should consume while you are on your sofa, have a cold beer and simply try to take a swim in the rich environment of the German language. Before we start, a couple of questions. What is actually a native? This is not that easy to answer, at least not in today's Germany. There are two reasons. One is that there are many dialects. Germany is a very diverse country linguistically speaking. If you look at the map, there are actually layers. The further north or south you go, the more different the languages are. They are not really related to each other. For instance, if you have ever been to the Netherlands, the language they are speaking, their Flemish, is actually very, very close, almost identical, to a former dialect spoken in today's northern part of Germany. We call it Plattdeutsch, which is now more or less extinct. There are not that many people, at least not in our generation, who are capable of speaking that. English actually has this Plattdeutsch as a fundament. If you go to the middle part of Germany, around Frankfurt, maybe close to Luxembourg, there you have dialects which are from a different language family again. Then if you go to the south, it changes again. The dialect is different, but they are all natives. They are using idioms which are differing a lot. Then there is also the aspect of immigration, mostly labourers which came to Germany after the Second World War. It started in the 1950s with southern Europe, and then in 1961-62 also a couple of million people from Turkey were coming. These people now are third, fourth generation. You can actually call them Germans, they are not really Turks anymore, or Italians, but they have also contributed in changing German, because they brought their own words, they brought their own culture, so also the expressions have changed quite substantially. As I said, this module will have nothing to do with grammar. We are going into pronunciation, because this is the backbone of what nativity might actually be. I'm going to go through a couple of expressions, idioms, any language has them. German obviously as well. German had a lot of world-famous philosophers, world-famous poets, like Goethe, Schiller, Immanuel Kant, and so on. Yes indeed, our national philosopher is called Kant, but written differently. We go through a couple of regional differences and cultural specifications. The structure will basically be pronunciation, we go a little bit through the slang, we go through the dialects, and in the end we also try to introduce ourselves into German humour. Indeed, we have a little bit of it, because usually when you ask around, the Germans do not really have the reputation of being the most humorous people. I disagree, I love the German humour, and I will also try to explain or show you why it is this way. And if we have a little bit of time left, we will also try to take over the world and win the World Cup in soccer. German is a very rich language, especially because it is so strong in philosophy over the last centuries. It was after all a German guy who translated the Bible into German, but from there it actually spread. It was Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King, in the 16th century, and this also has contributed a lot to the richness of the German language, because in Central Europe, what we today call Germany, many people started to learn to read and write much, much earlier than you have in many other cultures. And as I already mentioned, consume this module with a cold beer, simply relax, don't really focus on the grammar, it's not at all about that. Zum Wohne is what Germans often say when they knock their glasses. It is kind of a cheers. This is exactly what I wish you. May you be good. And I'm looking forward to go with you through this module. Bye bye. Willkommen zurück. Welcome back. The last lesson was about affirmation. This lesson is about showing disproval. How can you say nein in German more creatively? Obviously, nein means no. There is absolutely no misunderstanding about that. But we have a huge arsenal in Kato to spice things up a little bit. For instance, you have words which actually mean nein, but in different dialects or in different social classes. You can, of course, say nee, a long nee, or you can say nö. Nö is something – don't use it, actually, if I think about it – because it has something. You don't just disprove with the subject, you also disprove with the person in a certain way. So nö is very, very… For instance, you should not do this with a teacher if you are seven, eight, nine years old, and you should usually not talk to. Obviously, you are not. I just give you the context. Nö has something impolite in it. Nah. Nah, on the other hand, almost the same as nö. Nah is direct, and it is not impolite. It is simply the way how Bavarians say no. Instead of nein, the Bavarians say nah. Nope, I heard it's coming from English, but not that often. Nicht is something which you use with verbs. So it is the negation of verbs. Many people say, Ich spiele nein Tennis. I don't play tennis. No, no, nicht nein. You say, Ich spiele nicht Tennis. It is sort of an adverb, because it describes how a verb is. Nicht and nein should never be confused. They are not interchangeable. Nie, never. This is actually quite strong. Niemals is the longer version of nie. Nichts means nothing. So nicht negates the verb, and, by the way, also an adjective. Ich bin nicht groß. I am not tall. Nichts is nothing. So it does not really negate. It is a concept. You can actually make a whole philosophy of the nichts. The Germans actually did that. This is why we give money to universities. Niemand means nobody, and nirgends means nowhere. Other alternatives. Auf keinen Fall. In no case. This is actually already, you actually make a point. Möchtest du heute in die Schule? Would you like to go to school today? Auf keinen Fall. In no case. Auf gar keinen Fall. This gar actually makes it even stronger. So it's basically more or less, not just in no cases, in minus three cases, if this were possible. Ausgeschlossen. Excluded. Ausgeschlossen. Also a very, very strong point you make. It is absolutely excluded. Komplett ausgeschlossen. Keineswegs. No way. Mitnichten is sort of a no. Not so often used. Rather high level of German and strong. It is a strong negation. Mitnichten. Negativ. It is the same as we had in the last lesson. The positive is jargon, and I consider it slightly arrogant if somebody says that. But nevertheless, I included it on the list because I heard it before. Nicht doch. This doch is very, very tricky in German, and we could write a whole book for foreigners just to explain where doch can be used. Nicht doch here has sort of a, it weakens the nicht a little bit in a certain way that it is self-evident that we don't do it. Then you can say, ach, nicht doch. Because you imply by saying nicht doch that your conversation partner also sort of knows it, but does it anyway. Something like this. You could basically use it for a child which knows the rule, is not allowed to do this, does it anyway, ach, nicht doch. Something like this. Goes in this direction. Nicht im Entferntesten is quite strong because you have this stem structure here. This is a superlative as well. Entfernt means far away. So not even in the furthest away place am I going to do that or find that or whatever. The same applies to nicht im Geringsten. Gering means very, very little. Weit gefehlt means very, very far away from the truth. Dengste. Dengste is something where you put yourself superior to the other guy. Dengste basically means thanks too. It translates, this is what you think. Then you need to basically kind of, it is a little bit arrogant, you should never say dengste to somebody at work, but in a very friendly environment you can actually use it. This slang after all, fehlanseige. Fehlanseige is more or less wrong info on the display. Die Anzeige is the display and fehlanseige basically is that you have an error on the display. Gott behüte oder Gott bewahre. Behüten, bewahren is pretty much the same here. It is God beware. So may God be on our side and so we do not have contact with this. Gott behüte, Gott bewahre. Ist nicht. Here I wrote ist nicht with T which is grammatically correct. Very often the T is swallowed. Ist nicht. And also the T of nicht is nicht. Then in the end it basically means is not. This is a very, very slang way to express this. Prüfer kein Gedanke. No thought. Also something quite strong. Keine Spur. No trace. So you see, we have a very, very rich arsenal for many circumstances and this is also just the beginning. So you could actually fill whole books just the way how Germans can express their disproval because the German culture is rather perfectionistic. Maybe this is the reason why they have these good cars and many other technological stuff. They are very, very rigid also to themselves but also to others so they disapprove quite often. It is almost kind of a killer of the German culture and the Germans are significantly more direct than the Anglo-Saxons are. So when you are coming from cultures which are not that direct where openly expressed politeness is almost mandatory. This would be the Middle East, for instance. This might be China, Japan, for instance. For a Japanese, the Germans might actually be over-direct. This might actually cause a little bit of problems. But also for the Americans, when Americans come to Germany, we are significantly more direct and you see this with the way how many ways you have to disapprove. If you are not quite sure whether you want to say yes or no but you still want to make a statement then we have a hybrid and this is called Jein. Jein is basically Ja und Nein in the same word. For instance, wollen wir heute ins Kino gehen? If you answer Jein, this basically means the question is do we want to go to the cinema tonight or today actually. Then it means maybe yes, you would like to go to the movies but on the other hand it's raining outside or the sun is shining and you might also go to the park to play table tennis. So you are kind of undecided. A very bad example would be Schatz, findest du mich zu fett? Which means honey, do you consider me too fat? If here you answer Jein, this might actually cause a big explosion inside your house. Obviously, the only answer acceptable here is Auf gar keinen Fall. In absolute no case. Very well then, I hope that you have no explosions inside your house under your roof. I hope that you are good. I hope that you are enjoying life and see you next time. Bye bye. Hallo, wie geht's? Hi, how are you doing? In this lesson, we want to go through the greetings. Just imagine the unimaginable. You actually meet someone in real life which is a huge pleasure after all, especially after the last 18 months we are opening up. So now you are meeting a friend or you are meeting actually not a friend, but somebody new. It is in Germany and you do not know what to say. Before we go into that, it is also very important how to say and what kind of gestures are acceptable or not so acceptable in Germany. Should you smile? Should you not smile? Because there are actually cultures where you are supposed to smile and there are cultures where you are not really supposed to smile. Handshake, yes and no, or in general, the body position, basically the technical stuff and we are going to deal with this exactly now. Germans are uncomplicated. They are actually very, very easygoing so you will not really have any problems because they will tolerate pretty much everything. Actually, I cannot really make up any kind of exception to that. The body position is common sense, maybe 80 centimeters apart, but please do not measure it. It's clearly further away than what you have in the Arab world, for instance. Arabians like to be very close to each other, but it is also not really distant. It is somewhere in between culturally, so body position is okay. Usually, Germans do not kiss when they are greeting and obviously meaning that the French, for instance, where they have their baiser, one, two, three, I think that in Switzerland it's two or the other way around. It's very, very difficult. These two countries actually have wars just because of the question how many kisses do we have to give when we greet. In Germany, kisses are not common, especially not among men. In Southeastern Europe, Romania, and Turkey, men actually, when they greet, especially the older generation, they actually also, like the French, they kiss each other. This is not really common in Germany. A hug is totally okay with friends, also with women. Absolutely no problem to simply hug. Usually without a kiss, so basically the heads are just passing each other, but there is no real lip-cheek contact. Smiling is always welcome, but you don't really have to, so there is no rule. As far as this is concerned, I would simply smile. Why not? It costs nothing, and it simply breaks the ice, but there are no real rules, so in no way do you have to show reservation or something. The Germans are actually quite emotional people. Even though they appear robotic, they are not. They actually invented romanticism by the mid-19th century, believe it or not. The handshake is quite common sense, not too tight, not too weak. Somewhere in the middle, the handshake is pretty much international, and important, women also practice the handshake. If you are coming from Western Europe, you might ask yourself, why is this guy mentioning this? Because there are actually quite a few cultures where you shake the hand of a woman maybe when you meet her the first time, but when you meet her the second or third time, or the 100th time, you don't really shake her hand anymore. This is something which in Germany is practiced. You simply shake the hand of a woman if you do not hug each other for a greeting. Very well then, what can you say after the technical part is settled? You can say, and this is the absolute standard you can do nothing wrong when you say that, you simply say, Guten Tag. Good day. Guten Tag. Bonjour. It is pretty much the counterpart to that. In the southern part of Germany, you can also, but it is a little bit out of fashion because God has come out of fashion in Germany lately, you can say, Grüß Gott, which means, greet God. Very popular in Bavaria, very popular in the rural areas of Baden-Württemberg where the Swabians and Bavarians live, cities like Stuttgart and everything which is south of it. You might also hear it in Austria. In Switzerland, they have their own way to greet each other. They say, Grüezi. I hope I pronounced it correctly. But a Guten Tag always goes and my favorite, what you see both in this lesson is basically my personal favorite. I usually use Schönen Guten Tag simply because Schön sounds nice but it also means beautiful. So Schönen Guten Tag is something I usually use in a formal setting. Then you have the handshake and obviously then you do not really hug when it is a little bit more formal. This is how I like it. Then you might also say something casual also to break the ice but also show that you are adhering to a certain social protocol. You can simply say, I'm glad to see you. Es freut mich, Sie zu sehen. I'm glad to see you. Es freut mich, Sie wieder zu sehen. If you do not see for the first time, to see you again. Or if you see for the first time, you can also say, Es freut mich, Sie kennen zu lernen. It is a pleasure to meet you, to make your acquaintance. Or you could also say, Es ist mir eine Freude. It is a pleasure. Es ist mir eine Freude. Also very, very polite. And as a response, if somebody tells you, Es ist mir eine Freude, then you can actually say, the pleasure is on my side which would be, Die Freude ist auf meiner Seite. It is a very nice reply to any of these four here because they all imply a certain kind of joy you are having. Obviously, these are just examples. But when you stick to these ones for the beginning and you choose one of them which you like most because they all have mostly the same level, then you should be very, very good for the beginning. And then with time, you will hear what the Germans are saying. And then eventually, you will find your preference. If you are in a casual setting, of course, you can say the internationally accepted, Hallo, which in German is pronounced, Hallo. Even though, Hallo, I don't really like because the Hallo has a little bit more of this, Oh, in the end, it is more melodic. So, Hallo is actually nice in English. Hallo is something way too, I don't like it, but it is used just for you to know. Hi has been taken over from the English-speaking world. So, Hi is totally acceptable, especially among adolescents. No problem whatsoever. What I like is, Grüß dich. Grüß dich is somewhere between formal and casual. It is pretty much in the middle. Do you remember, Grüß Gott. Grüß dich means, I greet you. If you can pronounce it. Actually, it is quite good that we have Grüß dich because it also exercises your pronunciation of the Umlaut Ü and it also exercises Sch. Do you remember? Ch. Dich. Grüß dich. Wie geht es dir? How are you? The Germans are not as focused on asking, How are you? Instead of, Hello or good day. In the English-speaking world, especially in Australia, New Zealand, pretty much, they use, How are you? Very, very quickly. Or, How are you doing? Instead of, Hello. Or, Instead of saying anything else for greeting. So, very often, you have a very, very intelligent conversation. How are you? Makes no sense whatsoever, but this is how they greet each other. In German, you usually also say something before. So, I would not just approach you and say, Wie geht's? I would at least say, Hallo. Or, Hi. Or, Grüß dich. Wie geht es dir? Also, Wie geht es dir? sounds a little bit better than Wie geht's? Wie geht's? is basically a very, very casual thing to say. And, in the formal thing, it would be, Wie geht es Ihnen? This would be in a rather formal setting. Lange nicht gesehen. Long time no see. Lange nicht gesehen. Always goes in a casual setting. And, of course, a small compliment, Du siehst gut aus. It doesn't matter whether you actually mean it or not. If you don't mean it, be a good liar and then it is absolutely no problem. You must have an authentic smile with it and this also opens up the conversation and the other person starts to feel good. Very well done. I hope that this might be a guide for you from the very beginning when you step into the cold German waters. And, with the time, you will see the Germans appear robotic but they are actually quite nice people. Especially after a couple of beers. Very well done. I hope that you are good. I hope your fridge is powerful enough to bring beer at the right temperature and see you in the next lesson. Bye bye. Tschüss. If you do not like someone but if you want to make a kind of joke, you can actually start a conversation by saying Tschüss. What does Tschüss possibly mean? It is one of the ways how Germans take their leave of someone. So, obviously, this is not the most polite thing to do. Very well, then, we still in this lesson are going to focus on how can you actually leave a conversation. So, let's assume you have greeted each other and then both have pulled out your cellphones, checked three highly unimportant but important enough messages. Then, there was a little bit of a superficial conversation and then there is this uneasy moment. Everybody wants to go but we have to kind of say something. No, jokes aside. Simply, how can you leave a conversation politely in German? This is pretty much what we are going to focus on in this lesson. The physical aspect, the technical aspect is very, very intuitive. We have dealt with the way how we greet each other also physically in the last lesson. So, you simply have a handshake. Here, a smile definitely is advisable because otherwise you would imply that you didn't really have a nice time. Allowed are hugs indeed, especially in a casual or in a very, very friendly environment. In special cases, you might have kisses as well but this is rather random. You might actually have it between good friends when they are of the opposite sex, then indeed you might actually have kisses on the cheek but here Germans are a little bit more reserved. As a benchmark, if you would consider East Asians rather distant and you would consider the Latin people in southern Europe or in South America rather touchy, the Germans are pretty much in between. They are not too touchy, they are not too distant and the general rule is the more work-related the environment is, the more distant they get and the more beer-related the environment is, the more touchy they get. They actually get extraordinary touchy when they are heavily alcoholized. A big difference to the Anglo-Saxon world, the regular pub fight is not really common in Germany. So when you go through London after maybe 8, 9, 10 pm, actually at every second corner you find two white-collar guys kind of knocking horns over an issue and then they go back to the threshold and they drink together. This seems to be pretty much their culture. In Germany this is not really the case. The Germans actually tend to become rather soft, rather emotional when they are alcoholized. Psychologically speaking, this is actually a very interesting aspect and I sometimes like to go deeper into this. But in general I would say alcohol is, so if your religion allows you, the occasional beer actually opens you quite a few doors in that culture. Not just in Germany, also in other north and northwest European cultures. So, what exactly can you actually say? In a formal setting you would say the classic Auf Wiedersehen. Auf Wiedersehen simply means to see you again. This is very, very neutral. You cannot make any mistake whatsoever. It corresponds to the Guten Tag at the beginning. Auf Wiedersehen in the end. It is a little bit funny, but when you talk to someone on the phone, you actually don't say Auf Wiedersehen. They mean it really literally. They say Auf Wiederhören, to hear you again. In this logic, actually, two boxers should actually say Auf Wiederschlagen, happy to beat you again. I don't think that they actually say that, but Auf Wiederhören exists indeed. It is pretty much the official way how you end a phone conversation in Germany. If you want to be a little bit touchier, a little bit more warm-hearted, then you can say Auf baldigen Wiedersehen. Baldig means basically to see you soon, to see you again soon. It is also very, very polite to do so. You can say Bis bald, which in French would be the A bientôt, which is also a way of see you soon, but shorter. You can say Bis später, später means later, so Bis später, see you later. When the Germans say Bis später, this implies that you indeed have an appointment with them or a meeting on the same day, just later on. They are not that superficial as the Anglo-Saxon hemisphere is, but in the Anglo-Saxon world, when somebody says see you later, this does not necessarily mean that in two or three hours you see this person again. In Germany, it actually implies that. Otherwise, you would rather say Bis bald, but not see you later. They are here, not superficial at all. Oder Machen Sie es gut oder I'm very glad to see you soon again. This is actually one of the nicest ways to put it in a formal way, because you say yes, it was nice that I had met you and I would also like to see you again. And this also implies as quickly as possible. The casual thing is here we have actually this word I used at the beginning. Tschüss. Tschüss is, I think, the most often used one. It simply corresponds to hi or hello. I don't like it. The reason I don't like it is because it does not sound very nice. It kind of resembles somebody throwing a tomato against the window. It has this kind of splash sort of sound. Tschüss, I do not really like, but it is used. I do not know where it comes from, the origin, but it is very, very popular. On the other hand, we have the Swabian diminutive. Swabia is where Stuttgart is located, the southwestern part of Germany. There, they have the Swabian diminutive with L, E at the end, so Tschüssle. This is actually very nice. Tschüss, but when you have this kind of Tschüssle, then this le saves the day. This, on the other hand, I grew up with it, and I am totally in love with this way to actually take your leave in a casual surrounding. You can also use Ciao. Now, many Italians in Germany, it's not that far away, South Germany, Northern Italy, is actually just a couple of hundred kilometers, only beautiful Switzerland and Austria are in between. So, Ciao is very nice for whatever reason. I can't remember when I actually got accustomed to saying Ciao, and I'm not referring to any dog breed from East Asia. It is simply the way how I usually take my leave of people. For whatever reason, I actually thought about it when I prepared this here, but I use Ciao, Ciao on the phone, but also in real life, and of course, you can say Max Gut. Max Gut simply means do it well. We also have extraordinary casual things to say. For instance, I used to have a mate I was living together with in Berlin when I was a student. He said Hau rein. Hau rein actually means to punch, to beat, and Hau rein in the middle basically, or to enter. Basically, Hau rein means beat life, so live life, something like this, very friendly but rough friendly language level. He actually said Haus do. It's a short form, the fusion of Haus do. Conjugated Hau rein is imperative. Haus do is conjugated second person singular. Haus do is also something in Berlin very popular among students, pupils. Bis denne. Bis denne actually means bis dann. Dann is then. It's basically until then. Bis denne also very, very casual but not impolite whatsoever. But Haus do, I haven't heard that for quite some time. And funny, we also have deviations from Tschüss, which are actually quite funny. Tschüssikowski. It is an allusion to the Russian we have around 2 million, 2.5 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union. So Tschüssikowski actually has become quite popular in Germany. I have no idea where Tudelü is coming from but I even heard that in movies. It sounds so strange. Tudelü, you have the impression that somebody has had two bottles of absinthe before saying that. But nevertheless you hear it. You hear Tschüsschen. Tschüsschen is the diminutive. It's basically the small German Also quite cute. Then we have Schü. Just with ü. Not with ü. No idea where this is coming from. I think it's coming from Northern Germany. But I heard it in movies a couple of times, and more recent movies. It was not popular in my childhood, not in the southern part of Germany. And of course, you can also be extraordinarily gross, because Germans have this gross, fake sense of humor. In within us, it is considered sense of humor, foreigners usually think we do not have a sense of humor. You can also say, ich mach jetzt mal die Vorhaut, which basically means I am imitating my foreskin, so I'm pulling back. But this is something you can only say to people you know very, very, very well, and you are also aware that they are capable of saying the same thing to you, so it's no insult whatsoever, then indeed, this is actually something acceptable. Very well, Sue, we are also going to deal with the gross German humor a little bit later on in this module. Until then, I hope that you have a lot to laugh about in your life, enjoy your day, and see you soon for the next lesson. Bye-bye. Willkommen zurück, welcome back. This lesson is going to focus on quatsch, and you are going to learn what quatsch means in a second. This is a say which is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, a Frenchman who has characterized the Germans as follows. There is no more good nature, but also no more gullible people than the Germans. No lie can be conceived treacherous enough, the Germans believe it. They follow a slogan which was given to them to act against their own countrymen rather than the real enemies of their country. This is very, very interesting. When I first read that, this is already dating back a couple of years, 10 years, I think, I didn't really understand what he meant. But once you have read something like this, and then you actually have a look at the society you grew up in, you realize that there was a hint of truth in what he said. After having travelled the world, you see that the Germans are actually quite rough to each other, mostly to each other. They are rather soft to the others, but rough to each other. They have this tendency of sort of chopping their own boat when they are right in the middle of the ocean. So we have a lot of words which this lesson is basically in the context of how you express disagreement, but it is here more colloquial because they have the tendency of disagreeing in a way which makes you feel like I'm obviously not going to pronounce that word here. I would consider it almost essential not necessarily that you know what they say, but to understand why they are saying it. It's not that they are impolite. This is simply how they are. They are very, very direct in expressing their disapproval. You would rarely hear somebody from America or from any other Anglo-Saxon country, let alone from East Asia, to disagree with you in such an in-your-face, almost punchy sort of manner. On the other hand, the advantage is that they open their bento, and when they open their bento, this means that you usually do not have the huge explosion. It is actually quite good that they disagree because once the Germans agree on something, they tend to go all the way in the same direction, and this usually is not the best Europe can hope for. A word I heard very, very often addressed to me, because I'm the sort of person where people agree with me, is quach. I've heard quach so often. Quach basically means absolute nonsense. It is very, very close to quark. Quark is some kind of a creamy cottage cheese, very popular among bodybuilders because it has a lot of protein. So quark actually became quach. Somebody tells you, this is quach, this is very, very disapproving. You basically, out of their opinion, said something or did something totally unacceptable, usually going in the direction not so much of morality but of intellectuality. It implies that they call me something that is quach. They imply that I did something very stupid, not necessarily something bad morally. It comes in phrases. Das ist totaler quach, absoluter quach. So ein quach. Mach keinen quach. Don't do this. Don't be silly. Sag keinen quach. Don't talk nonsense. So quach actually is sort of a way to express nonsense, more or less this would be the word. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. By the way, sense. The Germans are crazy about their sin. Der Sinn is the sense, but it is also, like in English, when you say, das macht keinen Sinn, it makes no sense. So it is about reasoning, but it is also the senses, like to smell or to taste or something like this. They have a lot of expressions going in this direction. Der Unsinn, un, is a negation prefix. So der Unsinn is basically also nonsense, something very silly. Schwachsinn. Der Schwachsinn actually also used to be among psychologists or psychiatrists a diagnosis for somebody who has a mental deficiency. And you also have the Schwachkopf. Der Schwachkopf is an imbecile. It's a very, very nice insult in German, which, of course, you should never use. Holy Christ. It's a swear word you should never use as a beginner in a foreign language. And also, these senses are also coming in phrases. For instance, das ist Wahnsinn. Wahnsinn means that you are crazy, or das ist Schwachsinn. Das ist totaler Schwachsinn. It's absolute nonsense. I heard that so many, so many times in my life addressed to me. So actually, I feel quite familiar with them. They're very popular, but not that rude. One which I heard so often, muss nicht sein. Muss nicht sein simply means there is a little bit of irony involved because müssen is a modal verb, and it corresponds to must in English, but only in the positive way. When you negate it, it becomes the opposite of what the English want to express. When you say you must not, it actually means you are not allowed to do it. The Germans negate müssen logically. Müssen means you have to do something. Nicht müssen means you are not obliged to do something. It doesn't mean you're not allowed to. This is a very, very important issue in the negation of this modal verb. The Germans are logical here. They don't make it something prohibited. So when you say muss nicht sein, it means nobody forces you to do that, but it actually implies let me in peace, don't do that. So there is a little bit of irony involved in it. I like this very, very much. It's a subtle criticism. Muss nicht sein basically means there is nobody holding you at gunpoint, forcing you to do this imbecile stuff. This nuance of how to negate müssen and must is very important because you can actually make quite big mistakes as far as this is concerned. Somebody tells you du musst das nicht machen actually gives you liberty. You are not forced to do something. If in English if somebody said you must not do that, it is actually a prohibition. An unconditional no, how can you express this? Nur über meine Leiche. Die Leiche is a dead body or corpse only over my corpse. So basically you would have to kill me and then you can actually step over me. Nur über meine Leiche is something very strong. You make your point. But it is so common that it is meanwhile not necessarily rude, but I would still not really use it in a work environment unless you know what and to whom you are saying. Impolite on the other hand is du hast doch keine Ahnung. Ah, you have no clue. This is very pejorative. You basically look down on the person you say that. Don't use it. At least not until you are nervous enough on somebody, but also proficient enough in German to actually say du hast doch keine Ahnung. I don't think I ever use that ever since I'm 12, 13, 14 years old because it is simply a little bit too rude. So I would rather not use it and under no circumstance this should be used for women. This is simply additionally rude. I would always refrain from that. Very well done. This was a brief introduction into this aspect of the German culture. I hope that you found that a little bit helpful, maybe a little bit funny, and I'm looking forward to see you for the next lesson. Bye-bye.