Prefix Verbs Explained – “ansprechen”

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Hello everyone,

and welcome to episode number 152.167.123 of Prefix Verbs Explained. #feelingisthenewcounting
This time with talk about the meaning of

ansprechen

 

Which is not only useful if you want to bring up an issue in a meeting (#businessGerman$$), it’s also what you should do when you’re single find someone interesting and attractive (#datingadvice♥ #absolutealpha).
“Erm… Emanuel, we wanted to bring up the issue of those hashtags you started using recently? “
Oh, that. I learned that it’s what you gotta do in 2018 if you want to appeal to a young, cool audience. Pretty cutting edge, right?
“No bro, it’s pretty stupid.”
Oh… #sad #realitycheck.
“… and also, Emanuel,  even though not all of us are exactly young, we’re already the coolest audience on the planet, Emanuel.”
Oh… you’re actually right!
#truth
Ha… if you’re new here, you’re probably REALLY confused now :)
But the content is usually pretty good. So let’s jump right in…

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Posted on September 11, 2018 by

Posted in Audio Examples, Broad Vocabulary, German Prefix Verbs, Verbs, Vocabulary

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Conditional in German 5 – Past Conditional 2

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Previously on  “C.i. German”:

After discovering the frightening and sobering truth about the normal Conditional in German, the learner knew … he had to travel back in time and face the past of the Conditional. 
To his surprise, he found it wasn’t as scary as he had expected. There was only one  version and everything was quite straight forward.
“That all you got, German? Pathetic!! You should have made it more difficult.”
“Oh yeah?! Well, why don’t you say that in German then?”
“No probl… oh…. oh my god….”
That was when the learner’s world started to fall apart…. dun dunn dunnnn.

Welcome back everybody to the fifth episode of our mini series on the Conditional, and if you found the intro confusing… well, perfect. Then you’re warmed up for today’s topic:

Past Conditional – Word (dis)order

In the last episode, we looked at the basic system for building the Past Conditional and we learned how to say stuff like  would have gone or would have read. 
If  you haven’t read the first part about Past Conditional or you don’t really remember, please check that out first.  Here’s the link:

 Conditional in German 4 – The Past Conditional

Today, we’ll talk about the cluster… erm… clusterlovemaking that happens when doing past conditional for modal verbs with normal verbs combined. Like… saying something like this:
“I could have done it.”
or this:
“… that I could have done it.”
Doesn’t look very complicated, right?
Well, get ready to see a couple of core beliefs about German grammar fly out the window. And the first one is…. the ge-form.
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Posted on September 6, 2018 by

Posted in Audio Examples, B - Level, Grammar

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Conditional in German 4 – The Past

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Hello everyone,

and welcome back to the forth part of our mini series on the Conditional in German. And this time, we’ll look at the stuff everybody is struggling with.

Past Conditional

Past Conditional is what you need when you want to talk about how the past could have been, but wasn’t. So in practical terms that means today, we’ll finally talk about how to say stuff like would have been, would have had or would have had to have been in German. Which is something EVERYBODY is making mistakes with. Even thosenative speakers that always walk around with their nose up like they’re fluent or something #callingoutnatives.
Seriously though, building the Past Conditional itself is actually quite straight forward. But there’s something weird going on with the word order at time.
“But Emanuel, there’s ALWAYS something weird going on with the word order in German.”
Well yeah, I guess. But take the weird-ness you’re used to and then twist that. It is kind of messed up, actually.
But Past Conditional is super useful and you absolutely need it if you really want to express yourself, so let’s buckle up and jump righ… oh wait, I guess, I should give you the links to the first three parts real quick, so you can read up on that if you haven’t. Part one is an overview over the topic and the terminology and also we learn how to build the würde-conditional. Part two is about how to build and when to use the real conditional and part three is an epic exercise for that stuff.

Conditional 1- An Overview
Conditional 2 German – The Real Conditional
Conditional 3 – Exercise

Great, so now let’s jump in for real :)
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Posted on August 28, 2018 by

Posted in Audio Examples, B - Level, Grammar

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Word of the Day – “der Drang”

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Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day, this time with a look at the meaning of

der Drang

 

And we won’t only look at Drang of course but also at other cool words like dringend or drängeln.
Okay, drängeln isn’t that cool actually. But sometimes you have to do it. Like… when you have to get out of a packed train. Or when the article you’re reading to learn German randomly starts talking about a horse that just stands on a meadow. And it describes how the horse just stands there. And then it eats a bit of grass. And takes a few steps. And then stands there. And you’re like
“Dude, could we get started already?!”
That’s drängeln. So let’s jump right in.

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49 Comments

Posted on August 22, 2018 by

Posted in Audio Examples, B - Level, Broad Vocabulary, Nouns, Vocabulary

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