Past Conditional – Exercise

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Hello everyone,

and welcome back to the if-est series ever… the series on Conditional. It’s been quite the journey. We learned what the heck I mean by conditional, we learned about the würde-conditional and the real conditional and when to use which. We learned about the past conditional and that there’s a simple system with two to four easy steps… depending on how you count. We went down the abyss of Past Conditional with modal verbs in sentences that have their verb at the end. And we came back out, with entirely new insights.
But now, the learning is done. Now it is time for the showdown.
Brabbabbbabbammmmm.
Us and what we’ve learned vs. dozens of sentences. One more ferocious than the next. But all vicious and full of guile, constantly looking to throw us a curve. Beat us. Break our brains and our spirits. But we shall not falte…
“Erm… we get it, Emanuel. Could we get going already, we don’t have that much time.”
Oh sure sure… ladies and gentlemen.. get ready for the epic

Past Conditional Workout

If you haven’t read the other parts of the series, you can of course give it a try. But if you want to read them first or you want to review them, then here are the links:

Conditional 1: Overview + würde conditional
Conditional 2: Real conditional (how and when)
Conditional 3: Work out (also epic, but not as epic as what we’re about to do)
Conditional 4: Past Conditional
Conditional 5: Past Conditional With Modals

And now I’d say let’s jump right in….
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23 Comments

Posted on September 19, 2018 by

Posted in Audio Examples, B - Level, Exercises, Grammar

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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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26 Comments

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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45 Comments

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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55 Comments

Posted on August 28, 2018 by

Posted in Audio Examples, B - Level, Grammar

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