Hello everyone,
wie geht’s euch heute? Last week was an all about grammar, so this week we’ll give those muscles a rest and instead focus on the muscle group called Earus Understandiceps with some listening comprehension. And today, I’m not going to read a short story. Instead, I’ll read a snippet of a whole book for learners.
Krimi in Berlin v1
V1 because it’s a three part series by now :).
The author is Janine, she is a German teacher (from Berlin, by the way) both in real life and online, she has a website with super useful free mini courses about German grammar (I’ll add all the links below), she has her own Youtube channel about the German language AND as if that wasn’t enough, she also writes novels for learners. And those are really lovely.
They’re well written and fun, she uses lots of colloquial language and slang that people ACTUALLY use in daily life, the stories are really up to date and “zeitgeist”-y and most importantly, she puts a lot of love into it.
Not like all those sterile, artificial learner books from the book assembly lines of the industry, full of preservatives and flavor enhancers and crap like that. Those will eat your soul.
Okay, no, they’re not that bad. But Janine’s books are better and funer and I’m really happy that she agreed to this little project.
We won’t read the very beginning because it is a bit slow, so let me fill you in on what happened so far:
The protagonist is Hercule Poirot, a wealthy French gentleman (who speaks German really well) in his 40s (I think) who is coming to Berlin to
live here for a while. He had found an apartment over the Internet and had paid the deposit but the person who was supposed to give him the keys
just never showed up and the landlord called Westholme isn’t answering the phone.
There’s a big soccer match in Berlin and all the hotels are booked.
Super tired and looking for a place to spend the night, Hercule asks his
brother for help who has friends in Berlin. And so Hercule finds himself ringing the doorbell of an apartment in an alternative part of town. The woman who opens couldn’t be further from what Hercule expected….
So, without further ado, let’s jump right in. I added the translations to words that you most certainly don’t know but if you want a full translation, you can just use the line by line script with translation
normal version:
(I tried to do voices and a French accent :)
slow version:
(the recording was quite noisy, so I had to do a lot of processing. Let me know if it’s okay or I’ll try to redo it)
***
Die Frau ist klein, trägt durchlöcherte Jeans und ein Top. Ihre Arme sind komplett tätowiert, ebenso ein Teil ihres Halses. Aber das ist noch nicht das Schlimmste. Ihr Kopf ist halb abrasiert und die übrigen Haare sind kurz und pink. Und in beiden Ohren trägt sie lächerlich (ridiculously) große Ohrringe, die in der Mitte ein Loch haben.
Eigentlich ist sie ja ganz hübsch, sie hat schöne blaue Augen und eine kleine Stupsnase (upturned nose).
“Was ist, willst du reinkommen oder nicht ?”, fragt sie und verschränkt (crosses) ihre Arme.
Hercule räuspert (clears throat) sich und streckt seine Hand raus. “Guten Abend. Poirot, Hercule Poirot mein Name. Sehr erfreut, Sie kennenzulernen.”
Sie zieht die Augenbrauen hoch und scheint amüsiert. “Merk.”, sagt sie.
“Bitte, wie?”
“Merk. Em – Eh – Er – Ka”. Sie spricht es Englisch aus. Mörk.
Poirot betritt die Wohnung und holt einen Fünzig-Euro-Schein aus der Tasche.
“Frau Merk, vielen Dank, dass Sie mich quasi in letzter Minute aufnehmen. Das weiß ich wirklich sehr zu schätzen und- ”
Merk unterbricht ihn mit schallendem (ringing) Gelächter.
“Einfach nur Merk, ok? Wir sind hier nicht so formell”.
Dann deutet sie auf eine Tür. “Da ist die Küche. Daneben das Bad. Hier links dein Zimmer und das alles -”, sie zeigt auf den rechten Bereich, “…ist privat. Verstanden?”
Hercule nickt.
Das Zimmer ist sehr schön – hohe Wände, Stuck (stucco), alter Dielenboden. Es gibt sogar einen Balkon. Und zu seiner Erleichterung ist es sauber. In der Ecke liegt eine Matratze, die auf – Hercule muss zweimal hinsehen – Palletten liegt, wie man sie sonst nur aus Warenlagern (storage buildings) kennt. Sonst gibt es noch einen alten Holztisch, eine Truhe und einen alten Sessel im Zimmer. Nicht so durchgestylt wie in einem Hotel. Aber das ist Hercule egal. Er hat nur eins im Sinn: Schlafen.
Am nächsten Morgen ruft Hercule als erstes den Vermieter Westholme an, doch der geht nicht ans Handy.
Hercule duscht, zieht sich an und verlässt die Wohnung – er braucht nun ein richtig großes Frühstück! Direkt gegenüber von der Wohnung ist ein Supermarkt. Er kauft Eier, Speck, Marmelade, Orangensaft, Milch, Kaffee und Camembert. Dann geht er noch in eine Bäckerei und kauft Croissants.
Zurück in der Wohnung bereitet er Rührei mit Speck vor, macht sich einen großen Café au Lait und deckt den Tisch. Dabei singt er vergnügt vor sich hin. Er entdeckt sogar ein Radio und findet einen Klassiksender. Gerade als er das Rührei auf den Teller tut, geht die Türe auf.
Merk sieht verschlafen aus. Ihre Augen sind geschwollen und die Haare – oder was davon übrig ist – sind zerzaust (disheveled) . Wortlos schaltet sie das Radio aus.
“Vor 11 Uhr herrscht hier Nachtruhe, kapiert?”
Hercule ist zerknirscht (contrite). “Tut mir leid. Frühstück?”, fragt er.
Doch Merk beäugt (eye balls) den Küchentisch kritisch und verzieht angewidert das Gesicht.
“Das ist eine vegane Küche!”
“Oh. Also kein Speck?! Soll ich noch ein Rührei machen?”, fragt er hoffnungsvoll. Hercule würde sich gern dafür revanchieren, dass er so spontan kommen durfte.
“Vegan! Keine Eier, kein Käse, keine tierischen Produkte, capito?” Sie fängt an, sein Frühstück einzusammeln und öffnet den Mülleimer.
“Stop, nein, nein – “, voller Panik nimmt er ihr den Käse und die Eierpackung aus der Hand. “Jetzt, wo ich die Sachen schon gekauft habe, bringt es doch auch nichts, sie wegzuwerfen, oder?”
“Mmhm, naja. Da ist was dran.”, sagt sie. Dann schnappt (snatches) sie aber doch den Speck und schmeißt ihn weg. “Tote Tiere gehen gar nicht.”
Er kratzt sich am Kopf. “Isst du vielleicht Croissant mit Erdbeermarmelade?”
Merk schnaubt (huffs) und hält ihm eine Tasse hin. “Kaffee, schwarz.”
Dann zieht sie die Tasse zurück. “Moment mal, ist der Bio und Fairtrade?” Hercule schaut auf die Packung. Diesmal hat er Glück. Dann isst Hercule schweigend sein Frühstück, sie schlürft den Kaffee.
Schließlich fragt sie: “Was ist’n, weißt du jetzt eigentlich, ob du länger hier wohnen willst?”
Hercule erzählt ihr die Geschichte von der Wohnung und Westholme und zeigt ihr die Unterlagen. Als sie die Bilder der Wohnung sieht, verzieht sie das Gesicht (makes a face).
“Dir ist schon klar, dass du einem Betrüger auf den Leim gegangen (were conned) bist, oder?”.
Hercule blickt sie entsetzt an.
***
And so starts a wild ride; a mix of environmental thriller, buddy comedy with elements of hacker tales and 50 shades of Grey :).
Seriously, it’s a lovely little buddy comedy. We’ll actually do read another part in a few weeks but if you liked this and it suits your level, then you should check out the book. And it’s not just the book, you’ll also get an audio version read by Janine, and she has a really great voice. Very clear pronunciation and very soothing.
And if you’re now like “That sounds great, where can I get it?” then I have great news… because you can
!!! WIN A BOOK :) !!!
Janine has sponsored three eBooks for you guys. I think we’ve done favorite German word already, so this time, tell us what’s your LEAST favorite German word and why do you hate it so much. Is it the sound, or the looks or just the fact that it freaking won’t stay in your brain.
Tell me in the comments below and I’ll select 3 winners at random in a few days.
And if you didn’t win or if you don’t want to wait, you can get it directly from her site here:
It’s only 2.99 for about 100 pages and 80 minutes of audio is pretty much a steal.
So, this was our listening comprehension for today. How’d you like the snippet? Do you think this is useful? Have you used these kinds of books for your studies before? How is it working for you? Let me know in the comments and don’t forget to tell me about your least favorite German word to win a book.
I really hope you enjoyed it and see you next time.
Janines Website, with lots of cool, free mini courses on grammar and stuff:
http://www.free-german-lessons-online.com
Janine’s Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/freeGermanlessons/videos
Wow, I almost managed to follow the fast version. Really hope to avoid getting into such a household myself.
Also, Emanuel, is “guy the book” some sort of pun or a misspell?
Cool, glad to hear that you could understand so much :).
And yeah, “guy” is a misspell. Mix between get and buy.
I think you meant “defrauded” on that last translation. :) “Taken in” is a more casual way to say the same thing, or “conned.”
By the way, I could swear I learned “duschen” as a reflexive way back in school – should it be “Hercule duscht sich”? or has it changed, or did I just learn it wrong? I ask because I’ve thought I’ve heard it recently without the reflexive pronoun, but wasn’t sure.
Also, I hate the word “rücksichtslos,” not so much because of the meaning but because I cannot ever pronounce it on the first try. Breaks my tongue every time… :\
That’s a classic case of “conventional” teaching getting caught up in the reflexive-issue.
“duschen” is a verb that can be used with and without a direct object.
– Ich dusche.
– Ich dusche meine Katze.
And, like with many other hygiene related verbs, Germans like to throw in a self reference. It’s idiomatic, but by NO means a must have or a grammatical feature.
– Er duscht grad.
– Er duscht sich grad.
I actually find the first one to be more idiomatic.
If a teacher or a textbook claims it’s a “””reflexive””” verb, then they will have lots of fun explaining why
– Ich gehe duschen.
is much more idiomatic than
– Ich gehe mich duschen.
This is a whimpy contribution but though I know the word ,Arzt’ means doctor I still regularly do a double take thinking it relates to being an artist. The brain refuses to accept the similar spelling!
Oh, I can relate :). I don’t mix it up with artist but I can’t for the love of god remember how it is spelled. I always have to consciously think it over and decide that it is NOT Artzt.
Und wenn auch immer ICH ‘ Arzt’ sehe, und hach, besonders ‘ Ärzte’ sehe…. Aaargh; das Gesicht von Farin Urlaub kommt immer vor! T.T Bin zu groß ne Fan geworden!
Die Ärzte aus Berlin :). Hast du ein Lieblingslied?
I mean, i’m all about winning a book but I may just buy it at the chance of not winning or perhaps if I win then I can give it to someone else learning.
‘Erinnere’
It gets on my nerves heavily. Due to pronouncing it. I can. Slowly. But if i’m ever in situations where I need to remember something or describe someone else in a story that is remembering something, hollllly biscuity barrels does it not go well.
It’s annoying because I often remember things and therefore like to say ‘OH, I remember that.’ or ‘I remember the time…”
But nooooooo, this ich erinnere mich an…. gets me stuttering and slopping around the entire sentence.
I’ve spent several walking the dogs time saying it to myself whilst onlookers stare at the American in Germany with quizzical eyes due to my talking to myself and due to the horrible fashion sense that is waking up, needing to get two small dogs outside before they urinate all over and not giving a shit about mismatching shoes or shirts that are covered in hair while my hair doesn’t know a thing about discipline nor order.
Ohhhh, this one is really good!!! I have NEVER seen any beginner of German who was able to pronounce this one right away. It’s the double glottal stop that makes it really hard for people.
Think of the beginning as basically “uh-uh”, just with a different tone of vowel “uh-ih”.
So just imagine someone asks you something that you want to deny with a quick “uh uh” … that’s how the start is. And then just add “none”. Like
– “Do you still remember the names?”
“Uh- [uh] ih, none.”
No idea if that helps :)
Oh by the way, I used to do the same thing … murmuring English words while walking somewhere. My favorites were “generally” and “particularly”, with a proper American “r”. Still hard for me :)
Wow, this story is super cool! I enjoyed it very much, even though I had to google a lot of words :)
By the way, my least favorite german word is “kakerlake”. It confuses me sometimes because when I hear it, I automatically think that it’s something, well, toilet-related XD
Glückwunsch, du gewinnst ein Buch! I’d pass your email on to Janine, if that’s okay for you. Lemmi know :)
I can’t believe it! Ich habe ein Buch gewinnt! (I don’t know if this works with spoken past) YAY! :)
Of course, I’m okay with passing my email on to Janine. Do you know my email?
Yeah, I can see it “behind the scenes” from your comment (don’t worry, a normal reader can’t see it) :)
“Sonnenbrille”. Ich kann es einfach nicht richtig sagen!
Interesting, I’d have thought that one to be a smooth one. Where do you get thrown of? Like… what combination of letters makes you stumble?
Entschuldigung, ich habe deinen Kommentar vermisst.
Es ist komisch, Fuer mich ist es irgendwie aehnlich wie ein Zungenbrecher. Ich finde es schwer, den “R” richtig zuszusprechen, zwischen die “nb” und “l” Laute. Wahrscheinlich ist es nur so fuer mich!
Kleine Korrektur:
Es ist “deinen Kommentar verpasst”. Wenn du “vermisst” sagst, dann heißt das, du wolltest den Kommentar, aber er war nicht da. (so wie einen Freund oder so)
Emanuel, great idea to have audio comprehension. I am sure it is very beneficial to all of us regardless of our level of proficiency in German.
I have read Janine’s books and I find them useful and funny. This series with audio are great, the ones I have read don’t have audio.
Your reading speed for me is still too fast, so I read the script and listened it again. It helped but still the threading of words in the audio tricks me.
I understand ‘durchlöcherte’ as having lots of holes but does it also mean ‘tight’? I visualize the young women wearing tight-jeans and I would like to know how to say that.
The word that i don’t like is ‘neugierig’ because I cannot learn the spelling. Trying to force my brain to remember it I used it as a password until I gave up and changed my password.
Thank you to you and Janine
Brightstar
You know her books?! How cool :).
Decoding the flow is a challenge, no doubt. I found, it’s really helpful if you just listen to a tricky bit over and over while reading along, until you really hear what is said. I used to rewind single sentences in movies up to 10 times back when I still had to use subtitles. Bruce Willis was a nightmare… mumble mumble mumble.
As for “durchlöcherte”… that’s only “full of holes”. If you want the pants to be tight, you’d need to add “eng”
I only discovered this website yesterday. It’s excellent. I did A level German many moons ago and I’m ashamed that I never kept my languages up. This is a great way to get back into it! Thank you. I will buy the book! My least favourite word – die Kaserne. The barracks I stayed in many years ago had mushrooms growing in the bathroom – which we all had to share.
I hope you had to share the bathroom, not the mushrooms XD.
By the way…. bathROOM – mushROOM… how weird
I just had to look it up, as I occasionally would wonder about it too. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mushroom
“mushroom (n.)
mid-15c., muscheron, musseroun (attested 1327 as a surname, John Mussheron), from Anglo-French musherun, Old French meisseron (11c., Modern French mousseron), perhaps from Late Latin mussirionem (nominative mussirio), though this might as well be borrowed from French. Barnhart says “of uncertain origin.” Klein calls it “a word of pre-Latin origin, used in the North of France;” OED says it usually is held to be a derivative of French mousse “moss” (from Germanic), and Weekley agrees, saying it is properly “applied to variety which grows in moss,” but Klein says they have “nothing in common.” For the final -m Weekley refers to grogram, vellum, venom. Modern spelling is from 1560s. ”
So that -ROOM on mushroom came from some other space… :)
Thank you for this listening exercise!
“Zwiebel”!!!! Last time I was in Germany, I thought this is cabbage, and all my friends bought steaks with onion, istead of with cabbage… That’s when I decided I’ll start learning German for sure… At least now I’ll remember it :)
Ha… one of the best “How I became serious about learning German” stories ever :)
Haha :D The previous day, I asked the waitress to pay our bill :)
Glückwunsch, du gewinnst ein Buch! I’d pass your email on to Janine, if that’s okay for you. Lemmi know :)
Great! I liked this little extract very much, I even felt this small moment of anguish as she tried to toss it all in the trash!. sure I would like to read the whole story.
So my least favorite German word is “schwanger”, and it is because of a story behind it.
One week after I arrived to Germany (I could barely speak any German) I let a pregnant lady go first in front of me in a long line… and because of that, another lady in the back screamed at me for almost 5 minutes until I could find the translation for “pregnant ” in my phone :( .
The sad thing is that even today, 8 months later I can´t remember the word…
Wow, that must have been horrible. New in a foreign country, trying to be nice and then being confronted with a barrage of angry German barked at you while you yourself can’t properly express yourself. Trauma material :).
I tried to come up with a mnemonic to help you remember it but the only thing I could think of is “swagger”. Which doesn’t connect at ALL.
Maybe “swinger”…. like… she went to a swinger club and got knocked up XD
Kirsche-n (cherry) und Kirche-n (church). They sound similar and have similar spellings, and I always always mix both up. The meanings get totally twisted.
A typical mistake I make:
Ich möchte Kirchen kaufen.
Good one!! In Berlin we say “Küüaschn” for cherry, maybe that can help :)
Glückwunsch, du gewinnst ein Buch! I’d pass your email on to Janine, if that’s okay for you. Lemmi know :)
One of my least favorite words is Gesicht primarily because I always confuse it or it comes out sounding like Geschichte. It will not stick in my brain.
I think a new one from this story which would be vergnügt – I like the visual and would love to some how introduce that in my vocabulary but I definitely think I will stumble on that one. It is totally amusing to see other people’s least favorite words – errinere and neugierig are up there for sure!
I’ve had a student once who nearly despaired over that pair (Gesicht – Geschichte).
Try this way… “Gesicht” comes from “sight” (you actually just have to modify the g a bit to get a c)
My least favorite german word is Pfeffer.
I read somewhere that ancient Germans used to grind pepper grains with their teeth. Of course, they had to spit it out to put the ground pepper into jars, and “pfeffer” was the sound they made while doing so. Nah, just kidding! ;-)
Nevertheless, “Pfeffer” sounds like you’re spitting out something you don’t like. Könntest du mir bitte das Pfeffer reichen? That sounds like you actually find pepper disgusting, and you’re asking only to be polite…
I actually kind of like “Pfeffer”. It sounds powerful to me, but not wet.
But you’re right… now that you’ve mentioned it, I see how close it is to “pföapföa” which is an onomatopoeia for spitting something from your tongue.
By the way… in colloquial German, there’s a verb “hinpfeffern” which means to (powerfully) throw something down on the ground (or a table).
Wow! I understood all but a bit of the last paragraph at normal speed! But I have to say that your ‘normal’ is uncharacteristically clear and lacks the frantic quality I find in many German movies. Hurrah for you!!!
Words I ‘hate’? I have two:. Allerdings (I must have looked up this a bazillion times and I STILL can’t remember it! In my mind, it should mean something like ‘all things’) and der Preis. How can one word mean two different things?…the price and the prize? One being something you pay out and the other something you either earn or win. I suppose –with some mental gymnastics– you could claim that your effort to earn a prize is its price, but it’s a stretch.
Hahaha… you can stop beating yourself up over not understanding German movies. I have the same problem at times. They really do have this weird way of speaking that’s like this slomo-fast-mo-visuals from the movie 300.
And me too, I am struggling at times. It’s awful and no one talks like that in real life. I think they’re trying to convey that they have “feels”, but I think they just can’t act very well.
Oh and also… German movie audio has the surrounding noise be VERY present and in your face. Rustling, clinging, footsteps… it’s SUPER noisy.
So yeah… German movies are not how German sounds in real life.
For anyone who doesn’t know how the audio in German movies sometimes sounds… I made an example with some typical movie lines:
– Audio example for German movie audio (parody)
Love the parody German movie! Hah!
Hallo Emanuel,
its interesting to listen to the audio since I still struggling with my “hoeren” and “sprechen” test (^_^”””) your voice is really is -almost- the same with those voices I heard from our audio in our class :D
Ok, for my least favorite German word today is: pfiffig. Hard to pronounce and remind me of some animal with almost the same sound…
Owh by the way, can you give me little of your advice how to make it easier to learn or to understand it better with German language since I didn’t use English too in my daily language. So sometimes, or, most of the time it feels like I have to translate from German to English and then to my language and feels like so much work (TT.TT)
Hey, thanks for your nice feedback :).
What has helped me with Italian and French back when I studied those was reading books out to myself; books like this one, so easy reading material. I would read slowly and carefully and loudly. The benefit is that your muscles produce proper German and you slowly get used to the rhythm of it. And you’re forced to really be aware of the structure. When you read quietly, you’ll ignore many details as soon as you understood the sense. If you have to read it aloud.
No idea if that helps :)
Hey, there are a lot of of words to get puzzled but bzw (Beziehungsweise) is by far the one which annoyed me the most. By reading the description you can get the sense that it should have, but sometimes people use without the traditional meaning. I have the impression it is a little overused, mainly in the academic context.
When I was living and studying in Austria a lot of professors would use it and it would give me some milliseconds of terror. I think that nowadays I am more ok with it. If you can’t beat them, join them. Haha
Haha, yeah gotta howl with the wolves :). I’ve been wanting to talk about “beziehungsweise” for years now but I haven’t had that last moment of inspiration just yet. It’ll come eventually though.
My least favorite word is ‘jein’ (= ‘ja und nein’). I probably wouldn’t mind it if Germans didn’t love to teach it to me like it’s super clever or something. Why do they like it so much?
Hahahahaha… yeah, I’m guilty of that, too. Explaining “jein” while stressing how clever it is XD.
It is quite handy though and I do miss it in English.
‘Yo’ is taken, so how about ‘nes’? I like ‘yeah NO,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘jein,’ it just means the opposite of doch and only works if you’re feeling enthusiastic and a little bit antagonistic. “I guess you didn’t want me to put that much sugar in your coffee.” “Yeah NO.”
Vielen Dank
Gerne!
I’ve not accessed a post for a while, yet it says I have reached a limit and cannot read more. This also means I don’t see any of the author details…
That’s weird that you’re not able to see the full thing. It’s 7 days, though, so if you read two on Wednesday, you’ll have to wait till the next Wednesday. No idea if that explains it.
What do you mean by author details?