Hello everyone,
and welcome back to our epic GRMN S2MR BTCMP. That’s “hipster” for German Summer Bootcamp, the summer course you never expected. Today is round number three and after we did some serious muscle flexing for cases last time, we’ll deal with an entirely different thing today…
Verbs and their prepositions
If you don’t know what I mean by that, just take the English to wait for … you absolutely need this for there. You can’t say “I wait the bus.” or “I wait to the bus.”. Nope, it needs to be for.
German and English are full of these combinations, but sadly the prepositions used don’t line up.
It’s to wait for, but warten auf.
And learning this stuff takes a lot of time and exposure to the language.
But that doesn’t mean that there’s no point in practicing.
So today, we’ll practice some of the most common verb-preposition combos in everyday contexts… and not only that!
We’ll also get to practice our da-words and wo-words a bit. The wo-words are what we need if the verb is used in a question…
- What are you waiting for?
- Worauf wartest du?
(“auf was” is also “ok” but the wo-word is much better. )
And the da-words are what we need if we have a pronoun…
- I’m waiting for it.
- Ich warte darauf.
or if we just need a placeholder that represents a sentence…
- I’m waiting for [the bus to come].
- Ich warte [darauf, dass der Bus kommt].
This example is quite tricky actually in so far as that it’ll really throw you off if you still more or less think in English (or your language) and then translate. English has a bunch of lean phrasings that just don’t translate directly to German but instead you need to rephrase it into a boring standard sentence.
But actually, I don’t want to get into that too much now. You’ll see it in the exercise and you’ll get a feeling for it.
If you want to know more about the da-words and wo-words or you want to freshen up your memory, you can check out my articles here:
- German da-words explained
- German wo-words explained (nerd-factor 10)
But I’d almost recommend you give it a shot first and see how you do without too much theory in your head. And then, you can read up on the stuff and then do it again.
Cool.
The Exercise
I’ll give you a statement or dialogue in English containing one or more of these fixed verb preposition combos and your job is to translate it to German.
Sometimes, I put “the fact that” or “the question if” into the English version even though it’s not the most idiomatic phrasing. That’s a hint then, that you absolutely need a da-word in German.
Now translating is very very very difficult, so if you feel like not going there, you can just click the “?” and you’ll get the German version with a gap to fill.
I’ll actually change this setup so you can just select which version you want to see with one switch for all, but I have to code that first.
Anyway, you can put your solution into the text field so you can compare it, but the text field doesn’t automatically check it.
The solution is in the audio and you can show it when you click the circle O.
As usual, the goal ISN’T to get everything right. The goal is to learn some really common combos, and also to get a bit of a feeling how da-words and wo-words are used in daily talk and how common English phrasings translate to German.
One quick word about translating… often there is more than one way to phrase something in German. So if your translation is different than my solution, that DOESN’T mean it’s wrong. If you’re not sure just leave a comment and I’ll give you feedback.
As for level… I think this is once again a B1 exercise (the gaps, not the translation). But I’d encourage you to also try it if you’re just A2.
Oh and just a little warning.. some of the examples are quite silly this time, my apologies , I just couldn’t resist :).
Viel Spaß!!
***
“Oh… I’ll take care of it in a moment.”
“Oh… Ich kümmer mich gleich ____.”
“Oh… Ich kümmer mich gleich darum.”
“No idea!”
“You’re not interested in them.”
“Keine Ahnung.”
“Du interessierst dich nicht ____.”
“Keine Ahnung.”
“Du interessierst dich nicht dafür.”
“Hmm… of my golden surfer locks.”
“Hmmm… ____ meine goldenen Surferlocken.”
“Hmmm… auf meine goldenen Surferlocken.”
“Erm… (for) the bus.”
“Äh… ____ den Bus.”
“Äh… auf den Bus.”
“That depends on what kind of movie.” (use “ankommen“)
“Das kommt ____ an, was für einen Film.”
“Das kommt drauf an, was für einen Film.”
“Totally.”
“Voll.”
“Voll.”
“No idea, maybe it is searching for answers.”
“Keine Ahnung, vielleicht sucht sie ____ Antworten.”
“Keine Ahnung, vielleicht sucht sie nach Antworten.”
“What does it depend on?” (use: “abhängen”)
“On whether Maria is there or not.”
“____ hängt es ab?”
“____ ob Maria da ist oder nicht.”
“Wovon hängt es ab?”
“Davon ob Maria da ist oder nicht.”
“Mooooohhhh… hey, think of your ex-boyfriend…. Mooooohhhh”
“There, it just did it again.”
“Mooooohhhh… hey, denk ____ deinen Ex-Freund.. moooooh.”
“Da, sie hat es grad wieder gemacht.”
“Mooooohhhh… hey, denk an deinen Ex-Freund.. moooooh.”
“Da, sie hat es grad wieder gemacht.”
“One doesn’t ask a lady about that.”
“Ok… tell me your age!!”
“____ fragt man eine Dame nicht.”
“Ok… sag dein Alter!!”
“Danach fragt man eine Dame nicht.”
“Ok… sag dein Alter!!”
“Me too. What do you feel like eating?” (use: “Appetit haben”)
“I feel like pizza.”
“Ich auch. ____ hast du Appetit?”
“Ich habe Appetit ____ Pizza.”
“Ich auch. Worauf hast du Appetit?”
“Ich habe Appetit auf Pizza.”
“About whether I drink another beer or not.”
“____, ob ich noch ein Bier trinke oder nicht.”
“Darüber, ob ich noch ein Bier trinke oder nicht.”
***
And, how did it go :)? Was it difficult for you? How many did you get right? Do you have any questions?
And do you like this type of exercise?
Let me know all your feedback and questions in the comments. Hope you had a bit of fun.
Have a great week and see you next time.
wpDiscuz
