Transcripts
1. About the course: This will be an interesting lesson. So let's learn how to make it in German. Try to give an answer to each of these questions. Hi everyone. My name is Sandra and I will be your guide through the secrets of the German language. Welcome to the full starter kit of the German language for total beginners. My goal is to get you from zero German to the level A1. It means getting by and everyday conversations and physically surviving in the German speaking environment. This course is for you if you're a complete beginner and don't know any German at all. We will start from the beginning and gradually build up your knowledge. This course will be great for you if you have a busy schedule and don't have a lot of time to learn, or if you just have a short attention span and can't focus on long lessons. Most of the lessons in this course are under five minutes. This doesn't mean that you get less knowledge. It just means that they're split up into bite-size pieces that you can squeeze into your schedule. If you need a lot of repetition, reminding, and motivation to stay on track, this course will be great for you. We will try to repeat everything a few times and remind you of the things that you should remember. Most of all, this course is for you if you wanted to be fun. I will really try not to bore you. I promise. I will keep everything short and sweet and straight to the point. I also try to incorporate a lot of interesting real life examples and nice visuals, meaning pictures and videos. They will help you remember and learn things easier, and also so you don't have to look at my face the whole time. This course is constructed like my one-on-one lessons I usually have with my students in real life. This means that I'm not only going to present you with materials and that's it. I will also try to include you in answering some questions, repeating sentences after me, and doing a lot of exercises. After each and every lesson we will have an UBUNG - meaning, exercise. You will learn how to get by in everyday situations like meeting and greeting people, introducing yourself, how to tell the time, the day of the week, the month or season, how to make different appointments and arrangements, tell your preference and opinion about something, and try not to hurt anyone's feelings, how to talk about your place of birth, where you live, your job, and family, and hobbies, and more, and asking someone about the same things, how to go shopping, ask about the product, price or how to order something at the restaurant, how to survive some small talk, talking about the weather for example. In general, holding a normal conversation. Yes, in German. You will even learn how to fill out registration forms and write professional e-mails. If you think that's impossible, then let me prove you wrong. See you on the other side.
2. What you'll learn in unit 1: This course consists of seven units, and each unit will have a specific theme. In unit one, we will start with the most basic stuff by meeting and greeting people. But before we begin, let's have a sneak peek at all the things that you're about to learn in this unit. You will know how to greet all the nice people, introduce yourself, ask who someone is and about their name and hope not to forget it instantly, say where you're from and ask someone the same. Some important phrases like thank you and please. Ask and reply to, "How's it going?" And maybe even start a small talk. You will also learn the present tense of regular verbs. The W-Wörter, the words used to make different questions. The personal pronouns like ich, du, er, sie, es. And all about the formal "sie" form and when to use it. I hope that you're ready to start this adventure. Let's go.
3. Guten Tag! (Good day!): One of the first things you learn in a new language are the swear words. I'm joking.One of the first things you will probably learn are the greetings. You can use hello or hi in informal situations with friends and family. You can use them throughout the whole day. Hello. Hi, Guten Tag is a little bit more formal. It means good day and you can use it during the day. When it gets darker, we will use Guten Abend, meaning good evening. If it's early and you just woke up, you will say Guten Morgen, good morning. Remember that we will use all of these only when meeting someone and not when saying goodbye. If you're leaving, you can say, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye. Or more informal Tschuss, which means bye and you will use it with friends and family. So let's check out all the greetings one more time. Hello, Hi, Guten Morgen, Guten Tag, Guten Abend, Auf Wiedersehen, Tschuss. Hello, Hi. Guten Tag, Guten Morgen, Guten Abend, Tschuss, Auf Wiedersehen. Der Tag, Der Morgen, Der Abend.
4. Guten Tag! - Übung: Übung means exercise. After each and every lesson in the course, we will do one exercise together. Practicing is half the job, and I can't do it for you. Unfortunately, there is no secret shortcut to learning a language. You really have to repeat everything a few times and practice a lot. Let's do it. Look at the pictures and try to pick the right greeting for these situations. For more Bite Size German lessons visit 11percent.xyz.
5. Wie heißt du? (What's your name): [FOREIGN] You probably guessed what this means. Hello. My name is Sandra. And what is your name? [FOREIGN]. Let's also take a look at another way to say the same thing. [FOREIGN] means to be called. So this is literally, I am called Sandra and what are you called? Let's also take a look at this. [Foreign] This is definitely for more formal occasions. This time we're saying our full name and last name. Look at this. It's no longer du its Sie. Sie is an interesting forum because you will not find it in the English language. It is used if you are talking to someone who is older than yourself, someone who is in a higher position, or generally someone you want to show respect to. For example, your teacher, your boss, or your friend's mom. And it will always be written with a capital letter S. So this could be a sentence you say, for example, at a job interview. [FOREIGN] Here, Sandra Is my name. [ FOREIGN] and Salajic is my last name [FOREIGN]. So let's write all of this down into our notebook. [FOREIGN]. Or if you want to be more formal [FOREIGN] Try to repeat the sentence, but instead of saying Sandra, try saying your own name. Unless of course your name is Sandra. Don't be shy doing it out loud by yourself. Practicing like this will help you improve your pronunciation, but also to remember it much faster. So do it out loud. Unless of course you are at the bus or at work and you should be doing your job, then just remember the sentence and do it as soon as you get home. Or if you are at home, but there are a lot of people and you don't have a good time and place to do it, try doing it, for example, in the shower. So the next time instead of singing Adele, practice your German sentences. So this time I want you to do it out loud. [FOREIGN] or [FOREIGN].
6. Wie heißt du? (What's your name): [MUSIC]. [FOREIGN]. You probably guessed
what this means. Hello, my name is Sandra
and what is your name? [FOREIGN] Let's also take a look at another way
to say the same thing. [FOREIGN] means to be called. This is literally, I am called Sandra and what are you called? Let's also take a look at this [FOREIGN]. This is definitely for
more formal occasions. This time we're saying our
full name and last name. Look at this it's no
longer do its Sie. Sie is an interesting form because you will not find
it in the English language. It is used if you are talking to someone who is older
than yourself, someone who is in
a higher position, or generally someone you
want to show respect to. For example, your teacher, your boss, or your friend's mom. It will always be written
with a capital letter S. This could be a sentence
you say, for example, at a job interview [FOREIGN]. Here, Sandra is my name, Nama or Vorname and [FOREIGN]
is my last name [FOREIGN]. Let's write all of this
down into our notebook. [FOREIGN] Or if you want to be
more formal [FOREIGN]. Try to repeat the sentence, but instead of saying Sandra, try saying your own name. Unless of course
your name is Sandra. Don't be shy doing it
out loud by yourself. Practicing like this will help you improve your pronunciation, but also to remember
it much faster. Do it out loud. Unless of course you are at the bus or at work and you
should be doing your job, then just remember the sentence and do it as soon
as you get home. Or if you are at home. But there are a lot
of people and you don't have a good time
and place to do it. Try doing it, for
example, in the shower. The next time instead
of singing Adele, practice your German sentences. This time I want you
to do it out loud. [FOREIGN]
7. Wie heißt du? - Übung: I will show you pictures of different people. Imagine that you are with them and introduce yourself. Let me show you an example. Hallo, mein Name ist Rambo or hallo, ich heiße Rambo. Now you. [MUSIC] Mein Name ist Albert Einstein. Ich heiße Albert Einstein. Mein Name ist Elvis. Ich heiße Elvis. Mein Name ist Mozart. Ich heiße is Mozart. [MUSIC]
8. Wer ist das? (Who is that?): Let's talk about some other people as well and learn some new expressions. Listen to the questions and then to the answers. [foreign]. [foreign] means "Who are you?", and [foreign] Sandra means "I am Sandra". Here is another example: [foreign]. We can also ask more formal. [foreign]. Notice the formal form [foreign] in the last two expressions. Remember when to use it? We also have two new words here: [foreign] meaning Mr and [foreign] meaning Ms, but also woman or wife. We will often use it in front of last names. [foreign]. For the question [foreign], a completely valid answer is also [foreign]: I don't know. Let's check all the possible answers you can ask about someone's name or who someone is. [foreign]. So many different ways to get to know someone. Try to remember at least one expression to start with, and you're ready to meet your first German friends.
9. Wer ist das? - Übung: I will show you a picture of a celebrity and you try to answer the questions. If it's going too fast, you're always encouraged to press the pause sign. So you can think about it and answer the questions at your own pace. Try to give an answer to each of these questions.
10. Woher kommt du? (Where are you from?): A good way to start a conversation or to get to know someone is to ask them where they are from. Most of the time, people love to talk about their origin and heritage. [FOREIGN]. Some other possible answers would be [FOREIGN]. Let's just stop here for a second. Notice how in front of most of the countries we use no article, but in front of the [FOREIGN] Why is it so? Well, most of the countries of the world will be used without an article. But of course, there are always some countries that are more hipster than the others and they will always be used with an article. Yes, the article is always a different one and you will have to learn it by heart which one to use. You can think them later, let's check some of the countries that will always go with an article. [FOREIGN] and don't forget, the little word aus. Aus means from, and you will have to put it in front of the country when saying that you are from a specific country. [FOREIGN].
11. Woher kommst du? - Übung: Now I'm asking you, "Woher kommst du?" To answer this question, you will first need to know the name of your country in German. Here is a complete list of all the countries and their names in German. First, check it out there and then come back and answer the question. "Woher kommst du?"
12. Wie gehts? (How's it going?): Small talk can be the best or worst of all conversations, but you must know how to do it. And often it will start with wie gehts. wie gehts means how is it going?Here are some possible answers. Gut means good. Or if you are even better, sehr gut, very good. Prima, great. If you are not good, you can say schlecht, bad or even sehr schlecht, very bad.And if you're not sure or feel neither good nor bad, you can say so-so, meaning average or indifferent. You can also return the question and it would be polite to do so. You can say gut, und wie geht es dir or nicht schlecht,und dir. If you are wondering, gehts is a short form of es geht, it's going. For example, you can also say wie gehts, es geht. Formal way to ask this would be wie geht es ihnen you will use it in formal situations when talking to older people or someone you want to show respect to. For example, you would ask your bus, wie geht es Ihnen. Let's take a look at few short examples. Wie gehts, gut ,danke. Wie geht es dir? Sehr gut, und dir? Wie geht es Ihnen? Prima, danke!
13. Wie gehts? - Übung: [MUSIC]. Try to bring the two conversations in the correct order. [MUSIC]. Hello, hello [FOREIGN]
14. W-Wörter (W-words): In the last few chapters, we already mentioned a lot of these words, die W-Worter, the W-words. But what are they and why do we need them? Let's find out. Die W-Worter are words that start with a W. We will use them to build a lot of different questions. Let's check out a few of the most important ones. Wer? Who? Wer ist das? Wer kommt zur Party? Wie? How? Wie gehts? Wie heigt du? How are you called literally? Woher? Where from? Woher kommst du? Woher kommen Sie? Wo? Where? Wo bist du? Wo liegt Berlin? Was? What? Was ist das? Was machst du? Remember, if you don't hear someone what they said, it's pretty impolite to say Was? Instead, better say, wie bitte? Which would mean, excuse me or pardon. I think that this should be enough for now. There are a lot of them and they all sound quite similar, so we don't want you to mix them up. Besides that, some of them are false friends with some English words. False friends are words and different languages that sound or look the same but means something completely different. Like for example here, wer? Sounds really similar as where, but it doesn't mean the same, so you really have to be careful. [MUSIC]
15. W-Wörter - Übung: Try to answer the following questions. I will help you a little bit with answers and translations. Feel free to pause, speed up or slow down the video. For example, [foreign]. If you sometimes don't know the names of the people in the pictures, feel free to answer with [foreign] or [foreign]. [foreign]. Here are the answers [foreign]. Yes. That's his full name. Did you know that DiCaprio is of German origin?, His mother is German-born and his father is Italian and German. [foreign] Los Angeles. [foreign] Los Angeles. Los Angeles [foreign].
16. Ich, du, wir (I, you, we): Ich, du, wir, let's learn the personal pronouns. In the last few chapters, we already mentioned some of the German pronouns. For example, ich, which means I. Notice that unlike in English, we don't have to capitalize the pronoun, ich. We also learned the pronoun for you, du. For example, in Wie heißt du? Or Woher kommst du? Let's also learn some others. Er means he, for example, das ist Peter, Er ist nett. Der Hund ist süß. Er ist süß. Sie means she. Das ist Ulrike. Sie kommt aus Deutschland. Die Katze spielt gerne. Sie spielt gerne. Es means it. Das ist ein Baby. Es weint viel. Das Pferd ist groß. Es ist groß. All clear. If yes, then let's move to the plural pronouns that we will use when talking about more than one person. Wir means we. wir sind eine große Familie. Wir gehen oft zusammen ans Meer. Ihr is the plural you. Like in you all or you guys. Ihr hast einen schönen Hund. Ihr zwei macht die besten Partys! We also have the plural sie, meaning they. Sie whonen in Köln. Sie gehen zusammen ans Meer. So we have a lot of sie forms. The first one is sie meaning she. The second one is the plural sie meaning they. As if that wasn't enough, we also have the third sie that we already talked about, the one written with a capital S and used for formal occasions. It can be used for singular but also for plural. For example, Wie heißen Sie? But it can also be used as Sie haben eine schöne Firma. Also, if you have a German textbook, you will often find sentences like schreiben Sie einen Text, write a text or hören sie und antworten Sie auf die Fragen, listen and answer the questions. In German, we have two expressions, duzen and siezen, and they're derived from the pronouns du and sie. Duzen means to say du to someone. It means that your friends or family or just close. Siezen means to use the formal capitalize Sie form with someone. It's usual with people that you just meet or in the business world. If you become friends, you can start saying du to each other after awhile. Sometimes you will hear the phrase Du kannst mich duzen, meaning you can say you to me and address me more informally. Yeey, you have a new friend. It may sound a little bit silly, but in Germany, it's a really important part of social life. So be careful and don't start saying du to someone unless they initiate it.
17. Ich, du, wir - Übung: Try to change the nouns from these sentences into pronouns. For example, [FOREIGN]. Feel free to pause the video to write down the correct answers. You will see the solutions at the end. [FOREIGN] [FOREIGN] For more exercises, visit 11percent.xyz.
18. Das Präsens (The present tense): [Music] Enough with the easy stuff. Let's finally spice it up a little bit. In this lesson, we will learn the German present tense and a few verbs along the way. [Music] You may have noticed in the last few lessons that the verbs occasionally changed their endings depending on the person that they're referring to. For example, you would say [Foreign language], but also [Foreign language]. The same thing happens in English as well, just on a much smaller scale. For example, you would say, I speak German, but also she speaks German. See the little difference. In German each and every person in singular and plural will have a different ending and of course they will not be the same across the different tenses. So, for every tense you will have to learn how it changes. So, why not start with the present tense? It's really not difficult and I always say that it's the equivalent of making spaghetti. Everyone can eventually learn how to do it and after just a few tries, you don't even have to look at the cookbook anymore. So, let's take a look at the recipe for the German present tense. How to make the German presence tense? First of all, you will need a big thick dictionary. Freshly picked verbs. If it's your first time cooking German, take an easy one and the correct present tense endings. For beginners, it's best to just learn them by heart. Additionally, you will need a sharp knife for scissors and some other words of your choice. Step one. Take the big dictionary and pick a fresh verb. You can use the dictionary in the beginning stages if you still don't know all the verbs that you might want to use or read more advanced stages when you will have to deal with crazy and irregular verbs. Although it's nice to have a big dictionary always by your side, and we all know how nice books smell. Let's face it, it's not always very convenient. That's why they are luckily, a lot of online dictionaries out there to choose from. For this demonstration, we will pick the verb [Foreign language] to cook. If it struggles, just pull a little harder. There it is. You caught yourself a verb. Now what? We first need to trim it a little bit to make it ready for the present tense. That's where the scissors or knife come in. We have to cut off the infinitive ending. The what? The infinitive ending. When you take a fresh, unprocessed verb out of the dictionary, it will always look like this with the infinitive ending en. If you wish to do anything with verb, you first have to cut it off. Don't worry, it's not painful at all. What you are left with is the so-called stem or base of the verb. Your verb is ready for the next step. Step two. The verb cannot stay like this. It needs some endings. The endings for the present tense in German are; e, st, t, en, t, en. The best thing is to just learn them by heart. So, [Foreign language] meaning, I, likes to have his verb ending in [Foreign language] meaning you will have a verb with the ending [Foreign language] like a simple [Foreign language]. The plural forms via [Foreign language] and the formal [Foreign language] with a capital S, like the ending e n, and the plural [Foreign language], also takes a simple t. Everything set. So one more time. e st t en t en. Step three. Stay a while, after a while the endings should start to fuse with the stem and you got your verb in the present tense. [Foreign language] Step four. Take the rest of the words you chose for your sentence and put them on the working surface. Determine which one is the subject, meaning the person, thing or object, that is doing something and put it in the first place. Examine it carefully and decide which person it is. Is it I? Or maybe plural? Carefully pick the right form of the verb and place it after the subject. If you have some other words left, arrange them after the verb, and that's it. [Foreign language] Really not so difficult, right? Let's take a look at few more examples. Take the verb [Foreign language], to do or to make. So just like we saw, cut off the infinitive ending en, attach the present tense endings e, st, t, en, t, en [Foreign language]. Easy as that. Let's try it again with a different verb. For example, [Foreign language] to come. Cut off the infinitive ending en. At the present tense endings; e, st, t, en, t, en. [Foreign language] [Foreign language]. Good job. [Music]
19. Das Präsens - Übung: Try to make the present tense of these verbs. Try to complete the sentences with the correct form of the verb. For more tips and tricks, visit 11PERCENT.XYZ.
20. Wichtige Wörter und Phrasen (Important words and phrases): I can't let you finish this unit without knowing these really important phrases. Why? Because they're the basis of a polite conversation and should be part of your everyday speech. The first one you need to know is danke. Thank you. Du sprichst gut deutsch. Danke. Dein Hun ist so süß. Danke. The second one is bitte. Bitte will be used like please. Kannst du mir bitte das Buch geben? Can you please give me the book? Danke. Bitte can also be used as a response to Danke Kannst du mir bitte das Buch geben?. Danke, bitte. Bitte can also be used as; here you are, when handing something to someone, Kannst du mir bitte das Buch geben? bitte. Danke. Danke can also often be enhanced with sehr or schön. Danke schön and danke sehr. In that case, the bitte response will be similarly modified. Danke schön. bitte schön. Danke sehr, bitter sehr. Another way to respond to Danke would be nichts zu danken. which would be literally translated as nothing to thank for. My friends told me that they find this response to sound rude to them because of the literal translation. But it's a perfectly normal response to Danke. So no thanks are needed or you're welcome. Oh, danke schön. Nichts zu danken. There is another cute phrase, gern geschehen, which would mean my pleasure. It's also a good response to danke. Danke, Gern geschehen. Whichever one you like, the most, bitte, bitte schön, nichts zu danken, gern geschehen. Just don't forget to reply to danke. Another two really important phrases, are when you want to apologize for something. tut mir leid means, I'm sorry and you can use it whenever you mess something up. Forgot to bring the thing that you promised, tut mir leid. Scratched someone's car, tut mir leid. Came too late to a meeting, tut mir leid. Another one is Entschuldigung, which would mean, I'm sorry. Accidentally pushed someone, entschuldigung. The polite version of it is Entschuldigen Sie. Entschuldigung can also be used as, excuse me. Entschuldigung können Sie mir helfen? Excuse me, could you please help me? Now you know all the important phrases. Don't forget to be extra polite. It's part of the German way.
21. Wichtige Wörter und Phrasen - Übung: Reply to these situations with the correct phrase. Sometimes more than one possible answer is correct. For more bite-sized German lessons, visit 11percent.XYZ.
22. Zahlen 0-6 und Aussprache (Numbers 0-10 and pronunciation): This will be an interesting lesson because we will learn the German numbers from zero to 12 and the pronunciation of some of the most confusing German letters and sounds all at once. Why you're asking? Because it's faster, easier, and more fun this way, trust me. The numbers in German are, null, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, eins, sieben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwolf. All in one breath. Let's take a look at each of them. Null, a double consonant like here, the double L will mean that the verb will get pronounced a little bit faster. Like here, in null, for example, or der Ball, or essen. Watch the U. It'll always be pronounced like u,like in put or boot. This one was a little bit too easy. Let's move on. Eins, E and I together get pronounced as I, like in sky, for example. It's a German diphthong, and no, it has nothing to do with the small piece of underwear. It's two or more letters that always get pronounced the same way when they are together, like here, I. Zwei. In case you didn't pay attention until now or just want to make sure you got everything correctly. Here it is again, I, but here we have more. Listen to this Zwei. The German Z is called set because you read it as [FOREIGN] like in cats or tsunami o pizza. You can practice, zwei pizzas. Another interesting letter here is the W. Most native English speakers would pronounce this letter as W. But in German is pronounced as a V, like in the English, very or video or van. I think we have a flat tire. In English, it's What While in German, it's Was. Then how do you pronounce when you write a V? You will find out in a second. [inaudible] Drei. You really should know the diphthong EI by now. What we will pay attention here is the letter R. The German R will be pronounced a little bit different than in English, and there are more ways to pronounce it depending on the place in the word, but also country of origin or part of Germany. Basically, we will find two different kinds of letter R in German. There's Gerollte R, like in Frau and Grun. It may sound to you a little bit like you're choking, but trust me, everyone is fine. Actually, you can practice this sound by gurgling some water in your throat. Try it. The second type of the letter R in German is the one that sounds like a reduced A sound. You will find it mostly in words ending in ER or A as you would pronounce it, like for example, Bier or Messer. Vier. Here comes the simple V. The best way to remember how to pronounce it is to remember how to say this number in English, four. The Germans will most of the time pronounce this letter like you would pronounce the English F, like here and this number Vier. Some other examples are vater, verkaufen, viel, vielleicht. But sometimes, just sometimes, it will be pronounced like the German W. Remember, V like in the words Vampir or Vulkan. You could say that most of the words that are originally German will pronounce this letter as an F, while words borrowed from other languages will pronounce a W sound. If you ask me, I would say that the easiest way for you to know exactly is to just remember the pronunciation when you learn the word. Let's go on and look at the middle of this small word. We're just getting started. Remember the, EI. Watch out because this is really similar but completely different. IE. IE will be pronounced like a long slow e. Like for example, in cheese, another German diphthong. A few more examples for this sound would be lieben, too long, or bier. Ich liebe Bier. This is not all. The small word holds even more secrets to the German pronunciation. We talked about the German R before and listen to it here. Vier, you don't hear the R, listen again, vier, Nothing. Exactly. This is one example for this silent R. The one that gets pronounced like a reduce A and is found in words ending in ER, vier. We're finally ready to move to the next one. Slow counting. Funf. Look at this smiley face here. How to pronounce that. I have a few tips for you. The first one is to form your mouth like you want to say, U like in soup for example, but instead of saying U, you say the letter E. Let's try it. Soup. The next way to practice it is to try to say the word eat. While pronouncing the E from eat, try to make your lips a little bit more rounder. When you get round enough, you will have the sound. Let's try it. E. If you want to practice a little bit more, there is also a third way. Form your lips like you're getting ready to kiss someone and tried to pronounce the letter U. That's it. This is more or less considered to be one of the hardest sounds in the German language for English speakers. Don't worry if you don't get it right away. A little bit of practice and you'll be there.
23. Zahlen von 7-12 und Aussprache (Numbers from 7-12 and pronunciation): If you are a sixth grader, you're probably laughing at this one, why is it not pronounced as sex? Because most of the time in the German language an S at the beginning of a word will be pronounced like a Z, for example, in Sandra or Suppe or super, super Suppe. Notice that we have two different S sounds and that they're both present in this little word. The string 'S', that gets pronounced as in Z at the beginning of a word and then soft 'S' that gets pronounced as an S, sechs. While we're talking about the letter S, I must mention two different combinations, ST and SP. While there is obviously an letter S written here in the combination with the letter T, it gets pronounced as 'sht', and in the combination with the letter P, It gets pronounced this 'shp', like in stift, stuhl, sprechen or strase, oh yes, and this S. This S is called scharfes 'S' or sharp S or eszett. It's basically a double S. So why do we have this letter in German? The difference is in the pronunciation speed, the double S get's used only after short vowel. Remember how we said that a double consonant makes a word a little bit more faster? The same as with the double S, like for example, in essen, Tasse or Schloss. The scharfes 'S', on the contrary is big and slow, and it gets used after a slow vowel, like for example, in die strase or for example, grus or another number that you will learn later, dreisig. There is another combination with the letter S and it's called the SCH. But let me first tell you the story about the German H. The letter H in German is a strange little fellow. When he's alone, he will not be pronounced and stay silent, like for example in zehn, you don't hear it. Except when it's found at the beginning of the word, then you will hear the H. Like for example, in house, hand, heart and similar. But the letter H has some friends. Some of his favorite ones is the letter C. When these two are combined together, they will always make the sound 'h', even in the middle of the word, for example, in kochen or sprechen. Then sometimes even the letter S joins them in the party. This is when they make the SCH, the SCH will be pronounced as the sound, shhhh, for example, in schnell or schmitzig. Sometimes the letter T will also join in the party, then we will get the really special sound, the sound [ch], like for example, in Deutsch. Sieben. Perfect number to repeat some of the things we already learned. S at the beginning of a word, pronounced as a 'z'. The diphthong IE, pronounced like a long, slow 'eee'. You got this. Acht. Remember our friend, the letter H in German, how it's always silent when it's alone except at the beginning of the word, but if it pairs with his friend, the letter C, it will make a sound exactly like here acht. Neun, remember the German diphtongs two letters that go together and always get pronounced the same way, like ei, that gets pronounced as [iy] and ie, that gets pronounced as a long slow [eee]? Well congratulations, here is another one. EU, and it gets pronounced as [oy]. Like for example, in Europa or Euro. Zehn, the silent H in the middle of the word, and the Z, that gets pronounces [ts]. Elf, let's take a second here and focus on the consonant E. Listen closely how it's pronounced in German, elf, exactly. The letter E is called [eh] in German because it's pronounced like the e in bed or select. For example, in gehen or Ente. Well, now that we already learned this one, let's learn the rest of the consonants as well. The consonant I is pronounced like [ee] in German, like you would say in cheese, for example, in ich or immer. The German A is pronounced as [ah], like in father, for example, like in the Apfel, Zahl or aber. The German O sound is similar, but not the same as the english one. Listen to it here, the Sonne or wohnen. The U, it's pronounced like [ooh], like the end of you, for example in Kuchen, Fus or Stunde. But that's not all, besides the consonants, we also have the diphthongs. Remember these, the letters that come together and get pronounced together? We already learned two of them, ei and ie. Let's check out two more. AU, A and U gets pronounced as [ow] like an Auge or auch or aus. E and U, together they get pronounced as [oy], like in Europa, neu or heute. Zwolf. You met our friend with a smiley face, the U mit Umlaut, the two little dots. Here is another one from the family, the O mit Umlaut, to say "ooooo", just form your lips like you want to say the O, but instead of that, try to say E, "ooooo" and you get it, "ooooo" and here is also the third letter with an O mit Umlaut, it gets pronounced A. So basically like long glues, relaxed and chilled out E.Like for example, in head, "head", and that's it.
24. Hörverstehen (Listening comprehension): Let's practice your ears a little bit more. Sit back, relax, close your eyes and tell me about your childhood. No, I will do the talking and you do the listening. You will hear a simple conversation. Focus on the text that you're about to hear. Do you understand everything? Are there some things that are unclear? Let's find out. [inaudible] Did you understand it? Was it difficult? Was it too fast or too slow? Are there still some words that you don't understand? Listen to the text one more time, but this time you can also read along. [inaudible]
25. Hörverstehen - Übung: For more exercises, visit elevenpercent.xyz.
26. Aussprache (Pronunciation): [MUSIC]. Besides hearing and understanding someone, it's equally important to be understood. An important part of that is to get the pronunciation right, or at least close enough. So let's practice that a little bit as well. [ MUSIC]. Here is a simple but fun exercise to practice your pronunciation. I will say some words and phrases and you'll try to repeat them as similar as possible. Look at my mouth and the way the sounds are produced. So, repeat after me. [inaudible] [MUSIC]
27. Aussprache - Übung: And now, try it by yourself. Remember what we said. Don't be shy and do it out loud. [MUSIC] [FOREIGN]
Sandra German, Professional German teacher
