Separable Verbs and household chores

You can tell if a verb is separable by looking at the prefix. Then look in a grammar book and see if the prefix is in a long list of separable prefixes. Have you fallen asleep yet? There is a much easier answer. If you hear the verb and the emphasis is on the prefix then it is separable. So if you hear abwaschen and notice the emphasis on the ab then you know it is separable. This means that you say Ich wasche ab not ich abwasche. Of course it is much better to hear the sentence a few times and recognise that it means I wash up.

Why do we use the adverb 'up' when we are washing pots. Ab is normally translated into English as 'from' or 'off' but now you know in this sense it also means up. Similarly if you want to say 'I dry up' you would say ich trochne ab. I dry the dishes is ich trochne das Geschirr ab. If you want to tidy your room then we can say tidy the room or we can tidy the room up. In German the adverb is auf and the sentence is ich räume mein Zimmer auf.

Learning German makes you think about the use of English adverbs. Often they are nonsense but because we are used to them they are accepted. If a word looks strange in a foreign language then don't worry about it - there are plenty of strange words in English.

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When does one dine?

I was observing a year 7 German class today as an introduction to me doing some voluntary work. The Lernziel was 'to be able to say what I do to help at home'. The pupils were keen and enthusiastic. However they do need repetition (as does everyone) to remember the vocabulary and the simple grammar.

The vocabulary included sentences like Ich gehe einkaufen, ich mache das Bett and ich koche das Abendessen. You may already know the words for 'I am going shopping'. You can almost guess the words for making the bed and I am cooking dinner. Hoever it matters whether you dine in the evening or dine at midday because in German you would have to say das Mittagessen for the midday meal and das Abendessen for the evening meal.

The good thing about learning a foreign language, apart from the obvious benefit of knowing that language, is that it helps you learn about your native language. I come from Manchester and dinner time is midday, but I also know that 'one dines in the evening'. The important thing in any language is to communicate, so as long as the person you are talking to knows what you mean then you have succeeded in communicating. Mittagessen and Abendessen are obvious in German. In English you need to make sure that you are understood when you say 'dinner'.

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Bis bald

In the preceding 100 blogs I have been looking at ways to motivate you to learn German. The best motivation is to communicate with German speakers and even better by living in Germany. Failing this you may be motivated by watching German films, by reading German books or by listening to German music.

Probably the least motivating factor in learning German is to have to learn it for an exam, but it is a way that many of us learn. We get motivated to pass an exam to have a piece of paper that says we can do something in German. When I got my Geman O' level piece of paper in 1977 it had precious little to do with communication but I could really conjugate verbs and decline nouns. So what? Things have changed, thankfully and pupils can now speak German.

I hope that some of the previous blogs have been helpful to you. I may add more blogs in the future but it won't be daily. If you have come across this blog for the first time then at least you have 100 to look at, but for today the only German in the blog is...

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Blog Number 100

This is blog number one hundred and which words of wisdom am I going to choose for it. Well it isn't a special issue. I will continue with common exam phrases for GCSE.

You need to know vocabulary which is based on the school. Der Lehrer und die Lehrerin are two examples. Put them into a translation program and you get 'the teacher and the teacher' but you know this is that one is male and one is female. You need to know adjectives like schnell und langsam. If you know this then you can translate 'er will ein schnelles Auto haben'.

I think it is best to learn the words in an interesting way. This could be reading German newspapers or watching German DVDs or listening to German music. However if it is getting close to your GCSE then it may well be worth just ploughing through past papers, and make sure that you know 'schreib den richtigen Buchstaben ins Kästchen'. I asked you to look this up yesterday but if you don't know it then the exam paper will be a lot harder for you.

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More Common Exam Phrases

There is a common way of asking question in the reading exam for GCSE and that is to ask what someone wants. Wollen is an important verb so you can expect it to be tested. Was will ich schreiben? Was will ich trinken? In the latter case all you need to know is the name of three drinks in German. You often see the request 'schreib den richtigen Buchstaben ins Kästchen'. In fact if you don’t know this sentence then I will let you look up the words in a dictionary as this will make two times that you have seen the words. Look up a German paper on the internet and you should have new words in your vocabulary.

I have recently written about sein und haben but their importance cannot be overstated. Just think how often we use the verbe to be and to have in English. Have you any idea how often you use these verbs? You can make simple sentences with two nouns and one verb. If you know a few words then you have a chance of translating what you want to say or at least something that resembles what you want to say. Das Café ist zu teuer. Das Café ist sehr nett. Das Café ist nicht sehr sauber, and just for good measure I will tell you that to clean is sauber machen.

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Common Exam Phrases

It generally takes me three goes to learn anything new, so if I look at three German exam papers then I should get the hang of them. Abschnitt A, yes I know that is section A. It does help you remember if you disect the vocabulary and you also learn abschneiden. Fragen und Antworten auf Deutsch. Yes that rings a bell.

How about the verb sprechen? You should recognise it because it is a common question. Sprichst du Deutsch or Sprechen Sie Deutsch? If you want to say he or she speaks then you say er spricht oder sie spricht, and if you want to speak with someone it is sprechen mit... Now you should be able to translate Ingo spricht mit seiner Mutter

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Die Motivation

There are lots of revision guides to get you through a German GCSE. The problem is that not everyone gets an A*. Teachers do an excellent job. Resources have improved tremendously since I was at school in the 70s. So why doesn't everyone do very well at GCSE? My answer is motivation. The top pupils will always get good marks and be praised. They have their motivation. For the rest it is about finding the motivation to learn a little bit more each day, e.g. reading a German blog. You will still have to do your homework as well.

I have written about family members. Some words you can guess without ever seeing them before. Meine Schwester oder mein Sohn are two examples. So it shouldn't take long to learn your family. In the GCSE paper that I am going through you need to know der Vater, die Großmutter, die Eltern, die Oma und der Papa. You can’t guarantee the same family members will come up but on this paper you have just gained a couple more points.

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