Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Vowel combinations
au
as in mouse (eg Haus)
ie
as in tree (eg Bier)
ei
as in pie (eg mein)
eu
as in boil (eg Freude)
ai
as in pie (eg Kaiser)
Consonants and consonant combinations
ch
is pronounced like Scottish “loch” (eg ich)
g
is always a hard “g” sound, as in “go” (eg Gang),
except in words ending with -ig (eg Leipzig), when it
is like a very soft German “ch”
j
is pronounced like an English “y” (eg ja)
s
is pronounced similar to English “z” at the end of a
word like “s” in glass (eg Glas), and like “sh” before a
consonant (eg Sport)
sch
is like English “sh”
th
is pronounced like English “t”
v
is roughly “f” (eg von)
w
is pronounced like English “v” (eg wann), except at
the end of the word, as in the Berlin place names
Kladow and Gatow, which rhyme with “pillow”
z
is pronounced “ts”
Gender and adjective endings
German nouns can be one of three
genders
: masculine, feminine or neuter (the = der,
die or das). Sometimes the gender is obvious - it's der Mann (the man) and die Frau
(the woman) - but sometimes it seems ba
ing: a girl is das Mädchen, because Mädchen
- “little maiden” - is a diminutive, and diminutives are neutral. here are some hard
and fast rules to help you know which is which: nouns ending in -er (der Böcker, der
Sportler) are masculine; the female form ends in -in (die Böckerin, die Sportlerin).
Words ending in -ung, -heit, -keit or -schaft are feminine (die Zeitung, die Freiheit, die
Fröhlichkeit, die Mannschaft). Definite (der; “the”) and indefinite (ein; “a”)
articles
and
adjective endings
can change according to the precise grammatical role in the sentence
of the noun, which is where things start to get complex. If in doubt, stick to “der” or
“das” for single items: once there is more than one of anything, it becomes “die” anyway.
Politeness
You can address children, animals and, nowadays, young people (but only in relaxed
social situations, and really only if you're the same age) with the familiar “
du
” to mean
“you”. For anyone else - and particularly for older people or o
cials - stick to the
polite “
Sie
”; if they want to be on familiar terms with you, they'll invite you to be so
- “Duzen wir?”. Incidentally, unmarried German women often prefer to be addressed
as “
Frau
”, the word “
Fräulein
” to describe a young, single woman being considered
nowadays old-fashioned and rather sexist.
WORDS AND PHRASES
GREETINGS AND BASIC PHRASES
Good morning
Guten Morgen
Good evening
Guten Abend
Good day
Guten Tag
Hello (informal)
Hallo
Goodbye (formal)
Auf Wiedersehen
Goodbye (informal)
Tschüss (but also
Servus)
Goodbye (on the telephone)
Auf Wiederhören
How are you?
(polite)
Do you speak English?
Sprechen Sie Englisch?
I don't speak German
Ich
spreche kein Deutsch
Please speak more slowly
Könnten Sie bitte
langsamer sprechen?
I understand
Ich verstehe
I don't understand
Ich verstehe nicht
I'd like
…
Ich möchte …
I'm sorry
Es tut mir leid
Where?
Wo?
Wie geht es Ihnen?
When?
Wann?
How are you? (informal)
Wie geht es dir?
How much?
Wieviel?
Ye s
Ja
Here
Hier
No
Nein
There
Da
Please/ You're welcome
Bitte/Bitte schön
Open
Geöffnet/offen/auf
Thank you/Thank you
Danke/Danke schön
Closed
Geschlossen/zu
very much
Over there
Drüben
