Coffee Break German

LESSON NOTES
GUTEN TAG, WIE HEISSEN SIE?
In this second lesson of our course we’ll learn to greet people at
different times of the day. We will also learn how to ask the question
“What is your name?” and give suitable answers.
INTRODUCTION
Thomas and Mark began the lesson with a short conversation which
used some of the phrases covered in the last lesson:
Thomas: Hallo Mark. Wie geht’s dir heute?
Mark:
Coffee Break German
Lesson 02
Mir geht’s gut, danke. Wie geht’s?
Thomas: Mir geht’s auch gut, danke.
There are a few points we can pick up from this conversation.
heute
Study Notes
today
When Thomas asks Mark wie geht’s dir heute? he is asking, “how
are you today?”
Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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Thomas: Das ist schade.
auch
Mark:
also, too, as well
Auf Wiedersehen.
Thomas: Tschüss.
Thomas said, mir geht’s auch gut, meaning “I’m also feeling well”.
If you wanted to say “I’m also feeling bad” you could say mir geht’s
auch schlecht.
LASS UNS ANFANGEN!
This is the phrase Thomas uses at the beginning of the lesson which
means, “let’s go”, or “let’s get started”.
wie geht es dir?
how are you? This is the full version of this phrase: in wie geht’s,
the two words geht es are shortened to geht’s. Note also the use of
the word dir which literally means “to you”. Compare mir geht’s
gut, meaning “to me it goes well”. Mir means “to me”, and dir
means “to you” (informal). So wie geht es dir? literally means
“how is it going to you?”
das ist schade
anfangen
that is a shame
to start, to begin
Thomas explained that wie geht’s dir is an informal way of asking
“how are you?” Just as in French, Spanish and many other languages,
there is an informal and formal form of “you”. Where French has “tu”
and “vous” and Spanish has “tú” and “usted”, German has “du” and
“Sie”. We’ll learn more about these forms in the next lesson. For now,
focus on the formal version of wie geht es dir?:
lass uns...
let us...
REVIEW CONVERSATION
wie geht es Ihnen?
To help consolidate the words and phrases covered in the previous
lesson, Mark and Thomas begin with a conversation. The
conversation contains a few new elements of vocabulary. Study the
conversation below and review the accompanying vocabulary.
Guten Morgen, Thomas. Wie geht’s?
Thomas: Sehr gut, danke. Wie geht es dir?
Mark:
We’ve already learned the phrase for “good morning”, guten
Mir geht’s schlecht.
Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
Remember, this literally means “how is it going to you (formal)?” So
the word Ihnen means “to you (formal)”.
GREETINGS FOR DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE
DAY
Thomas: Guten Morgen, Mark.
Mark:
how are you? (formal)
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Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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Morgen. Some other greetings are presented below:
already have noticed that gute Nacht is the odd one out here,
because it’s the only one where we say gute and not guten.
guten Tag
The word gut is an adjective,
Morgen
and adjectives in German,
just like in French, Spanish,
guten
Tag
and many other languages,
change their ending,
Abend
depending on the word they
are describing. You’re
gute
Nacht
probably thinking that the
word Nacht is somehow
different from Morgen, Tag, and Abend - and you’d be right!
These four words are nouns, and nouns in German, again, just like
in French and Spanish, have grammatical gender. Nacht has a
different gender from the other three, and that is why we have
guten Morgen, guten Tag and guten Abend, but gute Nacht.
good day / good afternoon
Guten Tag literally means “good day”, but it’s generally used for the
time between Morgen and Abend (“evening” - see below).
guten Abend
good evening
gute Nacht
good night
You will notice that guten Morgen, guten Tag, and guten Abend
all use the word guten to mean “good”, but gute Nacht has a
different form of the word for “good”. This is explained further by
Kirsten, our Grammar Guru.
You may well have lots of questions, and that’s a good thing! By
asking questions when learning a language, you understand the
language in more depth. However we’ll be coming back to the
topic of grammatical gender and indeed adjectives later in the
series, so we’ll leave things there for just now. Lots of little steps
will eventually take you far! I hope I’ve helped solve one little
mystery about these greetings.
GRAMMAR GURU
Grammar is what holds the words and
phrases of a language together. While
Thomas teaches you the words and phrases in
German, I’ll be here to explain why all the
words and phrases have been put together
that way, breaking it down and giving you
little hints and tips along the way so that you
can start making your own sentences in
German.
We’ve seen four greetings, one for each time of day: guten
Morgen, guten Tag, guten Abend and gute Nacht. You will
Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
We will explain this in more detail in a future lesson, but you may
be interested to know that Morgen, Tag and Abend are all
masculine nouns, and Nacht is feminine.
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INTRODUCING YOURSELF AND ASKING OTHER
PEOPLE “WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”
To ask someone “what is your name” in the formal form, use:
Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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wie heißen Sie?
what is your name? (formal)
You will recognise wie from the question wie geht’s? It literally
means “how”, so the question wie heißen Sie literally means “how
are you called?” Note also the ß in the word heißen. This was
explained in the bonus vocabulary section of lesson 1.
Germany, Switzerland and Austria, but it’s also an official
language in Belgium, along with French and Flemish; in
Luxembourg, where it shares its official status with French and
Luxembourgish; and in the tiny principality of Liechtenstein on
the border between Austria and Switzerland. So, as a German
learner, you’ll be glad to know that the language you’re learning is
spoken in many parts of Europe, but that’s not all! Did you know
To answer the question wie heißen Sie, you can used the following
expression:
ich heiße ...
I am called ...
An alternative way to give your name is by using the literal
translation of “my name is...”:
mein Name ist ...
my name is...
Note that since Name is a noun (just like Morgen, Abend, Nacht,
etc.) it begins with a capital letter.
CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT
In today’s report I’m going to be looking at
where German is actually spoken. Do have
a look at the map overleaf to help you
understand where I’m talking about!
German-speaking countries in Europe. Shown in red (clockwise):
Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Arrows from north to south point to
Belgium, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
German is of course the official language of
Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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that there over five million speakers of German living in the US?
There are also huge communities of German-speakers in Brazil
and Argentina.
German is the third most-taught language in the English-speaking
world, after French and Spanish, and as a native English speaker
you’re going to find that it’s quite easy to learn German, because
historically English and German belong to the same language
family. In fact, hundreds of years ago, people speaking older
forms of German and English could probably understand each
other, and many words between the two languages are similar.
We’ve already heard examples of this in our lessons.
The key point to notice here is that the graphic design of these lesson
notes uses capitals for headings. However, we have seen in the
content of the lesson that the word heißen is written with the Eszett,
ß. It is important to know that when writing in upper case it is
normal to use “SS” for “ß”. Indeed, in Switzerland, “ss” is always used
instead of ß.
Well done if you spotted this use of “ss” in the title!
Ready for more? Turn the page to continue with the
bonus materials for this lesson.
UNTIL THE NEXT TIME...
The final phrase introduced in this lesson was “until the next time”:
bis zum nächsten Mal
until the next time / see you next time
We will see further examples of the word bis in the bonus vocabulary
section.
ONE MORE THING...
Did you happen to notice the title of this lesson? On the first page we
listed the title as:
GUTEN TAG, WIE HEISSEN SIE?
Good day. What is your name?
Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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BONUS MATERIALS
guten Abend
good evening
In each edition of Coffee Break German we cover the basic language
you need to communicate. As part of the study pack we provide some
additional vocabulary to help you increase your range of expression.
This section of bonus materials provides additional content to help
you master the words and phrases contained in the lesson.
✤
Start with the Bonus audio lesson, our “review podcast”
✤
Review the Core Vocabulary and learn the Bonus Vocabulary
gute Nacht
good night
wie heißen Sie?
what is your name?
ich heiße ...
I’m called ...
mein Name ist ...
my name is ...
CORE VOCABULARY
bis zum nächsten Mal
lass uns anfangen
until the next time
let’s get started, let’s begin
wie geht es dir?
BONUS VOCABULARY
how are you? (informal)
einen schönen Abend
wie geht es Ihnen?
(have) a nice evening
how are you (formal)
bis nächste Woche
heute
until next week / see you next week
today
bis später
guten Morgen
until later / see you later
good morning
bis bald
guten Tag
see you soon
good day; good afternoon
Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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schlaf gut
sleep well.
Note that schlaf gut is the informal version which you would use to
a family member, for example.
Coffee Break German: Lesson 02 - Notes
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