German/Level I/Freizeit

Lesson I.4: Freizeit

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Dialogue

Literally, Freizeit means free time, i.e., spare time. In this dialogue, Franz and Greta are familiarizing each other with their sports activities.

Dialogue: Sports and time — Sport und Zeit
Franz	Hallo, Greta! Wie spät ist es?
Greta	Es ist Viertel vor drei.
Franz	Wirklich? Ich spiele um drei Fußball. Machst du Sport, Greta?
Greta	Nein, ich bin faul. Ich gehe jetzt nach Hause.
Franz	Fußball macht aber Spaß!
Greta	Bis dann.
Franz	Wiedersehen!

Vocabulary: Sports and Time — Sport und Zeit
English	German
late	spät
quarter	das Viertel
to (+ hour)	vor (+ hour)
three	drei
to play	spielen
I play	ich spiele
at (+ time)	um (+ time)
soccer	der* Fußball
(to) make; (to) do	machen
you make; you do	du machst
sport(s)	der Sport
lazy	faul
(to) go	gehen
I go	ich gehe
now	jetzt
to (+ place)	nach (+ place)
house	das Haus
home (direction)	nach Hause
at home (place)	zu Hause
but	aber
fun	der Spaß

*The audio recording says "das", but it should be "der".

Sports and Activities

Vocabulary: Sports and activities — Sport und Aktivitäten
English	German
the sport(s)	der Sport
the interests, hobbies, activities	die Hobbys (singular: das Hobby) or das Steckenpferd (-e)
the football/soccer	der Fußball
the American football	der Football (pronounced as in English)
the volleyball	der Volleyball (the Volley- in Volleyball is pronounced as in English)
the basketball	der Basketball
the tennis	das Tennis
the baseball	der Baseball (pronounced as in English)
the 9-pin bowling	das Kegeln
the chess	das Schach
the board game	das Brettspiel
the game	das Spiel
the homework	die Hausaufgaben (usually plural; singular: die Hausaufgabe)
the TV watching	das Fernsehen (the TV: der Fernseher)
the movie	der Film

Section Problems>>

Spielen, Machen and Other Verbs

All three verbs that you were introduced to in Lesson 2 are irregular in some way; however, most verbs are regular verbs. In English, the regular conjugation is very easy: only for the third person singular an "-s" is added to the infinitive ("to see" becomes "he/she/it sees"). Unfortunately, there are more endings in German. The following two tables show the endings for the two regular verbs spielen (to play) and machen (to do; to make):

Verb: to play — spielen
		English		German
singular	1st person	I	play	ich	spiele
	2nd person	you	play	du	spielst
	3rd person	he/she/it	plays	er/sie/es	spielt
plural	1st person	we	play	wir	spielen
	2nd person	you	play	ihr	spielt
	3rd person	they	play	sie	spielen

Verb: to do_make — machen
		English		German
singular	1st person	I	do/make	ich	mache
	2nd person	you	do/make	du	machst
	3rd person	he/she/it	does/makes	er/sie/es	macht
plural	1st person	we	do/make	wir	machen
	2nd person	you	do/make	ihr	macht
	3rd person	they	do/make	sie	machen

As you see, the endings are the same for corresponding forms of spielen and machen. In fact, they are the same for all regular verbs. Thus, you can always just remove the -en from the infinitive of a regular German verb to form the stem (e.g., spielen becomes spiel- and machen becomes mach-) and then add the ending for the particular person. Here is a table with these endings:

Verb: conjugation — Konjugation
		English		German
singular	1st person	I	-	ich	-e
	2nd person	you	-	du	-st
	3rd person	he/she/it	-s	er/sie/es	-t
plural	1st person	we	-	wir	-en
	2nd person	you	-	ihr	-t
	3rd person	they	-	sie	-en*

*The form for you (polite) — Sie is exactly the same as for the plural, 3rd person pronoun they — sie.

Examples

• Was machst du?

What are you doing?

• Ich spiele Basketball.

I'm playing basketball.

• Spielst du Fußball?

Do you play soccer?

• Ich mache Hausaufgaben.

I'm doing homework.

• Er macht Hausaufgaben.

He's doing homework.

• Machst/Treibst du Sport?

Do you play sports?

Note that in English one plays sport, while in German one does sport. You can also use the question words from Lesson 3 to form more combinations:

• Warum spielst du Baseball?

Why do you play baseball?

• Wann machst du die Hausaufgaben?

When do you do the/your homework?

To say "not", use "nicht". "Nicht" goes after the verb but before the sport.

• Wer spielt nicht Fußball?

Who doesn't play soccer?

• Wir spielen nicht Tennis.

We don't play tennis.

Compound Sentences

Vocabulary: Conjunctions — Verbindungen
English	German
and	und
but	aber
or	oder

Both German and English have compound sentences; the applications of these are enormous. They can be used in lists and also in compound sentences. For example,

• Ich spiele Basketball, und er spielt auch Basketball.

I play basketball, and he also plays basketball.

The new word, also — auch is very important. The one grammar rule about auch is that it always comes after the verb.

Section Problems>>

Other Verbs and Their Conjugations

Grammar: Verbs — Verben
English	German
(to) read	lesen
(to) watch	schauen
(to) see	sehen
(to) work	arbeiten
(to) write	schreiben
(to) swim	schwimmen

Schauen, schreiben and schwimmen are all regular verbs; i.e., they follow regular conjugations. To conjugate them, you first remove the -en from the infinitive to form the stem (i.e., schau-, schreib-, and schwimm-), and then add the correct ending. Here is an example:

verb (infinitive)	first step (stem)	conjugated form
schauen	schau-	ich schaue

Arbeiten is an irregular verb; however, it has a simple change. Whenever the ending starts with a consonant, an -e- is added before it. For example, du arbeitest (not du arbeitst). As well as er/sie/es/ihr arbeitet (not er/sie/es/ihr arbeitt).

Lesen is also an irregular verb. For the second and third person singular the form is liest, i.e., du/er/sie/es liest (not du lesst).

Sehen is the last irregular verb. The second person singular is du siehst and the third person singular is er/sie/es sieht.

Section Problems>>

Two More Verb Forms

There are two common verb forms in English that just don't exist in German: the ing-form (or: present progressive); e.g., "I am playing" or "he is making"; and forms with "to do"; e.g., "I do play" or "he does not play".

The simple rule is: these constructions don't exist in German. Thus, you should translate I am playing to ich spiele. Similarly, I do play is also translated to ich spiele. Anything else (ich mache spielen or ich bin spielen) is either not possible in German or has a different meaning.

The phrase I do not play should be translated to ich spiele nicht (literally: I play not) since nicht (not) comes usually after the verb. This may sound like Early Modern English in a play by Shakespeare, and this is no coincidence since German and English are both West Germanic languages.

Section Problems>>

Expressing likes and dislikes

Vocabulary: Expressing likes and dislikes — Vorlieben und Abneigungen ausdrücken
English	German
What do you like to do?	Was machst du gern*?
I like to play.	Ich spiele gerne*.
What do you like to play?	Was spielst du gerne*?
I like to play soccer.	Ich spiele gerne* Fußball.

* gern and gerne can be used interchangeably.

In German, there are several ways to express likes and dislikes; this is just one of them. You can also add other verbs for other activities, e.g., I like to read. — Ich lese gern. or I like to work. — Ich arbeite gern. or I like to watch TV. — Ich schaue gern Fernsehen.

To express preference, you can use lieber instead of gern. For example, I prefer to play basketball. — Ich spiele lieber Basketball. or I prefer to read. — Ich lese lieber.

To express favorite activities, you can use am liebsten (meaning most of all) instead of lieber or gern. For example, Most of all, I like to play chess. — Ich spiele am liebsten Schach.

To express dislikes, you can use nicht gern instead of gern, for example I don't like to swim. — Ich schwimme nicht gern. or I don't like to work. — Ich arbeite nicht gern. or I don't like to play soccer. — Ich spiele nicht gern Fußball.

Section Problems>>

Numbers

Numbers are among the most important and most useful words: we need them to talk about time, amounts, money, etc. Even if you are "just" a tourist, you often cannot avoid numbers. Learning numbers can be a bit of a pain; thus, here is some advice: whenever you have time, count something in German; e.g., steps, cars, people, seconds, whatever: just count.

Vocabulary: Numbers — Zahlen
English	German
zero	null*
one	eins
two	zwei**
three	drei
four	vier
five	fünf
six	sechs
seven	sieben
eight	acht
nine	neun
ten	zehn
eleven	elf
twelve	zwölf
thirteen	dreizehn
fourteen	vierzehn
fifteen	fünfzehn
sixteen	sechzehn
seventeen	siebzehn
eighteen	achtzehn
nineteen	neunzehn
twenty	zwanzig
twenty-one	einundzwanzig*
twenty-two	zweiundzwanzig*
twenty-three	dreiundzwanzig*
24 – 29	analogous to 22 and 23
thirty	dreißig
31 – 39, etc.	analogous to 21 – 29
forty	vierzig
fifty	fünfzig
sixty	sechzig
seventy	siebzig
eighty	achtzig*
ninety	neunzig*
hundred	hundert (or: einhundert)
hundred and one	hunderteins*
two hundred	zweihundert*
thousand	tausend (or: eintausend)
two thousand	zweitausend*

*Some numbers are missing in the audio recording.

**Some people sometimes say zwo instead of zwei in order to distinguishing it more clearly from drei (three), especially on the phone.

Notice the pattern: -teen translates to -zehn, and -ty to -zig.

There is one big problem with the numbers: in German the unit position comes before the tens and is connected by und (and). For example: twenty-three — dreiundzwanzig (literally: threeandtwenty), twenty-four — vierundzwanzig, thirty-five — fünfunddreißig, forty-six — sechsundvierzig, etc.

One exception is eins which becomes ein- in 21, 31, 41, etc.: twenty-one — einundzwanzig (literally: oneandtwenty), thirty-one — einunddreißig, forty-one — einundvierzig, etc.

German is not the only language with this "reverse" order of numbers: Danish (another Germanic language) and Arabic do it the same way. This was also the standard way of forming numbers in older versions of English ("Four and twenty blackbirds/Baked in a pie." w:Sing a Song of Sixpence).

Section Problems>>

What's On the Test

To go straight to the lesson test, go here.

The test will have four parts to it: Grammar (79 points), Translating (95 points), Reading Comprehension (20 points), Vocabulary (20 points), and Previous Topics (10 points) in that order. The Grammar section will test your ability to know the verbs from this lesson and its various versions, to know articles – the genders of them and the correct usage of them, and correct word order.

The Translating section is worth the most points, and it too has three sections. You must know the translations for sentences and phrases going from English to German, and be able to take a German dialogue and translate it back into English. Also you must know the translation from Numbers to German.

The third section, Reading Comprehension, is Comprehension Questions you must know how to read the conversion and after reading you will be asked question on the previous conversion.

The fourth section is a vocabulary section. You get 20 English words on the left and 20 German words on the right, and be asked to match them. To study for that, check out the 401 flashcards related to this lesson at FlashcardExchange.com Part I and FlashcardExchange.com Part II.

The last section, Previous Topics, is a quick review on Lesson 1 to get ready for this section, just look at some past notes or go to Lesson 1 and study. That is the whole test. Take it!