A real task, and everything reviewed
No new grammar. One real thing done in German, and a look back over ninety days.
Colours live this week
10 of 10 in playA thing, a person or a place.
An action or a state — what is happening.
Describes a noun.
Modifies a verb or an adjective.
the / a / some — and possessives like mon, ma.
Stands in for a noun — I, you, he, it.
Links words together — to, in, of, for.
Joins two parts of a sentence.
Opens a question — where, when, how, why.
Learn it whole. Do not take it apart.
Consolidation only. If a colour still surprises you this week, that is what the review deck is for.
Task one — read a menu
Read it aloud, line by line. Look for the orange nouns, which are the food — and remember that every capital letter mid-sentence is one.
Tageskarte
Vorspeisen
Tomatensalattomato salad
Suppe des Tagessoup of the day
Hauptgerichte
Schnitzel mit Pommesschnitzel with chips
Fisch mit Gemüsefish with vegetables
Nachspeisen
Käsecheese
Apfelkuchenapple cake
Getränke
Kaffee / Teecoffee / tea
Ein Glas Weina glass of wine
Reading a German menu
German builds long words by gluing short ones together, and a menu is where you see it most: Tomatensalat is tomato-salad, Apfelkuchen is apple-cake, Tageskarte is day-card. Read a long word by looking for the joins. The gender always comes from the last piece — der Salat, so der Tomatensalat. That rule never fails, and it is one of the genuinely reliable things in German.
Task two — a friendly message
A template to adapt. Change the name and the plan and it is yours.
[Hallo] name,
[mir geht es gut].
Morgen besuche ich das Museum.
Und Ihnen?
[Bis bald], name
Hello ___, I'm well. Tomorrow I'm visiting the museum. And you? See you soon, ___
Task two, continued — booking by message
The second template. Swap the number, the day and the time.
[Guten Tag], ich möchte einen Tisch für zwei Personen reservieren,
[heute Abend] um zwanzig Uhr. [Vielen Dank].
Good day, I would like to book a table for two people, this evening at 8pm. Many thanks.
Task three — booking a table, out loud
Practise both sides. Notice that reservieren waits at the end of your first line, behind everything else.
You[Guten Tag], ich möchte einen Tisch für zwei Personen reservieren.
RestaurantUm wie viel Uhr?
YouUm zwanzig Uhr, [bitte].
Restaurant[Alles klar]. [Bis heute Abend].
You[Vielen Dank], [auf Wiedersehen].
— Good day, I'd like to book a table for two people. — At what time? — At 8pm, please. — All clear. See you this evening. — Many thanks, goodbye.
Telling the time, and eating early
Um zwanzig Uhr — at twenty hundred. The 24-hour clock is standard for anything booked, and Uhr never takes a plural. Be ready for German hours: dinner at seven is entirely normal and many kitchens stop serving by half past nine, which is the opposite of Spain.
The three milestones, checked
Daily mini-tasks
After Day 90
Keep the reviews going. Items sitting at the 60 and 90-day intervals still have reviews due, and skipping them is how ninety days of work quietly evaporates. Then add one social session a week. German is the hardest of these four to start and the most orderly once started — the rules that felt punishing in Week 5 are the same rules that make Week 30 predictable.
Listening this week
A restaurant or hotel scene — Easy German, or a German drama
YouTube or a streaming service
You now have the vocabulary to follow a good deal of it. Watch something you have already seen in English if that helps.
Milestone
By the end of this week you should be able to:
- 01Talk about your hobbies, your health and your opinions using gern, mögen and the opinion frames.
- 02Follow the gist of a two-minute German clip using the three-step method, including holding a sentence until its final verb.
- 03Deliver a five-minute monologue on the five-part scaffold, with discourse markers, without correcting yourself mid-sentence.
- 04Complete a real task in German — read a menu, write a message, or book a table.