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German/Week 6

Questions: directions, prices, times

Magenta week. Seven question words — six of which conveniently begin with W.

Colours live this week

10 of 10 in play
Noun

A thing, a person or a place.

Verb

An action or a state — what is happening.

Adjective

Describes a noun.

Adverb

Modifies a verb or an adjective.

Article

the / a / some — and possessives like mon, ma.

Pronoun

Stands in for a noun — I, you, he, it.

Preposition

Links words together — to, in, of, for.

Conjunction

Joins two parts of a sentence.

Question word

Opens a question — where, when, how, why.

Fixed chunk

Learn it whole. Do not take it apart.

Direction phrases stay as grey chunks. Links is one unit — you will never need to take it apart.

The question words

Almost all of them start with W, which makes them unusually easy to collect. And in a question the verb comes straight after: Wo ist…?

  • Wo?Where?
    Wo ist der Bahnhof?Where is the station?
  • Wann?When?
  • Wie?How?
    Wie geht es Ihnen?How are you?
  • Warum?Why?
  • Wer?Who?

    Wer is who, and wo is where — the opposite of what an English speaker expects.

  • Wie viel?How much?
    Wie viel kostet das?How much does that cost?
  • Welcher / Welche / WelchesWhich?
    Welche Farbe?Which colour?

    The only question word that carries gender — it agrees with the noun that follows.

Wer is who, wo is where

German wer means who and German wo means where. Both look like near-misses of the English words for the other one, and both catch every English speaker at least once. Learn them as a pair, deliberately, out loud: wer ist das, wo ist das.

Asking directions

All chunks. Say them whole.

  • [Wo ist… ?]Where is…?
  • [links]on the left
  • [rechts]on the right
  • [geradeaus]straight on
  • [neben]next to
  • [gegenüber]opposite
  • [in der Nähe von]near to
  • [weit von]far from
  • [ich suche…]I'm looking for…

Prices, times and opening hours

  • Wie viel kostet das?How much does that cost?
  • [Was kostet das?]What does that cost?

    Interchangeable, and slightly more common.

  • [Das ist zu teuer]That's too expensive
  • Wie spät ist es?What time is it?

    Literally how late is it.

  • Um wie viel Uhr?At what time?
  • geöffnet / offenopen
    Das Café ist geöffnet.The café is open.
  • geschlossenclosed
    Die Bank ist geschlossen.The bank is closed.

One place German adjectives do not change

Das Café ist geöffnet, die Bank ist geschlossen, der Kaffee ist gut. When an adjective sits after the verb sein it takes no ending at all, whatever the gender. That is why these carry no gender style — there is genuinely nothing to show. Adjectives only take endings when they sit in front of a noun, and that is a Phase 3 problem, not this week's.

Sentence frames

  1. 1

    Ich suche den Bahnhof.

    I'm looking for the station.

    Den, not der — the station is the object of suche.

  2. 2

    Wo ist die Apotheke?

    Where is the pharmacy?

  3. 3

    Was kostet das?

    What does that cost?

Daily mini-tasks

Listening this week

Nico's Weg A1 — the shopping and directions episodes

Deutsche Welle

Short scenes with transcripts and exercises. The directions episode is pitched almost exactly here.