Your own life: hobbies, health and opinions

Phase 3 stops teaching structures and starts using them. German has a neat trick for talking about what you enjoy.

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.

Adverbs of degree — sehr, gut, schlecht — are gold. Possessives stay grey with the gender style.

Gern is the word that does the work

German rarely says I like doing something. It says I do it gladly: Ich lese gern — I read gladly, meaning I like reading. Add the gold adverb gern to any verb and you have said you enjoy it. For nouns, use mögen: Ich mag Musik. And to say you love it, gern becomes sehr gern, or lieben for something you truly love. One tiny word replaces a whole construction — and it needs no backwards grammar, unlike Spanish gustar or Italian piacere.

Hobbies and interests

Pick the five that are actually true of you and drill only those.

der Sportsport
Ich mag Sport.I like sport.
No article after mag here — German drops it for things in general.
die Musikmusic
Ich höre gern Musik.I like listening to music.
lesento read
Ich lese gern.I like reading.
die Gartenarbeitgardening
kochento cook
Ich koche gern.I like cooking.
reisento travel
die Fotografiephotography
das Kinothe cinema
Ich gehe gern ins Kino.I like going to the cinema.
das Fernsehentelevision
Ich sehe gern fern.I like watching TV.
Fernsehen splits in a sentence: ich sehe fern. A separable verb — the front half goes to the end.
spazieren gehento go for a walk
Ich gehe gern spazieren.I like going for walks.

Saying what you enjoy

Mögen for nouns, gern for activities. Both are gentler than wollen, which means want rather than like.

Verb	ichreviewed	Sie
mögento like (a thing)	mag	mögen
gernto like (doing something)	… gern	… gern
liebento love	liebe	lieben
bevorzugento prefer	bevorzuge	bevorzugen

Only the ich column becomes a review card. The rest are there to be recognised, not produced — which is what keeps a day inside its fifteen minutes.

Health

[Mir geht es gut]I'm well
Literally to me it goes well. A fixed chunk — do not dissect it.
[Mir geht es schlecht]I'm unwell
Ich habe KopfschmerzenI have a headache
Schmerzen means pains, and it attaches to the body part: Kopfschmerzen, Rückenschmerzen, Zahnschmerzen.
der Arzt / die Ärztinthe doctor
krankill
Ich bin krank.I am ill.
No ending after sein, as in Week 6.
müdetired
Ich bin müde.I am tired.
[ich ruhe mich aus]I'm resting
Another separable verb — sich ausruhen. Take it whole for now.

Where it hurts

Each one glues onto -schmerzen to make a compound noun, which is very German and very convenient.

der Kopfthe head
Kopfschmerzena headache
die Handthe hand
das Beinthe leg
der Bauchthe stomach
Bauchschmerzenstomach ache
der Rückenthe back
Rückenschmerzenbackache
der Armthe arm
die Zähnethe teeth
Zahnschmerzentoothache
Der Zahn in the singular, die Zähne in the plural — every plural takes die, whatever the gender.

Opinions

[ich denke, dass…]I think that…
[Ich denke, dass] Reisen interessant ist.I think travel is interesting.
Dass behaves like weil — it sends the verb to the end.
[ich finde, dass…]I find that…
[meiner Meinung nach]in my opinion
[Meiner Meinung nach] ist es gut.In my opinion, it's good.
Starts the sentence, so the verb comes straight after.
das Problemthe problem

Dass sends the verb to the end too

Ich denke, dass Reisen interessant ist. In English the verb sits in the middle; in German dass pushes it to the back, exactly like weil in Week 8. If you find yourself stuck, drop the dass: Ich denke, Reisen ist interessant is perfectly correct German and leaves the order alone. Use that escape hatch freely while you are building fluency.

Sentence frames

1
Ich lese / koche / reise gern.
I like reading / cooking / travelling.
2
Ich habe Kopfschmerzen.
I have a headache.
3
[Meiner Meinung nach] ist es interessant.
In my opinion, it's interesting.

Substitution drill — what you enjoy

Rotate the verb through the frame. Gern always lands straight after the conjugated verb.

Ich lese gern.

I like ___ing.

Daily mini-tasks

Listening this week

Easy German — street interviews about hobbies

YouTube

Real speech at real speed. Do not expect to catch everything — catch the hobbies, and listen for how often gern turns up.