Coffee Break German

Lesson 26
Study Notes

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 1 of 23

LESSON NOTES

WARUM SIND SIE HIER IN DEUTSCHLAND?

In this lesson you’ll learn to talk more about your family and to talk
about why you’re visiting Germany, or indeed Austria or Switzerland!
You’ll also learn more about how the indefinite article and possessive
adjectives work in the nominative, accusative and dative cases.

WAS LERNEN WIR HEUTE?

In the introduction to this lesson, Mark asks the question:

was lernen wir heute?

what are we learning today?

Thomas responds by saying that we are learning to talk about

ourselves:

wir lernen über uns selbst zu sprechen

we’re learning to talk about ourselves

Note the word order here, with the infinitive coming at the end of the
phrase.

Thomas: Herzlich Willkommen zurück zu Coffee Break German.

Mark: Was lernen wir heute?
Thomas: Wir lernen über uns selbst zu sprechen.
Mark: Lass uns anfangen!
Thomas: Los geht’s!

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 2 of 23

TALKING MORE ABOUT YOURSELF
As you make progress in your learning of German you will find that
the ability to talk about yourself, your family, job and interests will
provide the perfect opportunity to engage in conversation with native
speakers.

In this lesson you’re going to develop your language skills in this

area. To begin the lesson, Thomas tests Mark on some expressions
learned earlier in the course:

ich heiße ...

my name is ... / I’m called ...

ich komme aus Deutschland

I come from Germany

ich bin aus Deutschland

I am from Germany

ich wohne in Edinburg

I live in Edinburgh

Thomas introduces a new verb, leben, which means “to live”. Note
the difference between leben and wohnen:

wohnen
to live, in the sense of being resident somewhere

leben
to live, in the sense of being alive

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 3 of 23

das Leben
life

ich lebe in Edinburg

I live in Edinburgh

Das ist meine Mutter. Sie heißt Daniela.

That is my mother. She’s called Daniela.

Mark suggests that we can take the idea of speaking about your
family a bit further:

ich habe einen Sohn

I have a son

Note the accusative einen Sohn in this example. In the following

example, eine Tochter is also in the accusative, although we don’t
see any difference to the nominative because Tochter is feminine
and the indefinite article is eine in both the nominative and the
accusative.

ich habe eine Tochter

I have a daughter

ich habe eine Schwester

I have a sister

You may have more than one son, daughter, sister, etc. The plural
forms of these words are formed differently. See the table opposite
for the full list.

Note that with some words (Tochter, Bruder and Sohn) the plural
involves the addition of an umlaut, as in Töchter, Brüder and
Söhne. However, this is not always the case. As usual we would

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 4 of 23

encourage you to learn the plural forms of nouns when you learn the
singular.

Thomas then challenges Mark to translate the following sentence:

Ich habe drei Kinder, einen Sohn und zwei Töchter.

I have three children, one son and two daughters.

Note here that einen Sohn is still in the accusative case, even
though it does not immediately follow ich habe ...

INTRODUCING FAMILY MEMBERS

As we have previously seen, we can use er heißt or sie heißt to
introduce members of our family:

mein Sohn heißt Simon

my son is called Simon

meine Tochter heißt Anna

my daughter is called Anna

To say “they are called”, you use sie heißen...:

meine Töchter heißen Anna und Rachel

my daughters are called Anna and Rachel

Your friends may ask you if you have children:

haben Sie Kinder?

do you have children? (formal)

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 5 of 23

hast du Kinder?
do you have children? (informal)

wie heißen sie?

what are they called?

Remember that when sie means “they” it does not have a capital
letter. When Sie means “you” in the formal form it starts with a
capital letter, as in haben Sie Kinder?

In response to the question, Thomas and Mark answer as follows:

ich habe zwei Söhne, sie heißen Daniel und Jürgen

I have two sons. They’re called Daniel and Jürgen.

ich habe zwei Söhne, aber ich habe keine Tochter

I have two sons, but I don’t have a daughter.

Remember kein(e) is used when you are talking about something

you don’t have.

TALKING ABOUT WHY YOU’RE IN GERMANY/

AUSTRIA/SWITZERLAND
As you continue your conversation with a friendly native speaker, you
may be asked:

warum sind Sie hier in Deutschland?

why are you here in Germany? (formal)

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 6 of 23

warum bist du in Deutschland?
why are you in Germany? (informal)

was machen Sie hier in Österreich?

what are you doing here in Austria?

was machst du hier in Österreich?

what are you doing here in Austria?

Some possible answers to this question could include:

ich bin hier im Urlaub

I am here on holiday

The word der Urlaub means “holiday” or “vacation”. Note also im

which is the shortened form of in dem.

You can also give additional details by explaining who you’re

travelling with:

ich bin hier mit meiner Familie im Urlaub

I’m here on holiday with my family

Remember that mit takes the dative case: mit meiner Familie.
You will see further examples of this below:

ich bin hier mit meinem Sohn im Urlaub

I’m here on holiday with my son

ich bin hier mit meiner Tochter

I’m here with my daughter

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 7 of 23

The word for “wife” is the same as the word for “woman”: die Frau.
Likewise, “husband” and “man” are both translated by der Mann.

ich bin hier mit meiner Frau

I’m here with my wife

ich bin hier mit meinem Mann

I’m here with my husband.

You may also want to explain that you’re here for work:

ich bin hier zum Arbeiten

I’m here for work

This phrase suggests that you are on a business trip, rather than that
you work in Germany, Austria or Switzerland. Compare the following
phrase:

ich arbeite hier

I work here / I’m working here

This suggests more that you are spending an extended period of time
working in the country.

Another possibility could be that you’re studying here:

ich studiere hier

I’m studying here

So far we’ve looked only at using the first person singular forms of
the verbs: ich bin, ich arbeite, ich studiere. However, if you’ve
said ich bin hier mit meiner Familie then you should use the wir
forms:

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 8 of 23

wir arbeiten hier
we are working here

wir studieren hier

we are studying here

wir sind hier im Urlaub

we are here on holiday

Another common situation is that you may be travelling to visit a

friend. The verb “to visit” is besuchen:

ich besuche einen Freund

I’m visiting a friend

Note the accusative indefinite article here. You will also notice that
when you say “I am visiting my friend” you also need to use the
accusative case for the possessive adjective mein(e):

ich besuche meinen Freund

I’m visiting my friend.

Our Gramar Guru will now explain this concept further.

GRAMMAR GURU

Ok Mark, I’m back here with Daniel (hallo

zusammen), and we’re going to see if we can
make all of these accusatives and datives a little
easier for you.
So far, we've covered the nominative, accusative

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 9 of 23

 and dative forms of the definite articles, and the nominative and
accusative forms of the indefinite articles. Today, we'll go through the
dative forms of the indefinite articles, as well as looking at possessive
adjectives, which are the words for “my” “your”, “his” etc.

In fact, the possessive adjectives and indefinite articles have the same
endings. So, just as the nominative forms of the indefinite articles were
ein, eine, ein, the possessive forms would be mein, meine, mein,
and in the accusative, we'd have einen, eine, ein and meinen,
meine, mein. Remember, as with definite articles and other
adjectives, in the accusative, it's only the masculine form that changes.

NOMINATIVE ACCUSATIVE
INDEFINTE POSSESSIVE INDEFINTE POSSESSIVE
ARTICLE ADJECTIVE ARTICLE ADJECTIVE

MASC ein mein einen meinen

FEM eine meine eine meine

NEUT ein mein ein mein

In the dative, however, all of the endings change, but they follow the
same patterns that we had with the other dative forms. We add -m to
the masculine, -r to the feminine and -m to the neuter, giving us
einem/meinem, einer/meiner and einem/meinem.

DATIVE

INDEFINTE ARTICLE POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE

MASC einem meinem

FEM einer meiner

NEUT einem meinem

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 10 of 23

 Let's go through that once more with some examples. So, to say that
you are visiting a friend, you would say ich besuche einen Freund/
eine Freundin, or equally, I'm visiting my friend would be ich
besuche meinen Freund/meine Freundin. Here, the indefinite
articles and possessive adjectives have to be put into the accusative case
because they are the objects of the sentence. Then, to say that you are
here with a friend, you'd say ich bin hier mit einem Freund/einer
Freundin or I'm here with my friend, ich bin hier mit meinem
Freund/meiner Freundin - the preposition mit requires us to put
the indefinite article or the possessive adjective into the dative case.

Up until now, we've only really worked with the possessive adjective for
“my”. But we can take what we know about “my” in the masculine,
feminine and neuter versions for each case and apply it to the words for
“your” “his” “her” “our” and so on. The full table can be found overleaf.
In the meantime, here are a couple of examples.

Consider these examples:

Er besucht seinen Freund
He is visiting his friend
Freund is masculine and it’s the accusative case – den Freund, and
therefore sein, the word for “his”, becomes seinen.

Sie ist hier mit ihrem Mann.

She is here with her husband.
Mann is masculine and the preposition mit means we need to put “her
husband” into the dative case: mit ihrem Mann.

We hope that clears up any confusion you might have had with the
possessive adjectives and all of those cases.

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 11 of 23

 A MY YOUR HIS HER OUR YOUR THEIR YOUR
(SING) PLURAL FORMAL

MASC ein mein dein sein ihr unser euer ihr Ihr
NOMINATIVE

FEM eine meine deine seine ihre unsere eure ihre Ihre

NEUTER ein mein dein sein ihr unser euer ihr Ihr

PLURAL meine deine seine ihre unsere eure ihre Ihre

MASC einen meinen deinen seinen ihren unseren euren ihren Ihren
ACCUSATIVE

FEM eine meine deine seine ihre unsere eure ihre Ihre

NEUTER ein mein dein sein ihr unser euer ihr Ihr

PLURAL meine deine seine ihre unsere eure ihre Ihre

MASC einem meinem deinem seinem ihrem unserem eurem ihrem Ihrem

FEM einer meiner deiner seiner ihrer unserer eurer ihrer Ihrer
DATIVE

NEUTER einem meinem deinem seinem ihrem unserem eurem ihrem Ihrem

PLURAL meinen deinen seinen ihren unseren euren ihren Ihren

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 12 of 23

PUTTING IT ALL TO THE TEST
Thomas tests Mark on the language covered so far in this lesson with
a translation challenge.

ich bin hier mit meiner Frau und wir besuchen

einen Freund
I’m here with my wife and we are visiting a friend

Note that mit takes the dative - meiner Frau and the verb
besuchen requires an accusative.

If you are talking about a female friend, you need to use the feminine
form of “friend”:

eine Freundin
a (female) friend

The words Freund and Freundin can be used to talk about both a
friend and a boy- or girlfriend. If you specify das ist mein Freund
or das ist meine Freundin it’s likely that you’re saying “this/that
is my boy/girlfriend”.

TALKING ABOUT AGES

You may be asked “how old is (your son)?”

wie alt ist dein Sohn?

how old is your son?

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 13 of 23

wie alt ist deine Tochter?
how old is your daughter?

Note here that we are using the informal form of “your”. For the
formal “your”, use the following expressions and note the word for
“your” begins with a capital letter:

wie alt ist Ihr Sohn / Ihre Tochter?

how old is your son / daughter? (formal)

To answer the question, you can use the following phrase:

er ist zwölf Jahre alt

he is twelve years old

Equally, you can leave out Jahre alt:

er ist zwölf
he is twelve

ich bin zwölf (Jahre alt)

I’m twelve (years old)

sie sind zwölf und dreizehn Jahre alt

they are twelve and thirteen years old

This will be covered in more detail in a future lesson, but Thomas

introduces the concept of talking about birthdays towards the end of
this lesson:

mein Sohn hat am fünfzehnten Mai Geburtstag

my son’s birthday is on the 15th of May

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 14 of 23

CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT
Julia continues her tour of German cities, this week in Berlin.

Hallo alle zusammen. Ich bin’s wieder,

Julia, eure Kulturkorrespondentin. This
time we come back to my home town Berlin. I
know what you’re thinking – we’ve already
heard about Berlin… Of course I’m biased
because I love this city! Our earlier episode
was more about the history of the city – and
indeed of the country – I’m now going to tell
you more about interesting places to visit
here in a new episode of “Top five things to do
and see”.

I’ll start with the two most famous monuments we have. First, The
Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) can be seen as one of
Germany’s most visited landmarks. During the 300 years of its
existence it has played different roles in history. But since 1989 it
has been a symbol for the reunification of Germany. Ronald
Reagan said his famous words standing here: “Mr. Gorbachev,
open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”. You can find
a clip of this famous speech on YouTube by tapping on this link.

The second very famous landmark you might even see from the
plane when landing in Berlin is the city’s tallest building, the
Fernsehturm (TV Tower) in the East of the city at
Alexanderplatz. In fact it’s not only Berlin’s tallest building, but
the tallest building in the whole of Germany! It might be a good
idea to start your trip through the capital by going all the way up
to the visitor’s platform. You can enjoy a meal in the restaurant on
top – and you’ll get the perfect view over all of Berlin without even
having to move, because the platform itself rotates once every 30
minutes.

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 15 of 23

 THE REICHSTAG

Another interesting building is the Reichstag, meeting place of

the German parliament. At the top of the building there’s a huge
glass dome from where you have another incredible view over the
city and can also watch the German politicians at work.

Afterwards, you can visit some of Germany’s most famous

museums and galleries, most of which can be found on the
Museumsinsel, Museum Island, situated in the river Spree that
runs through the city. This brings me to another interesting fact
about Berlin. Did you know that Germany’s capital is home to
more bridges than Venice? That’s hard to imagine but it’s true.
There’s water everywhere in and around Berlin with several
rivers, canals and lakes. So why not discover the city from the
water by taking a boat or cycling around the many lakes nearby.

I hope I’ve been able to encourage you to come and visit Berlin.
Zurück zu Thomas und Mark ins Studio. Tschüss und bis
zum nächsten Mal!

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 16 of 23

DAS REICHT FÜR HEUTE

Ready for more? Turn the page to continue with the

bonus materials for this lesson.

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 17 of 23

CORE VOCABULARY
ich heiße ...
my name is ... / I’m called ...

ich komme aus Deutschland

I come from Germany

ich bin aus Deutschland

I am from Germany

ich wohne in Edinburg

I live in Edinburgh

wohnen
to live, in the sense of being resident somewhere

leben
to live, in the sense of being alive

das Leben
life

ich lebe in Edinburg

I live in Edinburgh

ich habe einen Sohn

I have a son

ich habe eine Tochter

I have a daughter

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 18 of 23

ich habe eine Schwester
I have a sister

mein Sohn heißt Simon

my son is called Simon

meine Tochter heißt Anna

my daughter is called Anna

meine Töchter heißen Anna und Rachel

my daughters are called Anna and Rachel

haben Sie Kinder?

do you have children? (formal)

hast du Kinder?
do you have children? (informal)

wie heißen sie?

what are they called?

ich habe zwei Söhne, sie heißen Daniel und Jürgen

I have two sons. They’re called Daniel and Jürgen.

ich habe zwei Söhne, aber ich habe keine Tochter

I have two sons, but I don’t have a daughter.

warum sind Sie hier in Deutschland?

why are you here in Germany? (formal)

warum bist du in Deutschland?

why are you in Germany? (informal)

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 19 of 23

was machen Sie hier in Österreich?
what are you doing here in Austria?

was machst du hier in Österreich?

what are you doing here in Austria?

ich bin hier im Urlaub

I am here on holiday

ich bin hier mit meiner Familie im Urlaub

I’m here on holiday with my family

ich bin hier mit meinem Sohn im Urlaub

I’m here on holiday with my son

ich bin hier mit meiner Tochter

I’m here with my daughter

ich bin hier mit meiner Frau

I’m here with my wife

ich bin hier mit meinem Mann

I’m here with my husband.

ich bin hier zum Arbeiten

I’m here for work

ich arbeite hier

I work here / I’m working here

ich studiere hier

I’m studying here

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 20 of 23

wir arbeiten hier
we are working here

wir studieren hier

we are studying here

wir sind hier im Urlaub

we are here on holiday

ich besuche einen Freund

I’m visiting a friend

ich besuche meinen Freund

I’m visiting my friend.

ein Freund
a (male) friend

eine Freundin
a (female) friend

wie alt ist dein Sohn?

how old is your son?

wie alt ist deine Tochter?

how old is your daughter?

wie alt ist Ihr Sohn / Ihre Tochter?

how old is your son / daughter? (formal)

er ist zwölf Jahre alt

he is twelve years old

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 21 of 23

er ist zwölf
he is twelve

ich bin zwölf (Jahre alt)

I’m twelve (years old)

sie sind zwölf und dreizehn Jahre alt

they are twelve and thirteen years old

mein Sohn hat am fünfzehnten Mai Geburtstag

my son’s birthday is on the 15th of May

BONUS VOCABULARY
ich bin hier um mein Deutsch zu verbessern
I’m here to improve my German

wir sind hier um unser Deutsch zu verbessern

we are here to improve our German

wir sind hier...

we are here...

um zu arbeiten
(in order) to work

um zu fischen
(in order) to fish

um zu segeln
(in order) to sail

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 22 of 23

um einen Freund zu besuchen
(in order) to visit a friend

um die Berge zu fotografieren

(in order) to take photos of the mountains

um ein Auto zu kaufen

(in order) to buy a car

Coffee Break German: Lesson 26 - Notes page 23 of 23