66 Fluency Boosting Phrases for German

Inspired by Olly Richards' list for Spanish. Please feel free to look through it and let me know if there's any mistake. These are aimed at intermediate learners but I think they'll be useful to all who want to practice conversation.

1. Talking About German
1. Über Deutsch reden

#1 I've been learning German for ... (1 year/2 years).
Seit ... (einem Jahr / zwei Jahren) lerne ich Deutsch.

#2 How long have you been learning German?
Wie lange lernst du schon Deutsch?

#3 Pronunciation / Grammar / etc. is the most difficult part for me.
Die Aussprache / Die Grammatik / usw. ist die schwierigste für mich.

#4 How do you say ... in German?
Wie sagt man ... auf Deutsch?

#5 I have forgotten the conjugation for the verb ...
Ich habe die Konjugation des Verbes ... vergessen.

#6 I cannot remember ...
Ich kann mich nicht an ... erinnern.

#7 I prefer to speak only in German, please.
Ich spreche lieber nur auf Deutsch, bitte.

#8 Do you understand what I'm saying?
Verstehst du, was ich sage?

#9 It's difficult for me to understand when you speak very fast.
Es ist schwierig für mich zu verstehen, wenn du sehr schnell sprichst.

#10 I feel like I'm improving every day.
Ich denke/finde/meine/bin der Meinung, dass ich jeden Tag Verbesserung habe.

2. Language Exchanges
2. Sprachaustauch

#11 Can you explain to me how to use the word ... in a sentence?
Kannst du mir erklären, wie benutzt man das Wort ... in einem Satz?

#12 Can you repeat that please?
Kannst du das bitte (noch einmal) wiederholen?

#13 Can you speak a little more slowly please?
Kannst du bitte ein bisschen langsamer sprechen? / Langsamer, bitte?

#14 What does ... mean?
Was bedeutet ...?

#15 Can you write it down / spell it, please?
Kannst du das bitte aufschreiben / buchstabieren?

#16 Can we speak/talk about ...?
Können wir über ... reden?

#17 Can you give me another example?
Kannst du mir ein anderes Beispiel zeigen / geben?

#18 I don't feel comfortable talking about this topic. Can we discuss something else?
Ich bin nicht bequem/angenehm, über dieses Thema zu reden. / Ich möchte nicht über dieses Thema reden. Können wir über etwas anderes reden?

#19 Sorry, I don't understand.
Entschuldige, ich verstehe nicht.

#20 Did I say it correctly? / Does that make sense?
Habe ich es richtig gesagt? / Macht das Sinn?

#21 Can we practice that question / conversation again?
Können wir diese Frage / dieses Gespräch nochmal üben?

#22 Does it make sense?
Macht das Sinn?

#23 What is it about?
Worüber handelt es sich? / Worum geht's?

3. Connecting Phrases
3. Verbindungssätze

#24 Be that as it may.
Trotzdem / Immerhin ... (Nevertheless / Anyway)

#25 I doubt that would happen.
Ich glaube nicht, dass das passieren würde.

#26 So, what happened was ...
Also, was passiert ist, war ...

#27 You don't need to be an expert but ...
Du musst nicht ein Experte / Fachmann sein, aber ...

#28 It only lasts ...
Es dauert nur ...

#29 I forgot to ...
Ich habe ... vergessen.

#30 I'm going to have problems if ...
Ich werde Probleme haben, wenn ...

#31 At the end of the day / In the end, ...
Endlich ...

#32 As soon as possible.
So bald wie möglich.

#33 That's what I thought.
Das ist was ich dachte.

4. Making Conversation
4. Gespräche führen / Sich unterhalten

#34 What type of music do you like?
Was für Musik magst du gern?

#35 How does it sound to you? / How does it seem to you?
Was denkst du daran? / Was hältst du davon? / Wie hat es dir gefallen?

#36 What did you do last weekend?
Was hast du letztes Wochenende gemacht?

#37 Can you help me?
Kannst du mir helfen?

#38 Can you recommend some songs to me?
Kannst du mir einige Songs empfehlen?

#39 What do you like to do in your free time?
Was magst du gern in deiner Freizeit?

#40 What do you do? (What do you work at?)
Was machst du beruflich?

#41 Have you been here / there before?
Warst du schon mal hier / da?

5. Phrases for Responding
5. Sätze für die Beantwortungen

#42 Oh, that's awesome!
Wunderbar / Herrvorragend / Ausgezeichnet / Toll / Super / Geil!

#43 That is all there is to say.
Das ist alles, was man sagen will.

#44 Tell me what you think.
Sag mir, was du denkst / findest / meinst.

#45 I don't care.
Das ist mir Wurst.

#46 Really, is that so?
Ist das so? Wirklich?

#47 Whatever / It's all the same to me.
Das ist mir egal.

#48 No way!
Das geht doch nicht! / Auf keinen Fall!

6. Making Arrangements
6. Verabredungen

#49 I'm in a hurry.
Ich beeile mich. / Ich bin in Eile.

#50 I'm sorry, I'm arriving late.
Entschuldige / Tut mir leid, ich bin zu spät.

#51 I have another engagement / appointment.
Ich habe (schon) einen anderen Termin / eine andere Verabredung.

#52 Today I can't, another day would be better.
Heute kann ich nicht. Ein anderer Tag wäre besser.

#53 Where do you want me to drop you off?
Wo willst du, dass ich dich absetzen / aussteigen lassen / abladen?

#54 What are you going to do today?
Was machst du heute? / Was hast du heute vor?

#55 (At) What time do you have to go?
Um wieviel Uhr musst du gehen?

#56 We're going to go out for a few beers.
Wir gehen aus, Bier zu trinken.

7. Daily Life
7. Alltagsleben

#57 See you!
Auf wiedersehen / wiederhören / wiederschauen!

#58 This weekend was not long enough.
Das Wochenende war zu kurz.

#59 See you later!
Bis später! / Bis bald!

#60 You called the wrong number.
Sie haben sich verwählt.

#61 It's very hot today!
Was für eine Hitze heute!

#62 I had a fun time.
Ich hatte viel Spaß.

#63 How far is it?
Wie weit ist es?

#64 I should have looked more carefully.
Ich hätte das aufpassen sollen.

#65 The balance to pay is ...
Der geschuldete Restbetrag ist ...

#66 I have to apologize.
Ich muss mich entschuldigen.

Lost in Papua: Excerpt Transcript in Indonesian, English, German, and Mandarin

I'm practicing my listening comprehension and translation skills by transcribing dialogue from movies or video clips. Here's a two-minute section from the Indonesian movie "Lost in Papua". Dialogue in Indonesian without subtitles. First I transcribed the dialogue and then translated it into English, German, and Mandarin. 

=====

Lost in Papua

[around 34:00]

Papuan man:

Apa benar kalian akan pergi ke sana?

[Is it true that all of you are going there?]

{Ist es wahr, dass ihr dort fahren werdet?}

你們要去那裡，真的嗎？

Ebie:

Betul, bapa. Saya sendiri yang akan dampingi Nadia, Meri dan Zabo untuk pergi ke hutan itu.

[Yes, "father". I myself will accompany Nadia, Meri and Zabo to go to the jungle.]

{Ja, "Vater". Ich werde Nadia, Meri und Zabo in den Dschungel begleiten.}

對，叔叔。我會陪 Nadia, Meri 和 Zabo 進去森林。

Papuan man:

Saya mengajari kamu tentang etnografi Papua. Juga tentang bahasa dari suku-suku yang ada di pedalaman sana. Tetapi itu tidak berarti bahawa saya juga, yang menyuruh kamu harus pergi ke sana.

[I taught you about Papuan ethnography. Also about the languages of the tribes that exist in the interior. But that doesn't mean that I, am saying that you have to go there.]

{Ich habe dich die Papua-Ethnographie beigebracht. Gleichfalls über die Sprachen der Stämme, dass im Innern wohnen. Aber dann sage ich nicht, dass du dort fahren musst.}

我教過你 Papua 的民族志。還有住在內部的民族語言。但是我沒有說你須要去那裡。

Ebie:

Saya tahu itu, bapa. Tapi sekarang saya sudah cukup dewasa. Saya bertanggungjawab terhadap satu keluarga. Dan kali ini, saya sudah putuskan bahawa saya harus pergi ke sana untuk cari tahu khabar tentang saya punya "Omjohn". Apa lagi sekarang Meri juga ingin pergi ke sana. Saya tidak mungkin biarkan Meri pergi sendiri.

[I know that, "father". But now I'm already an adult. I'm responsible for a family. And this time, I've decided that I must go there to find out news about my "Omjohn". What more now Meri also wants to go there. I can't possibly let Meri go alone.]

{Es weiß ich, "Vater". Aber jetzt bin ich genug erwachsen. Ich bin für eine Familie verantwortlich. Und diesmal habe ich entschieden, dass ich dort fahren muss. Weil ich die Nachrichten über mein "Omjohn" herausfinden will. Außerdem Meri auch dort hinfahren will. Ich kann nicht sie alleine fahren lassen.}

叔叔，我知道。不過現在我夠大了。我對家庭有責任。這一次，我決定要去那裡找我的 Omjohn 的消息。還有 Meri 也要去。我不甘心給她自己去。

Papuan man:

Di dalam hutan Boven Digul itu masih ada mitos. Ada perkampungan yang seluruh penghuninya itu terdiri daripada kaum perempuan. Dan sampai saat ini tidak seorang pun yang pernah lihat mereka. Seperti apa aktivitas hidup mereka, tidak ada yang pernah tahu. Tapi yang pasti, bahawa mereka itu masih hidup sangat primtif. Jadi kalian harus hati-hati apabila kalian pergi ke sana dan bertemu dengan mereka. Sebab, saya tidak tahu apa yang akan terjadi. Sebaiknya kalian tinggal di perkampungan suku Korowai. Kerana di sana kalian akan lebih aman daripada kalian harus hidup di hutan yang masih liar dan misteri ini. Saya pun tidak tahu apa yang akan terjadi. [Pauses, shakes head, stands up and leaves.]

 

[In the Boven Digul jungle there are still myths. There are villages where all the inhabitants are women. And until now (until this second in time) nobody has ever seen them. Such as what their life activities are, nobody has ever known. But for sure, they still live a very primitive life. So all of you must be very careful when you go there and meet them. Because, I don't know what will happen. Best if you stay at the Korowai tribal village. Because there you will be safer (more peaceful) than if you have to live in the wild and mysterious forest. I also don't know what's going to happen.]

{Im Dschungel von Boven Digul gibt es noch Mythos. Es gibt Dörfer, wo alle Einwohner weiblich sind. Niemand hat bisher schon mal gesehen. Zum Beispiel, was sind ihre Lebensaktivitäten, niemand weiß. Aber sicher leben sie immer noch ein sehr primitives Leben. Also müsst ihr vorsichtig sein, wenn ihr dort fahrt, und mit ihnen trifft. Weil ich weiß nicht, was passieren wird. Am besten bleibt ihr im Dorf von die Korowai-Stamm. Weil dort ihr mehr sicher seid als im wilden und geheimnisvollen Dschungel wohnen. Ich weiß nicht, was passieren wird.}

在 Boven Digul 森林還有神話。有鄉村，居民全部是女性。到現在沒有人看過她們。不過好限定，她們的生活還是很落後。所以你們去那裡認識她們一定要很小心。因為我不知道什麼會發生。最好你們住在 Korowai 族的鄉村。因為哪裡你們會比較安全過住在野蠻和秘密的森林。我不知道什麼會發生。 

Extensive Reading and Vocabulary Range

[From a presentation by Dr Alexander Arguelles]

Types of Reading

. Intensive reading - assisted reading of relatively short, relatively difficult texts, usually for instrumental purposes - initial comprehension is less than 98% vocabulary coverage

. Extensive reading - unassisted reading of long and relatively easy texts, usually for pleasure [and vocabulary growth] - initial lexical comprehension must be around 98%

Non-lexical factors that affect reading comprehension include:

. Grammatical constructions

. Idiomatic constructions

. Reading speed

. Knowledge of content or familiarity with the subject matter

. Knowledge of cultural or historical references

. Stylistic considerations (clarity, sentence length, use of complex clauses etc.)

Defining the word "word"

. "Word" in the sense of the absolute number of units of letter combinations in a text = a "word token"

. "Word" in the sense of the number of different combinations of letters among the tokens in a text = a "word type"

. Example: The sentence, "The cat ate the mouse," contains five word tokens but four word types as the word "the" occurs twice.

. "Word" in the sense of something that you can look up in a dictionary = "headword" or "lemma". Lemmata include not only their base form, but also their inflexions. Thus, most lemmata contain several word types.

. Example: "Book" contains "books," "man" contains "men", "be" contains "am", "is", "are", "was", "were", "been", and "being".

. "Word" in the sense of a fundamental unit of lexical knowledge that allows you to recognize and understand not only inflected forms of a headword, but also related derived forms = a "word family". Many if not most word families contain several lemmata:

. Example: "accept" includes not only "accepts", "accepted", and "accepting", but also "acceptance", "acceptability", "acceptable", "unacceptable", "acceptably", and "unacceptably".

Knowing a word

. Active knowledge = a person speaks or writes a word naturally and spontaneously

. Passive knowledge = a person recognizes, understands, and may even be able to explain a word, but does not use it spontaneously

. Guessing knowledge = a person derives the meaning of a word from contextual clues

. Reading vocabulary knowledge = active + passive + guessing

How many words does a person know?

. Take the vocabulary size test: http://my.vocabularysize.com

. Cervatiuc: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Cervatiuc-VocabularyAcquisition.html

Word Frequency Lists

. Breaking vocabulary into 1000's

. The 1st 1000 word families of most common words give ~80% text coverage

. The 2nd 1000 word families provide additional ~7%

. The 3rd 1000 word families provide additional ~3%

. ∴ the first 3000 words provide ~90% coverage

. Thereafter, the percent coverage provided by each thousand decreases rapidly and geometrically:

. the 4th thousand family provides an average 2%

. the 6th, 1%

. the 8th, 0.50%

. the 10th, 0.36%

. the 12th, 0.25%

. the 14th, 0.14%

Considerations

. With 3000 words, one can begin to function;

. With that plus a specialized list such as the 570-word Academic Word List (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~alzsh3/acvocab/index.htm), one can begin specialized studies

. With ~6000, one has 98% coverage of spoken language and with ~8000, close to 100% conversational coverage, but

. Written comprehension only begins at 8000-9000: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/Publications/paul-nation/2006-How-large-a-vocab.pdf

. ∴ obviously, lower frequency words are much more common in writing than in speech, and so they can be acquired only by reading

Learning Lower Frequency Words

. The lower the frequency of a word, the harder it is to learn.

. While 98% textual comprehension of books may be provided by the first 9000 words on average, the remaining 2% for 100% coverage is made up of lower frequency families.

. While the 98% textual comprehension provided by higher frequency lists is relatively homogenous, the 2% provided by the lower frequency families is much more diverse.

. In other words, while one may be able to read a given individual book with 99% comprehension at 12,000-14,000 families, in order to be able to pick up and read a variety of different kinds of books at that level, one needs a native range vocabulary (17,000+)

. ∴ the only way to develop an extensive vocabulary is to engage in the systemic extensive reading of progressively more challenging texts.

. As graded readers rarely go past a few thousand words, a language resource learning center for continued advanced development ought to have lists if not actual libraries of books organized by levels of word families that make them appropriate for vocabulary growth through extensive reading.

[Extracted from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbYMZZISPrU]

Sarakku In Malaysian Tamil சரக்கு

One of the first Tamil words I picked up was "sarakku சரக்கு". It means goods, commodity, or merchandise. It could refer to items in a shop, products being imported, or things being traded.

But only in Malaysia (and Singapore) the meaning has changed. In colloquial speech "sarakku" also means "girl" or "girls" as in "kaaleej sarakku" (college girls) or "anda kilaable romba sarakku irukku" (lots of girls in that club). You could say "Are you trying to hit on some random 'sarakku'?"

Strangely, guys aren't referred to as "sarakku". It's only one way. "sarakku" is strictly for referring to "pomblei" (colloquial pronunciation of "peNpiLLai", the Tamil word for girl). Guys are "amblei" (colloquial pronunciation of "aaNpiLLai").

Tamils from India, Sri Lanka, and outside Malaysia soon learn from the locals this other meaning of "sarakku". But formal writing and speaking still maintain the original meaning of "sarakku", which is goods. So you won't hear a news broadcast or public speech using "sarakku" to refer to girls, and neither will a sentence in a Tamil book, magazine, or newspaper.