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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 56 episodes

30 To Be in German

2024-04-04 22 min

Description & Show Notes

This Episode of the Better German Podcast covers the different forms of the verb 'to be' in German, providing examples and explanations for each form. You will also hear about gender in German nouns and get information about resources for learning the language with ease.

The good news is that you don’t need to memorize thousands of words or master endless grammar rules. In the Better German Community, we teach German in a clear, simple way—so it actually works.

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Summary
Welcome to the Better German podcast! In this 30th episode, we delve into the forms of the English word "to be" in German, covering "I am, you are," and more. Host Susi Blumel (Susi Schilk-Blümel) underscores the importance of providing accessible German learning materials and the joy of making the language easier to learn. With an ongoing commitment to creating a range of resources, including the upcoming Better German Academy, Susi encourages new listeners to start from the beginning and engage with the downloadable PDFs in the Better German Community. Her energetic teaching style shines through as she walks through key German expressions and explores the nuances of gender-specific nouns. Join us on this enlightening journey to master German with ease, and be sure to stay tuned for additional learning resources and episodes. Subscribe, share, and leave a review to support our mission of making German learning enjoyable for everyone!

Key Topics Explored🔎

Primary Topic: Introduction 
  • Purpose of the podcast and the Better German Academy
  • Suggestion for new listeners to start from the beginning
Primary Topic: Forms of "to be" in German
  • Introduction to the basic forms of "to be" in German
  • Explanation of gender importance in German language
  • Importance of learning genders for nouns
  • Demonstrative practice of different forms of "to be" with examples
  • Explanation of the importance of accompanying articles or gender pronouns
Primary Topic: Vocabulary practice with "to be" in German
  • Practice German to be with easy German words (that are all translated)
  • Practice sentences with translation and repetition
  • Explanation of the difficulty of demonstrating practice in a podcast format
Primary Topic: Related Episodes and Resources
  • Recommendations for other relevant podcast episodes
  • Accessibility to podcast episodes on different platforms
  • Shortcuts to find specific episodes on the Better German website
  • Encouragement to continue learning through various resources
  • Call to action to leave reviews and spread the word about the podcast and its content
Related Episodes
Episode 26: German Pronouns he, she, it, we ...
Episode 29: How Long Does it Take to Learn German
Episode 31: The Sound of Music

 Other Resources📚
  • Download this PDF on the forms of “to be” in German with translations, the words used in the podcast episode for the example sentences, and example sentences with translations.
  • Get this Interactive German Movie Guide with suitable TV shows and movies with subtitles in your language, so you can start using movies to learn right away! Watching German movies and TV shows is great to help you learn German.
  • Listen to All The Episodes Published So Far!

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Transcript

Welcome to the Better German podcast. My name is Susi Blümel, and I will teach you German and everything around the language , the countries and the culture. Welcome! In this episode, we're going to cover the forms of the English word "To be," which is in German, "sein." So, "I am", "you are," and so on. This is the 30th episode. I can't believe this is already the 30th episode that we're doing. So if you've been with me since the beginning, thank you very much and please keep doing that. And if you just found me, welcome! I'm so glad you're here in any case, and I'm very happy that you're listening to me. I want to help you and anyone who wants to learn German to do that easily. I found that German has not been made as easy to learn as it could be, and I saw that many people had problems because of that, and I don't like that. So German is a language, it can be learned. And I have experienced myself, even though this is my native language, how hard it was to teach German compared to English, and it took me many years to figure this out. It took me some time to find the materials that I could work with and to make my own materials also, in many cases or build upon this what I found, and now I'm at the point where I can really say, "Okay German is not so difficult!" It is not so difficult to learn German and everyone who wants to learn German can learn German and this is what I provide. I'm making the materials and everything around it so everyone who wants to learn German can learn it. There is the materials, there is a curriculum for the students that I teach in private lessons or in group lessons, of course, but also, there's videos, there's this podcast, there will be more materials. There is a lot of things to come. There is the Better Germany academy which is just being built up, but you can already enroll. There are self-learning courses there, and there will be a lot more coming, books and so on. So this is the 30th episode, so that's why I took, like, the minute to say that And please, if you enjoy this, then first of all, let me know. I'm always glad to hear, but also rate this podcast and tell others. If you've just found the podcast, then I want to give you a tip. It's a good idea, maybe, for you to start from the beginning, particularly if you're a beginner. Okay, good. So let's get into this episode's subject. "To be" in German. There Is a downloadable PDF that you can get, so, I'll link it there. you can also find it on my homepage bettergerman.info/freebies. So "sein," of course, is "to be." "Sein" is the basic form. What are the different forms of Sein? Let's go through them. please repeat this after me. So, "Ich bin" is "I am." "Du bist," "You are" "Er ist" "He is." "Sie ist." "She is." "Es ist." "It is." We are, —sorry, I'm going to say it in German first. "Wir sind," "We are." "Ihr seid." this is "You are." We have two different forms. I already said "du bist" is "you are" and "ihr seid" is also "you are." So, the difference is, when you say "du bist," you're talking to one person only, and when you say "ihr seid," you're talking to more than one person. And then "sie sind" is "they are." Okay, good. So, that being said, I'm going to give you a little bit more of an information about, particularly, "er ist, sie ist, es ist." That is, I said, so far, "he is, she is, it is." Now, in German, the gender of the noun is important. I've recorded an episode, Episode 5, it's called Introduction to Articles. There, I explain the genders, if you have no idea what I'm talking about. So, in German, for example, when I take a word like "der Tisch," it's "der," that means it's a male noun. And then I would say, "he is," when I refer back to it, I would say, "der Tisch. Das ist der Tisch." "That is the table." "Er ist groß." "He is big." "It is" in English, will be translated to "er ist, sie ist," oder (or) "es ist," depending the article that is before that noun, or depending on the gender of the noun. Depending on whether this is considered male, female, or neutral. And that is an important thing to know, and, that is also a reason why it's important to learn these genders because otherwise you can get very, very lost of what people are talking about. So, let's go through it one more time, and I will include this information I just gave you and then later on I'll give you some more examples. "Ich bin", "I am." So that's very simple. "Ich bin" is always "I am." "Du bist" is "You are." "You are," when I'm talking to one person. So there is one person standing in front of me, let's say your husband or wife or friend, and you're talking to them, then you would say something like, "Du bist hier." —"You are here." As opposed to "Ihr seid," which could also be translated as " you are," but "Ihr seid" would be used when you have more than one person standing in front of you. So, like, you have a group of friends, or two friends, standing in front of you, and then you talk to them, then you would say "Ihr seid hier." —"You are here." And in this case, "you" meaning more than one. Okay, so, "du bist," —"you are," —one person. Dann (then), "er ist" is, "he is." So, when I say about a guy, Peter, "Er ist hier," —He is here." Or, I talk about an object that is also male, that has an article that is "der." "Der Tisch," for example. "Er ist hier," oder "Er ist groß," And in this case, in English, I would translate it to, "It is, here." So, "He is," or "It is." "Er ist," "Er, ist," meaning we talk about one male person, or we're talking about one male object. And in the case of a, like a male object, this is just something like every object has an article, and when the article is "der", then it's "er." Good! "Sie ist." "She is." When we talk about a woman, when we talk about an object, that is female, that has the article "die", for example, "Die Blume," —"the flower," then I would also say, "Sie ist." "Sie ist schön." —"It is beautiful," or "it is pretty." Good! "Es ist," is, "it is," generally. Could be some exceptions to that, but I'm not going to go into those details, because it's very rare. So, "wir sind." Now, this one's easy. "Wir sind" is "we are." So, you are talking about yourself and you're including someone else. About yourself and your friend or and your family. "Wir sind." "Ihr seid." We already said that. So, you're talking to someone else. More than one person. "You are." "Sie sind" is "they are." So you're talking about some other people or objects. "They are." So now I'm going to give you a few words that I'm going to use for the sentences, in case you don't know them. I'll say them in German, and then I'll translate them. Please repeat after me. "glücklich!" that's "happy." "traurig," that's "sad." "hier," that means "here." "groß," that's "big" or "tall." "klein," "small." "alt," "old." "jung," that's "young." "New," sorry, first in German. "neu," that's "new." Und (and) "schön," I've already used this before, means "beautiful" or "pretty." Okay, good. So, I'll say it in German, and I'll repeat it in English, and please repeat after me again. "glücklich," "happy," "traurig," "sad," "hier" "here" "groß" "big" or "tall," "klein," "small," " alt" "old," "jung," "young," "neu," "new," "schön," "beautiful, pretty." And then I'm going to add one word to it, and that's "nicht," and that means "not." Okay, so now we're going to put this all together and we will have some sentences, and I'm going to tell you a sentence in German. You repeat it, I'm going to give you the translation and then I'm going to say it in German again, and you repeat it again. So, "Ich bin hier." " I am here." "Ich bin hier." " Ich bin nicht traurig." " I am not sad." "Ich bin nicht traurig." "Du bist schön." "You are beautiful." And I'm speaking to one person. I'm speaking to you. "Du bist schön." "Du bist nicht traurig." "You are not sad." "Du bist nicht traurig" " Du bist hier." "You are here." "Du bist hier." "Er ist glücklich." "He is happy." That would be, "he," Peter, for example. We talk about one person. "Er ist glücklich." "He is happy." Or, let's say we talk about "der Tisch" —"the table." The table is male in German, because it's "der". The article is "der". "Der Tisch ist groß." Or, if I don't want to say. "der Tisch" again, I say: "Er ist groß." That would be: "The table is big. It is big." . But in German, we say "he's big," in this case. Good. "Er ist groß." "Sie ist nicht alt." . Helen, the woman. "She is not old." When I talk about a woman. "Sie ist nicht alt." But, I can also talk about an object that is female that has the article "die", like "die Blume",, —"the flower" that is in German considered female. So I would say "die Blume ist schön."— "the flower is beautiful." And if I don't want to repeat "die Blume", then I say "sie ist schön." In this case I would translate it as, "It is beautiful," even though word by word it is, "She is beautiful." And then we have "Es ist"— "It is." That would be about an object, with the article das, an object that is neutral. Like "das Buch" — "the book." "Das Buch ist neu. Es ist neu." "The book is new. It is new." "Es ist neu." —"It is new." Good next one, "wir sind," —"we are." " Wir sind nicht alt" "We are not old." Wir sind nicht alt." "Wir sind glücklich." "We are happy." "Wir sind glücklich." Now "Er seid." It is, "you are," and I'm speaking to one more, I'm sorry. I'm speaking to more than one person. To you and someone else. So "Er seid groß" "You are tall." So in front of me, there are three boys and they're tall boys. And I say to them, "Er seid groß." "You are tall." "Er seid nicht neu." "You're not new." The students in front of me, they're not new students. "You are not new." " Er seid nicht neu." And then we have "sie sind." "They are." "Sie sind klein." Talking about the children, for example. "Sie sind klein." "They're small." Oder (or) "Sie sind alt" Talking about the chairs, objects, several objects, or two objects. "Sie sind alt." "They are old." Okay. So I hope this works on a podcast. It is easier to show that or to do that in the course. So if you're doing this in a course with me, for example, in the A 1.1 course, in the total beginner German course, we covered that. We cover it in more steps and we have more practice and exercise in between. So if you feel you need that, you're very welcome to enroll on that course. You will find the link in the show notes. I also want to suggest to you, a few episodes because they're relevant to this one. The first one I have already mentioned, it's the Episode Number 5. It's Introduction to Articles, it's called. And then there is a separate episode just about the words "ich, du, er, sie, es" and so on. "I you, he, she, it," and so on, called Personal Pronouns. That's Episode 26. So episode five, you can find, first of all, you can always go on podcast.bettergerman.info, bettergerman, one word, and you will find all of the episodes there, and you can listen in sequence. Of course, you can also find them on, iTunes and on Spotify, and I think pretty much anywhere where you could find podcasts. If there is some place missing where you want to podcasts to be, and you can't find it there then let me know, and I'll try to fix that. Anyway, so you can do that. It's Episode Number 5, it's Introduction to Articles and Episode 26, it's the Introduction to Personal Pronouns, the words like "ich, du, er, sie es": "I, you, he, she, it." You can always find each episode with a shortcut. You go on bettergerman.info/ and then the number of the episodes. So, /5 for the Episode 5, /26 for Episode 26. Okay, so thank you very much for listening to this podcast. My name is Susi, I, I'm helping you. I'm a German teacher, and, I am here to help you and to everyone who wants to learn German, to learn German with ease with fun, and as fast as possible. And yes, so anyway, my name is Susi, I am your German teacher. My purpose is to provide the materials and everything necessary for every German learner, you and everyone else, to learn German without super complications. You can find a course and you can find materials and please continue following my podcast, and subscribe to it, and like it and share it. And if you like it, please. leave a review. Talk to you next week. Bye bye.

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