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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 47 episodes

47 Learn How to Use German Adjectives in Sentences

2025-10-30

Description & Show Notes

🎧Ready to put your German adjectives into action? In this episode, Susi builds on the vocab from Episode 44 and helps you master words like groß (big), alt (old), kalt (cold), warm (warm, and more—this time in full sentences you can actually use.✨Plus, you’ll get a free downloadable PDF guide inside the free-to-join Better German Community to follow along and review later—because great learning doesn’t stop when the episode ends. 

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🎧 Summary
In Episode 47 of the Better German Podcast, Susi keeps the momentum going with more practice on German adjectives — building directly on Episode 44’s vocabulary list. This episode turns theory into action: you’ll create real sentences, understand how adjectives behave in context, and pick up special German expressions such as Mir ist kalt and Ist dir kalt? Along the way, Susi shares how practice bridges the gap between knowing words and actually using them.
To make it even easier, there’s a free Adjectives Practice PDF waiting for you in the Better German Community — full of example sentences, tips, and space to add your own. ✨

Introduction
Welcome back to another episode of the Better German Podcast! Susi Blümel opens Episode 47 with warmth and excitement — we’re getting close to Episode 50! She invites you to continue your journey with adjectives, especially if you’ve listened to Episode 44, and reminds you that real progress comes from active use, not just memorization. If you haven’t yet, grab the Episode 44 PDF guide on German adjectives — it contains the core vocabulary list, example sentences, and exercises you’ll keep using today. You will find it for free in the Better German community.

🔎 Key Topics: Practicing German Adjectives
  • Why practicing with full sentences helps you move from knowing to speaking
  • How “Mach noch einen Satz!” (“Make another sentence!”) becomes your best learning tool
  • Common adjectives covered in this episode, including:
    ▫️ groß (big/tall)
    ▫️ klein (small)
    ▫️ alt (old)
    ▫️ jung (young)
    ▫️ kalt (cold)
    ▫️ warm (warm)
    ▫️ gut (good)
    ▫️ schlecht (bad)
    ▫️ schön (beautiful)
    ▫️ neu (new)
    ▫️ teuer (expensive)
    ▫️ billig (cheap)
    ▫️ laut (loud)
    ▫️ leise (quiet)
    ▫️ hell (bright)
    ▫️ dunkel (dark)
    ▫️ leicht (light/easy)
    ▫️ schwer (heavy/hard)
    ▫️ schwierig (difficult)
  • Examples using everyday nouns like Tisch, Ball, Mantel, Pflanze, Computer, Kind, Frau, and Zimmer
  • Special German sentence structures explained:
     ▫️ Mir ist kalt → I’m cold (literally “To me is cold”)
    ▫️ Ist dir kalt? → Are you cold?
  • Clarifying mir vs mich without heavy grammar — focusing on real communication
  • Understanding why Ich bin kalt and Mir ist kalt mean different things.
  • Encouragement to practice and speak early, even if it’s not perfect
  • Free Adjectives Practice PDF Guide available inside the Better German Community
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Transcript

Don't wait until your German is perfect until you start speaking because this is not going to happen. So you can't listen silently and then suddenly, after like two years or three years, start speaking perfectly. So it is messy in the beginning. It doesn't matter, but with those words already, you can say quite a lot of things. And, if you practice that, and if you make it a, a habit of saying the things that you can already say, you will learn very fast. Welcome to the Better German podcast. I am Susi Blümel, a German teacher and founder of Better German. This podcast helps to learn German in a simple and clear way. With useful words, clear sentence structures, pronunciation, and real life topics from daily life and culture. You'll also get tips for learning German and understanding how the language actually works. And when you're ready, we have a free community and courses to support you even more. All right! Welcome to the Better German podcast, episode 46. We are getting close to 50. I'm excited. So this episode is going, to be a continuation of episode 44? In episode 44, we went over about 20 words that you can use to describe things. Words like, "groß, klein, alt, jung" so "big, small, old, young," and I already promised you that time that we're going to do some further practice in this episode and we will. So if you haven't listened to that episode, and you are super familiar with those words. Like if you know German already and you feel, you know, all the words for "big, small, old, young, cold, warm, bad, good," and so on, yeah, then you could go ahead. But if you are not super familiar with them and you're not certain that they will actually come to you when you need them, then you will get much more out of this episode. If you actually go back to episode 44 and listen to that first and do the exercises and download the freebie that goes with it. because, learning what the meaning is of a word and how to actually say it is about 20% of the whole work, at most. You have to practice this word, and I'm not even speaking about grammar and language in general, I'm just speaking of that word, or every word that you learn. By the way, probably this is one sentence that I say to my students very, very much, and also, students who work together for practicing say this sentence very much to each other. This is probably one of the most helpful sentences that I could say to anybody who's learning a language. And I'm going to tell you a little bit later what the sentence is. You are welcome to send me an email or if you are actually listening this on social media, drop a comment what you think what that sentence could be. I will tell you a little bit later. Okay, cool. So, let's start with the first word. I'm going to give you a little bit more information for some of these words as well. So the first word, is English, "big" "groß. Now, probably the most obvious sentence that somebody could say, depending on whether or not this is the case, would be in German, " Ich bin groß." oder/ or, " ich bin nicht groß" And that is something that I actually left out the last time. "Groß" when you speak of a person is not "big" in the meaning of like more weights than they want to have or should have, but "tall." So when we speak of a person and we say "groß" in German, it means "tall." Good. So what we're going to do is we're going to do a lot of sentences. I'm going to say English sentences first, and you are going to repeat them and I'm going to say the German sentence and you're going to repeat it. Okay? "The table is big." "Der Tisch ist groß" " The ball is big." "Der Ball ist groß." I'm also going to incorporate now, vocabulary from the last episode. That is the episode 46 about clothes. I'm going to start using a few of those, okay. So, by the way, I know I keep repeating myself, but I don't know, you might be listening to this podcast episode for the first time. This podcast is definitely best listened to from the beginning. So if you are really interested in learning German, and this somehow speaks to you or you want to give it a chance, then start at the first episode. That's what I highly suggest. Okay, cool. So I'll continue. "The coat is big." "Der Mantel ist groß." You could also say, "The coat is too big," and that would be, Der Mantel ist zu groß." That is quite simple and similar. All right, so let's do some other types of sentences. We already have had similar, like those also in the freebie, by the way. So there is a, freebie that goes with episode 44 that I would highly suggest you to download if you haven't already, because in there you have all the words. You have example sentences, and you have tips how to practice these words. You have also some written exercise, and one of these types is already in here, and that would be, if you want to say, "Is the house big?" "Ist das Haus groß." And let's say, " Ja, das Haus ist groß." "Yes, the house is big." Okay, good. So the English one, "Is the picture big?" " Ist die Bild groß." " No the picture is small." " Nein die Bild ist klein." Then I'm give, going to give you one more type of sentence that is easy. I think I've covered it already in the podcast somewhere. You could say, "Wie ist das Haus?" And that is, "What is the house like?" So "wie" the word "wie" we didn't have that yet, I think. The word "wie" could be "how," like "how are you doing?" " Wie geht es dir?" But in this case it's, "What is the house like?" We're asking for a quality. So, "Wie, ist Haus," "Das Haus ist groß." Good. Next word, "Small" "Klein," "The mouse is small." "Die Maus ist klein." " The window is small." "Das Fenster ist klein." " The chair is small." " Der Stuhl ist klein." " Is the nose small?" "Ist die Nase klein?" " Yes, the nose is small." " Ja, die Nase ist klein." " Is the couch small?" "Ist die Couch klein?" "No, the couch is not small." " Nein, die Couch ist nicht klein." "What is the plant like?" "Wie ist die Pflanze." "The plant is small." "Die Pflanze ist klein." Good. So I'm not going to do that many sentences with every one of the words we have here. Because otherwise we are just going to have a one hour episode, and I don't want you to do that in one step, but I highly suggest you to do the following I'll make another . PDF. I hadn't planned on doing that, honestly, but I'll make another PDF that covers all of these patterns. Like the question and answer. like the question with "Is the, Hmm big?" "Yes, Hmmm is big." "No, Hmmm is not big." Also the question "Is the Hmm big?" "No, the question hmm it's small." Both those patterns, I'm going to write them out so you can easily practice them. And also the Pattern with "What is the thing like?" "Wie ist das blah, blah, blah?" And I'm going to give you some more exercise to write also and I'm going to summarize how to practice like each of those words. But, we will still continue and we're going to do some sentences with every one of those words. I'm also going to introduce a special Sentence Pattern, that is very unique to German and we need to do like two more words and then we're there. So, next word, "old" German, "alt" I'll say you repeat it. "The computer is old." Der Computer ist alt" " My dog is old." "Mein Hund ist alt" Next word, "Young" " Jung" "The child is young." " Das Kind ist jung" "What is his wife like?" " Wie ist seine Frau?" " Seine Frau ist jung." Okay, next one. Next word. "cold" "kalt." So you could say something like, " The room is cold." "Der Raum ist kalt." "Raum" or "Zimmer." I think these are new " Der Raum Das Zimmer." I'm going to include them in the PDF. However, there is something very special, a special sentence better than I am introducing here, and it's really only for the next three words that we have. The next three words are, or including this one is, "cold, kalt," "warm, warm" and, "bad, schlecht" And if you want to talk about yourself, if you want to say, "I am cold." Okay, so "The room is cold," "Das Zimmer ist kalt " that's pretty straightforward. But now there is a specialty on how you would say, "I am cold," because in German you don't say what you would expect, but you could say, " Ich bin kalt " But that has an entirely different meaning. " Ich bin kalt," does not mean "I am cold." It means "I am a cold person or a cold hearted person" or something like that. So what you say is, "I am cold." " Mir ist kalt ." So, "mir" This is the first time I am saying this word. It is a, a form of me; "mir" and "me." We have English "me" translates into two versions. " mich and mir" Don't worry about this right now. it is not the right time and place for you to go into the deep significance why we have two of them. At this point in time just acknowledge we have two, not just for "mir," but also for "You," and so on. If you are interested in it, however, I do have an article on my homepage. I'm going to link it. It's about "dir" and "dich" and not "mir" and "mich," but I would only suggest that if you are a little bit more advanced and you have already learned grammar, and you are doing pretty good with it. If you are not, and if you're listening to this, you're probably not, don't worry about this. I am telling you, and I'm very sorry and I apologize on behalf of the German speaking people. sometimes teaching grammar has been made very complicated. I think this might have different reasons. I don't want to go into wild guesses at this point in time. I will probably write an article about that once and, or do a podcast episode. But at this point in time, I just want to tell you, "me" in English could be "mir or mich" in German, and don't worry about it right now. You will learn the sentence patterns that use one or the other. And this one uses "mir," and if you say "I'm cold," It's "Mir ist kalt" So, I'm not usually going to ask "Am I cold?" But maybe I'm going to ask, "Are you cold?" Oh yeah, by the way, so "Mir ist kalt," probably the best direct translation I could do is "Me is cold." Sounds very weird in English, in German, this is very correct. There is no other way of saying that. Okay, so next, sentence with that, "Are you Cold?" "Ist dir kalt?" Or "Is he Cold?" "Ist ihm kalt?" Good. So I'm going to also add that in A PDF, you don't have to worry about it very much. want to tell you because this can cause misunderstandings. So I hope you like what you hear. I wanted to mention this, so the best way to learn German with me is through my life group courses. You get real teaching, you get life support, and you get a clear path to really learn German and use the language. We also offer self-paced courses and the free community with resources and practice. All of that you find on bettergerman.info. So next one, "Warm." "The computer is warm." If you touch it, "The computer is warm." Actually, mine is nothing. That's good, I guess. At the time of the recording here, autumn has started. So actually we have very nice weather now, so it's warm during the day and cool in the evening. But so I will say I'm not warm, "Mir ist nicht warm." But of course you can say something easy like that, like, Is the room warm? " Ist der Raum warm?" " Ja, der Raum ist warm" So don't forget those easy sentences. And then the next one "bad," and that is the last one out of this list where you can make this interesting sentence, or this type of sentence. When you say, "I feel bad or I'm sick" in the sense of sick in the stomach, like I feel as if I could possibly have to vomit, in German we will say, "Mir ist schlecht," "I am sick," or "I feel bad in the stomach." "Mir ist schlecht" But of course you can say something very simple like, "Is the book bad?" "Ist das Buch schlecht?" Or you could say, "What is the movie like?" " Wie ist der Film?" Movie is a film. "Film." We say "Wie ist der Film." " The movie is not bad." "Der Film ist nicht schlecht." By the way, as in English, "not bad," depending a little bit on how you put the emphasis can mean "it's not bad, but it's not really good either." So, if you say like in English, "Yeah, it's not bad." "Ja, es ist nicht schlecht." But if you say "The movie is not bad," then you actually mean, somebody said it's bad and you say "no," and it works exactly the same in German. Then you would say "Der Film is nicht schlecht." So there is similarity here. Good. I'm going to give you a few more example sentences, and I'm going to try that these are not the exact same ones that we already had in the other episode, so you get some more practice and then definitely go and download that PDF, Okay, so next word is "Good." "The weather is good." "Das Wetter ist gut." Then next one, "Beautiful" or "nice" "Schön." So in a sense of beautiful, "The flowers are beautiful," "Die Blumen sind schön." Or actually, when you say, " The day was nice." " Der Tag war schön." So I never used in the podcast the past of "To be" so "was," so that's, "war. war WAR" Okay, good. Next word, "new." "The car is new." "Das Auto ist neu." " old" "alt" "His grandparents are old." " Seine Großeltern sind alt." "expensive." "teuer" " Is the ticket, expensive?" Ticket, you can also use in German, depending a little bit on the context, like if it's a ticket for a train or for a plane, you would say "Ticket." If it is a ticket, for a movie, you would probably say "Karte" So" Is this ticket Teuer?" "No, the Ticket is not expensive." "Nein, das ticket is nicht Teuer" "cheap," "billig." "The couch is cheap." "Die couch ist billig." " strong" "stark." So I could say, "What is he like?" "Wie ist er." "Er ist stark." "He is strong." "weak." " schwach" So we could say a person is weak, but we could also say the coffee is weak. Der Kaffee ist schwach." Honestly, when I go to the United States and I drink coffee there, actually now I get very good coffee, but the first time ever I went to the United States, maybe I was just having bad luck, but it's also many years ago, I got some coffee and I thought, "Oh my God, this coffee is weak." "Der Kaffee ist schwach." Maybe I was also too jetlagged. Okay, good. "loud," "laut." " The children are loud." " Die Kinder sind laut." And maybe if somebody was not happy with a concert, the communication could be something like this: "What was the concert like?" " Wie war das Konzert ?" "The concert was loud," or "It was loud." " Es war laut." or "Das Konzert war laut." "Quiet." Okay, now we are going to do something very obvious. "Be quiet," "Sei leise." Of course, depending a little bit on the context, but in most cases, this is not a very friendly thing to say. Okay, but the rules are here pretty much the same as in, English. So if you say it to a very good friend, it's usually not a problem. I'm sure parents say it often to their children. I don't think I would necessarily say that this is, unfriendly and you could say that to your dog. You wouldn't really say it to people you don't know usually. But it's exactly the same as is in German, and English. Good. Next one, "bright." "hell." So, " The sun is bright." "Die Sonne ist hell." "What is the lamp like? "Wie ist die Lampe?" "The lamp is bright." "Die lampe ist hell." " dark." Let's do a little different sentence, "It is dark outside." So "outside" is, "draußen", "draußen" So, "It is dark outside." " Es ist dunkel draußen." Or you could say, something like, "The room is dark." " Der Raum ist dunkel." And you can actually say like, "dark blue." " dunkel blau." And by the way, you don't actually say "bright blue" usually, you would usually say, "light blue," but this is, "hell blau." I think we had that in the colors episode, which is 40 if I have it in my mind correctly. Okay, good. Just three more words. Let's wrap those up, and then I still have to tell you this most useful sentence, so, " kalt "The coffee is cold," "Der Kaffee ist kalt." " What is the weather like?" " Wie ist das Wetter " "It is cold." "Es ist kalt." And then "light" in the sense of not heavy, you could say something like, "The book is light." It's a very small book, so the book is light. "Das Buch ist leicht." Or "German is easy." I know you've heard otherwise, but I'm telling you, if you learn it with me, it is easy because my mission is to make German easy for you. So, "Deutsch ist leicht." Keep repeating it until you believe me. Okay, good. Heavy is "schwer" So, "Der Stein ist schwer." "The stone is heavy." I did it the wrong way around. Forgive me. And "difficult," Maybe there is some person who's making Chinese easy, but I think Chinese is difficult. I've tried, when I studied, I studied with, people that were speak, or actually one girl that was speaking Chinese and she was trying to explain to me how Chinese is simple. or easy, and actually there is something I can say, Chinese is difficult, but Chinese grammar is easy. So "Chinesisch ist schwierig, aber die Grammatik ist leicht." Once you get over the fact that you need to learn about 20,000 symbols and that it is impossible, to hear because they use different levels of tone. Once you get over the fact that you have to learn like 10,000 symbols and a few other things, the grammar is very easy. So that's the good news. Okay, good. So, we went through all of the words. As I said, I'm going to make another PDF, with the. additional sentence patterns that we used here, and also with the words that there's a few words that I used that I'm going to also put in there. So go download that, that is bettergerman.info/47. So bettergerman.info/47 is going to be the, PDF for this episode. And then the sentence, that I'm saying very, very often, and if you want to help someone learning a language, you could also say very often that is super, super helpful, is "Make another sentence" " Mach noch einen Satz" So now I challenge you to make many sentences with each of these words. And when you have done that, and if you've also done that with the sentences, the words that we learned previously, Actually, there is podcast episode 39 that is about conversation, and if you haven't already listened to that and haven't tried it, you are ready for your first conversation because you'll see, you have numbers, you have colors, you have other words to describe. You have family members, and you have objects around you. There is quite a lot of stuff you can already say. You can describe the room that you're in. You can talk about your family and, and, describe them a little bit and say how old they are and so on, and that is what you should do. Absolutely. Don't wait until your German is perfect until you start speaking because this is not going to happen. So you can't listen silently and then suddenly, after like two years or three years, start speaking perfectly. So it is messy in the beginning. It doesn't matter, but with those words already, you can say quite a lot of things. And, if you practice that, and if you make it a, a habit of saying the things that you can already say, you will learn very fast. Okay, cool. You hear me in the next episode, tune in again. That is going to be, actually, that is going to be a very interesting episode. We are going to cover this time, not words, but we are actually going to cover why you don't remember what you have learned. If that is the case. If you have ever experienced, and I'm sure you have, that you didn't remember what you learned, we're going to go over that and I'm going to give you some tips on how you can fix that. So that is a very important episode, not just for learning German, that is going to be episode 48. Okay. So tune in and bye-bye. I. I hope that in today's episode you learn something that gets you one step closer to mastering German. If you found it helpful, it would absolutely mean the world to me. If you could leave a five star review and whenever you're ready for more, just visit bettergerman.info.

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