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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 39 episodes

Episode 10 - Greeting and Introduction Part 2

2023-11-02 16 min Susanne Schilk-Blümel

Description & Show Notes

Welcome to Episode 10 of the Better German podcast, hosted by Susi Blümel! This episode is focused on German greetings and introductions and represents the second part of this topic.

Susi outlines common German phrases and provides their English translations, offering cultural and linguistic context for each one. She also asks listeners to repeat the phrases for practice. She recommends that listeners download a PDF of the script for further practice, available when you become a member of the Better German Community. You’ll find worksheets for this and other episodes there, too!
 
To wrap up, Susi invites you to sign up for her newsletter, share the podcast, and check out her online German courses if you’re ready to go deeper. 

Summary
In this episode of the Better German podcast, host Susi Blümel teaches German phrases around the themes of greeting and introducing. This episode, being the second part, does not dive into individual word meanings but provides translations and extra information on usage and context. Certain uniquely Austrian sayings are discussed, and the host encourages repetition for practice.

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Key Topics Explored🔎

Primary Topic: Greeting and Introducing
  • Importance of greeting and introducing
  • Recommendation to listen to the previous episode
  • PDF with words, sentences, and translations for practice
Primary Topic: Sentences for Greeting and Introducing
  • Examples of German sentences followed by their English translations
  • Additional information and explanations for certain phrases
Primary Topic: Pronouns and Personal Information
  • Teaching phrases related to name, age, origin, and location
  • Explanation of formal and informal ways to ask for someone's name
Primary Topic: Expressions for Meeting and Pleasant Encounters
  • Teaching phrases related to expressing happiness and pleasure in meeting someone
  • Difference between formal and informal ways of expressing greetings
Primary Topic: Greetings for Different Times of the Day
  • Teaching phrases for good morning, good evening, and good night
  • Explanation of omitting the word "good" to simplify greetings
  • Introduction to the French phrase "Bon appétit" as a greeting around noon
Primary Topic: Farewells and Regional Expressions
  • Teaching phrases for goodbye in standard German
  • Introduction to Austrian expressions "bye bye" and "pfiat di"
  • Explanation of "pfiat di" as a Viennese expression for goodbye
Primary Topic: Conclusion and Additional Resources
  • Gratitude for listening to the episode
  • Mention of transcript availability on the website
  • Encouragement to sign up for the newsletter and explore further resources
  • Invitation to share the podcast with others
  • Promotion of online German courses available on the website
 
Related Episodes

Additional Resources
  • Grab Your Copy of Our Interactive German Movie Guide. In this guide, you will find 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.
  • Catch up on All 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 to this episode of the Better German Podcast. It is the episode number 10, and it's the second part or the part two of greeting and introducing. So, if you haven't listened to the last episode, I highly recommend listening to this one first, particularly if you're a beginner. Because in that episode, we basically cover all the words used in this episode, the German words used. and in this episode, I'm going through a couple of phrases, but I'm not going into the meanings of the individual words anymore. So greeting and introducing obviously is an important thing. If you haven't already, definitely download the PDF with all the words used and, the sentences and the translations of the sentences. You will find the link in the show notes. If you can't find the show notes, right. Where you're listening to the podcast. You can find them@bettergerman.info slash 10. So better german.info is my homepage. bettergerman.info/10 will bring you to the show notes of this podcast episode and there, you will also find the link, to the downloadable PDF. Definitely go and get it because it will help you practicing these words and sentences. so here are the sentences. First I'm always saying the german sentence and then i'll say the English Sentence and for some of them I'm going to give you some additional information. Mein Name ist Susi. My name is Susi. Mein Name ist Susanne Schilk-Blümel. My name is Susanne Schilk-Blümel Ich heiße Susi. That is just another way of saying the same thing. Literally means I'm called Susi. It's probably a little less formal than mine. and Therefore more used when you speak. Ich bin 40 Jahre alt. I am 40 years old. Ich bin aus Wien. I am from Vienna. Ich bin aus Österreich. I am from Austria. Ich lebe in Wien. I live in Vienna wie ist dein Name? What is your name? Wie ist Ihr Name? What is your name [formal] wie heißt du? What is your name? or what are you called? So that's the same thing as above. We have these two versions, how we can say somebody's name, we can either say Mein Name ist,, my name is or I'm called, and these are the two versions. So we have them both in the statement and also in the questions of course. Wie heißen Sie? What is your name [formal] or What are you called (formal) Schön, dich kennenzulernen. Nice to meet you. Schön, Sie kennenzulernen. Nice to meet you [formal]. Freut mich, dich kennenzulernen. I am happy to meet you. Freut mich, Sie kennenzulernen. I am happy to meet you. [formal] Freut mich! I am happy [ to meet you]. So here, instead of saying the whole sentence, which would be, I'm happy to meet you, we just leave the second part out, and we basically would just say, I'm happy. And we mean I'm happy to meet you. Guten Morgen. Good Morning! Guten Tag. Greeting for pretty much any time during the day. Guten Abend. Good Evening. Gute Nacht. Good Night. So instead of all of the last three, basically good morning. Good evening. Good night. We can just leave the first word out so we can just instead of good morning in German, just say morning. I think, I think we can do that in English as well. Evening. Night. That's quite usual actually. So if you just hear "Morgen", then it means good morning. Mahlzeit. Bon Appetit, and greeting used around lunchtime. So this one's kind of funny because first of all, maybe you're not familiar with the phrase Bon Appetit, because it's actually a French phrase and it is, it's a greeting, you sit down to eat and you wish somebody a good meal. It's like "Have a good meal". I haven't found one word in English, that means the same thing, which I think is very interesting. So I've heard many people to actually use "Bon Appetit", which is the same thing in French. It means Good appetite and French. So, we use Mahlzeit. Mahlzeit literally is a meal. So when we sit down, we have a thing that we say, and that is Mahlzeit. And that means literally meal, but it really means have a good meal or may this food taste you well or something like that. And also we have expanded this to not just use it when we sit down, but to use it for a general greeting. around noon. So if you meet someone, at noon at, 12 o'clock It is very usual to greet or be greeted with Mahlzeit. And in that case, it doesn't have anything to do with eating, It's just a greeting that we use around that time of the day. So it's not an invitation for you to eat, it's just degrading that we say around that time, like we say, good evening in the evening. Grüß Gott. literally „greet god“ - greeting for any time of the day. So i think there's a tendency for this greeting to become less used than it used to be, but it is still used very much. And it's also a very general greeting, that literally means Greet God. For most people it's not really a religious thing, it's just a phrase that people use now but obviously it has originally a religious background Auf Wiedersehen goodbye So this one is a very general term that is used anywhere in Austria and Germany and Switzerland. And it's kind of like the standard German term for saying goodbye. However I am Austrian so I do want to add two phrases that are really very very Austrian, And the first one is Servus bye-bye. So "Servus" or maybe even "Servas" is a very Austrian phrase. And it comes from Latin, however, interesting enough. "Servus" in Latin is a slave. And the idea is saying I'm your slave, which is a super friendly, originally, term of saying I'm at your service. And in that way, it's probably more usual in English. At your service. So in Austrian German, it has become. very casual and very usual phrase. And I'm sure even many Austrians don't know, and certainly don't think. Of where it actually originally comes from, and they will just say "Servus", "Servas" You can say it both for saying hello and saying goodbye, actually. And the next one is Baba bye-bye This is a very very typically Viennese one "Baba" and this is used only for saying goodbye "Servus" can be used anywhere in Austria pretty much. Tschüß bye-bye. Now Tschüß used to be considered a very German informal way of saying bye-bye. However it is used more and more also in Austria. Some people will still think it's more of a German way of saying goodbye. So now i'm going to see these phrases again And i want you to repeat them for practice. So I'll say the German Sentence first and you repeat it. And then I'll see the English translation and you repeat it. Mein Name ist Susi. My name is Susi. Mein Name ist Susanne Schilk-Blümel. My name is Susanne Schilk-Blümel Ich heiße Susi. I'm called Susi. Ich bin 40 Jahre alt. I am 40 years old. Ich bin aus Wien. I am from Vienna. Ich bin aus Österreich. I am from Austria. Ich lebe in Wien. I live in Vienna Wie ist dein Name? What is your name? Wie ist Ihr Name? What is your name [formal] Wie heißt du? What is your name? or what are you called? Wie heißen Sie? What is your name [formal] or What are you called (formal) Schön, dich kennenzulernen Nice to meet you. Schön, Sie kennenzulernen Nice to meet you [ formal] Freut mich, dich kennenzulernen. I am happy to meet you. Freut mich, Sie kennenzulernen. I am happy to meet you. [formal] Freut mich! I am happy [ to meet you] Guten Morgen. Good Morning! Guten Tag. Greeting for pretty much any time during the day. Guten Abend. Good Evening. Gute Nacht. Good Night. Mahlzeit. Bon Appetit, and greeting used around lunchtime. Grüß Gott. literally „greet god“ - greeting for any time of the day. Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye. Servus. Bye-bye. Baba. Bye-bye. Tschüß. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to this episode. You can find a transcript of this episode at www. bettergerman. info and slash and then the number of the episode. You can also sign up for a newsletter there and then you will be informed when there is a new episode coming or any other important events going on, new articles, new freebies or... things like that. If you liked it and, it was helpful for you, please share it with other people and let them know that this exists. And if you are looking for a course and you want to learn German online, then you can, of course, find all the infos as well on www. bettergerman. info. So, see you there and see you in the next episode. Bye bye!

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