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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 36 episodes

Words for Travelling in Germany or Austria

Helpful Words as a Tourist in Vienna or anywhere in the German Speaking Area

2024-05-02 24 min

Description & Show Notes

This episode of the Better German Podcast provides a comprehensive guide for travelers to German speaking countries, focusing on essential German words, tips for accommodations, supermarkets, pharmacies, public transport, entertainment options, and restaurants. The host, Susi, also introduces a future course on German for traveling. Download the free PDF with the words here.

Summary
In this episode of Better German, host Susi Blumel covers essential German words for travelers in German-speaking countries, some of them particularly valid for Austria and Vienna. She discusses words related to accommodation, supermarkets, transportation, shopping, emergency services, and leisure activities. Susi emphasizes the importance of understanding differences in travel culture, such as hotel pricing and opening hours of shops. She also offers insights into the local food experience at Gasthaus, and she briefly mentions the availability of English movies in Viennese cinemas. Additionally, Susie previews her upcoming German for Traveling course, offering listeners a sneak peek at the content in this future course.

Key Topics and Bullet Points
Primary Topic: Introduction
- Host introduces the episode on traveling to German-speaking countries
- Emphasizes the importance of learning specific words for traveling to Austria or Vienna
Primary Topic: Accommodation
- Defines "Zimmer zu vermieten" as "rooms to rent" in rural areas of Austria
- Explains the meaning of "hotel" and "Pension"
- Details pricing structure for hotels and Pensionen in Austria and Germany
- Mentions inclusion of breakfast in hotel and Pensionen prices
- Defines "Einzelzimmer" and explains additional costs for single occupancy
- Describes "Doppelzimmer" as a double room in hotels
Primary Topic: Supermarkets and Shopping
- Explains the presence of supermarkets in Austria and provides names of some supermarkets
- Clarifies the different opening times for supermarkets and shops in Austria
- Discusses the names of supermarkets and drug stores in Austria
- Defines "Apotheke" as "pharmacy," describing their opening times and emergency options
Primary Topic: Public Transport
- Highlights the quality and affordability of public transport in Austria, with a focus on Vienna
- Provides vocabulary for different modes of public transport including "Straßenbahn," "Zug," and "Bahnhof"
- Introduces the words "Lift" for elevator and "Rolltreppe" for escalator
Primary Topic: Leisure and Entertainment
- Mentions the availability of English movies in Vienna's cinemas
- Describes the amusement park "Prater" in Vienna
- Provides vocabulary related to driving such as "Flughafen" for airport, "Parkplatz" for parking place, and "Mietwagen" for rental car
- Covers vocabulary for outdoor swimming areas and opening times in Vienna
Primary Topic: Food and Dining
- Details the meaning of "Gasthaus" as a guest house where local food is served, emphasizing the availability of 2-course meals
- Introduces "Speisekarte" as the menu and "Mittagsmenü" as the lunch special
- Includes vocabulary related to food delivery such as "Lieferservice"
Primary Topic: Conclusion and Invitation
- Host highlights the importance of addressing specific words for traveling
- Encourages the audience to provide feedback and expresses willingness to cover more topics in the future

Links
- PDF with the words covered in the episode
- Appointment for free consultation and placement


Here you can get early access to the upcoming A1.1 (total beginner) German course.
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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. And in this episode, we will cover a few words that will be very valuable for you if you're traveling to a German speaking country, or particularly if you're traveling to Austria or Vienna. Even if you speak German, there are words, that you probably will not know, that you will see around, I always have a little bit more of a viewpoint for Austria, because I am from Austria, I live in Vienna, but still, most of what I say will be true for the whole German speaking area. I put together a list of words I'm going to cover that could be very helpful for you if you want to come here. You can find the PDF with all the words that we're going to cover today when you go to the show notes. You can find the show notes if you go to bettergerman.info/34. This is the 34th episode of the podcast. So you can find the show notes on bettergerman.info/ 34. There you will find amongst other things, a link to download the list. All of these words, by the way, will be found in my German for traveling course. I I'm going to have a beginner and an advanced one. So the beginner is for you if you really don't speak any German or just very little. And the advanced course is if you speak German, but still want to want to know particular things about traveling. This is a future course. It's not there yet. It's going to be in the Better German Academy. And it's going to be there for you and until you actually have it there, I'm going to give you a few words in this episode. By the way, shortly about the Better German Academy, you can already enroll in there. And, there are different ways of doing that. You can just get one course. The one course that is totally ready for you to enroll is the German Beginners Course. but also, for a small monthly fee, you have access to everything that is in there, or comes in there. keep following me and I'll give you an update as soon as it's there. Let's jump into this episode and I'm going to teach you a few words that will be helpful that you will see. There is a freebie for this episode, there's a list of these, these terms, that you can download. You can download all the freebies or all the additional materials for the podcast, in bettergerman.info/freebies, or, wherever you are listening to this podcast, you can look in the podcast show notes and there is also a link in the show notes. Good. So, the first term is Zimmer zu vermieten. That means rooms to rent. So, if you are in the rural areas of Austria, if you're in a smaller village, and we have a lot of very nice ones, there's a lot of rooms that are for rent. That's way before Airbnb and stuff like that already existed. So you can go into a village or drive into village more probably, and you will find signs. That say,. Zimmer zu vermieten. That means room for rent. So you can go there and get a room, hopefully, if it's available. And then another another word is hotel. Okay, that's quite simple, and probably you could have guessed that that's a hotel. Just wanted to let you know. That's in German the same thing. Now, another word, That is maybe not so familiar. I mean, I know that they use a very similar version of this word in, in some areas of the English, English speaking word, but not everywhere. It's Pension. And a Pension is something like a smaller hotel. Usually with less rooms It probably is best translated as as a bed and breakfast. They could have more food, but usually they just serve breakfast. By the way, speaking of hotels. In Austria, no matter if it's, that's pretty much true for all the hotels and pensionen. in those cases, when you see prices, they're usually prices per person. and they're usually given in prices per person in a double room. So if you have a price of a hundred euros per night, then this usually means that you have two people in a room, so that's 200 euros a night. In the US, I know, it's usually room prices, and it doesn't matter if there is one or two people. So, in Austria and Germany, it's per person per night prices. So, if you are traveling alone, you either have a Einzelzimmer. Einzelzimmer means single room, and they have usually separate prices, or there could be an Einzelzimmerzuschlag. Sorry, that's a long word. That's, the price. If you have a a price of 100 Euros per person per night, that would be 200 Euros for the room. And if you come alone and they don't have a separate Einzelzimmer, they have an Einzelzimmerzuschlag, so that's an addition you have to pay, so it's maybe, 50 euros. So instead of actually paying 100 euro per person per night, you have to pay an extra 50 because you're using the room alone. the other way of saying that would be instead of paying 200 euros for the whole room, you just have to pay 150 because you're staying alone. Either you have a price for an Einzelzimmer, for a single room, that's Einzelzimmer, or you have an Einzelzimmerzuschlag, that's the addition you pay, if you're using a room alone. Another thing that's probably noteworthy here, prices in hotels and pensionen, not in Airbnbs, but if you're in a hotel and a pension, are usually including a breakfast Because we have a lot of American tourists or a lot of tourists from a lot of places in the world where this is not the case. So sometimes hotels make it different. But the norm, the normal case is you have a price and the breakfast is included. So just so you know. I started with the Einzelzimmer. So I'm gonna also tell you what a double room is and that's Doppelzimmer. Doppelzimmer is a double room. That's the that for the hotels right now. I'm going to go to a different, subject because recently somebody asked do you have supermarkets in Austria? Yes, we have supermarkets in Austria. They're maybe a little smaller than the average Woolworth in the United States, but we have supermarkets in Austria and Germany. and in case you want to find them and you don't know, I'm gonna tell you a few of the names of the supermarkets in Austria. So, first of all, a supermarket is called Supermarkt. It's actually quite similar. So you can always ask for a Supermarkt. In Austria, we have very different opening times than we have in other places of the world. So most supermarkets and most of the shops, by the way, they open in the mornings. Supermarkets open earlier, so supermarkets open anywhere between 7 and 8 usually. other shops, probably somewhere between 8 and 10. And, supermarkets close, most of them, between 7 and 8 in the evening. And that is Monday through Friday. On Saturday, things are open until 6 p. m. And on Sunday, most supermarkets are closed. and most regular shops are closed. What's not closed on Sundays is museums, attractions, restaurants, but some, I mean, restaurants have individual opening times. Anyway, so don't be surprised when shops are closed on Sundays. Maybe you wonder what people do. Well, the idea behind it is actually that everybody, also people that work in shops have the possibility to spend a day with the family or a day off. And, so, it's different kinds of free time. People go in the summer, they go swimming, they go to the woods, they go to a museum, they go to the cinema, things like that. So, these are open, just not the supermarkets and the other shops. So, the names of a few of the supermarkets are Billa, That by the way, it comes from billig, that means cheap. It's just a name, it's not a particularly cheap supermarket. It's just a supermarket. then Spar. That comes from Sparen. That means to save money. then more in the, in villages. In, in Vienna, not so much. There is another chain called Adeg. Then there is another, big one called Hofer. Hofer is Aldi in Germany and also in the U. S. I don't think they have Spar and Billa in the U. S. I've seen Spar in Italy. It's called Despar or Despar. I don't know about the others, to be honest. And then, for drugstores, like to where you get the cosmetic stuff or sunscreen or creams and stuff like that, it's Bipa or, and DM. These are the two big chains for things like that. A pharmacy is an Apotheke. Now these are only open usually on Saturday until noon and not on Sunday. If you're in Vienna and you really, really need something, there are, always pharmacies that are open and you can ask in the hotel for Apothekennotdienst. That's the, and you probably can look it up in the internet too. You can look it up on the internet. Or you can always google Apotheke Offen. Offen means open. because there are always pharmacies open, but not all of them. And you can go there and you can ring and, Somebody will come and ask you what you need. there will be an additional fee for using them out of the normal opening times. So you will only, you'd only do that if you really need something. But if there is an emergency and you need something from the pharmacy, in every district of Vienna, there will be one that is open and you can find it by googling Apotheke, that's pharmacy, Wien offen. Offen means open. So that's very, very important word here in this context. Now let's move on to public transport. Okay. generally, like Austria has a very good public transport, particularly Vienna has an extremely good public transport. But of course, we have public transport everywhere in the German speaking area. The good thing is it's safe and it's affordable. Vienna is particularly good. I'm not just saying that because I live here. I'm not just saying that because I'm biased. I am also using it, by the way. I'm a very happy public transport user in Austria. Anyway, so let's go through a few words here. Straßenbahn, that's the tram. So these are the little trains that drive directly on the streets. Sometimes they have colors, like with promo, but they're normal, their natural, so to say, color is red. Then there is another word that's called Bahn. When we say Bahn, we refer to a train. So that is like a train that goes between cities. and they have separate tracks, and that is then a Bahn. So the train station is the Bahnhof, literally is the train court, I guess. Bahnhof. So Bahnhof you can find in many, many cities, obviously. So, and then I'm gonna add another one here. The main train station of any place would be the Hauptbahnhof, that's one word. Hauptbahnhof is the main train station. Then, A few other words in this context. an Aufzug is an elevator and Rolltreppe, A rolltreppe is an escalator. Aufzug is the elevator.. And Rolltreppe is the escalator. So Rolltreppe, by the way, it means rolling stairs. So if you look at the actual design of a Rolltreppe, I think it actually makes sense. Good. So I'm just going to have a few more. There is a lot of more words that you could say, obviously, or words that are interesting for you to travel. So a lot of these will be covered, as I said, in the German Academy course. of, German for Travelling. If you wonder what could be a German for Travelling course, so the Beginner's Course is basically, in part going to be just a German Beginner's Course. We're just gonna have a big, big focus on vocabulary that you need for travelling, or that could be helpful for travelling, and we're gonna take some of the, the grammar out, because we're not going to put so much emphasis on correctness of sentences. We don't have a whole lot of huge emphasis on correctness of sentences in a beginner's course anyway, but we're going to even more focus on vocabulary that is helpful, and on more like how can you speak, how can you start using the language, and what is helpful if you travel and not so much of, of things that are maybe not as necessary. in that context. So that is going to go in there. You can just continue following my podcast. Obviously the best thing here is you sign up for my newsletter and you will get updates when you go there or you just start and enroll into the Better German Academy now and become an early adopter. So a museum is a museum. It's just another way of saying it. So that's An easy one. And then in Vienna, particularly we have an amusement park and it's called Prater. That's not. The German word for amusement park, that's the name of the amusement park in Vienna. It is not like Disneyland, it's much smaller, but it has its own charm. It's different. It's been there for more than a hundred years. Unfortunately, it burned down in between, but it's very nice and you get very interesting food. I suggest you to go there. if you're in Vienna. Flughafen is the airport. if you're traveling by car, which I do not really suggest to you, particularly if you come to Vienna, but if you do, then you will need a parking place, a place to park your car, and that's called Parkplatz. a rental car is a Mietauto. So, the opening times of places of a shop or anything is Öffnungszeiten. Opening times. That's one word. Öffnung is open or opening and Zeit is the times, basically. So, if you go to the cinema, If you want to go to the cinema. Cinema is Kino. And you can do that, particularly in, in big entertainment centers. They sometimes play original movies with subtitles that would be abbreviated O M U. Original, Original mit Untertitel. and O M U. And in Vienna, we actually have. One, two, at least two or three cinemas that are just playing English movies. One is the Artis, it's right it's in the center, it's in the first district. And then the other one is the Flotten Center, and I think there is a third one, but these are the ones that I know at the top, off the top of my head. These are just playing English movies, without subtitles, by the way, usually. And then, if you wanna, if you're in Vienna in summer, there's a lot of things you can do. By the way, just generally, in Vienna, or in all of Austria, you cannot just watch old buildings and go to the museum. There's a lot of other things you can do. You can go hiking. There is a lot of nice ways of going to swim. We have both, public swimming pools, inside and outside and we also have a lot of like there's a lot of natural places where you can swim in lakes and rivers and so on. The word that you need there is Schwimmbad Schwimmbad is kind of like an a thing where you have a swimming pool, but it's usually more like you have places where you can change. you can eat there and so on. So that's where a lot of people go in summer, The Schwimmbäder in Wien, we have about 30, I think, of them. They open generally, the outdoor Schwimmbäder, They're called Freibäder, or Freibad. That's an outdoor place to swim. they're open if the weather is nice on, from the 1st of May until end of September. So, if the weather is nice, you can start going to an outside swimming pool in Vienna starting on the 1st of May. I don't know in other places of the German speaking area, but they will all be called Schwimmbad oder Schwimmbäder und Freibad. is also a general term, not just a Viennese one. maybe, all of these activities and finding a parking place and traveling will make you hungry. So, let's call a few words about this before we end off. So, Restaurant. is self explanatory. It's a restaurant. But there is another word that you should absolutely know, particularly in Austria and southern areas of the German speaking area, and it's called Gasthaus. and that's literally a guest house but it's a place where you can eat and it's the local kitchen and most of these Gasthäuser are very good. Do not expect a big menu. They usually, actually, oh, there's another word that I just realized here. If you see their "Menü", it's not a menu. It's a, usually a two course meal and a most gasthäuser have like on every day one or two, that they offer. They're usually very fast available and they're cheap. and they can be very good. This is the local food. They usually consist of a soup and a main course. So that's the Menü in a Gasthaus. That's not the menu. The menu would be die Karte. Another way of saying Gasthaus could be Gastwirt. these are like the typical Austrian places where you can eat. And, around noon they offer Menüs. So that means they offer relatively cheap two course, meals, for people to come and eat fast in their lunch break. And then, just for the matter of completeness, obviously, there is also a Lieferservice. That's a delivery service. Lieferservice. One big one in Austria is Foodora. These are a few of the words. I could go on and on and on, so please let me know which are other words and if you like this kind of episode then I'm gonna make more of that. And I hope to see you soon, or hear you soon, or you hear me soon, in the next episode of the Better German Podcast.

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