h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

kkkkkaattttkkkoooodddlllllll!!!! you come and take the class! I make too many mistakes!

*brandishes whip*
It's a rather nice long black one

Katkodl, whatever you just said in German, COMPLETELY and UTTERLY confused me. I'm SOOOOOOOOO lost now

Ok. Cat? The bit with the "to be" thing she was saying I am, you are, he she it is, we are, you (plural) are and they are? And I can't remember what else she said... I think it was just corrections. Plus she said something about "How many years has he?" (Well, it, because in English cars aren't male..) so she was just saying that you wouldn't really say that when asking about a human's age, although you could, it'd be a bit weird.

morning class! what do you want to learn? maybe basic verbs?

to have = haben

ich habe
du hast
er/sie/es hat

wir haben
ihr habt
sie haben

if you're talking to someone you don't know, or an authority or whatever, there's the polite form (that the english don't know).
you don't say "Du", but "Sie", written capital and you use the third person plural of the verb (like: Sie haben...)

hope that was understandable?

Hallo!

Katkat started off with teaching you some basic phrases. I think that’s a good idea, and so I’ll carry on and recapitulate respectively:


Hallo! – Hello! (informal)
Hi! – Hi! (informal)
Guten Tag! – Good day! (formal)
Guten Morgen! – Good morning!
Guten Abend! – Good evening!
Grüß Gott! – Hello! (formal, don’t say it in Northern Germany, they’ll laugh at you. it’s Austrian German, and I think they also say “Grüß Gott” in Bavaria (South Germany). “Grüß Gott” means literally translated “say hello to god” – nothing for atheists, really. but we (Austrians) are very used to this phrase, and you’ll often here it everywhere in Austria.)

Wie geht’s? – How are you? (informal)
Wie geht es dir? – How are you? (a little more formal)

Es geht mir gut. – I’m fine. (literally: It goes me well.)
Es geht mir schlecht. – I’m feeling bad.


Wie heißt du? – What’s your name? (literally: How called you?)
alternative: Wie ist dein Name?

Ich heiße Katkodl. – My name is Katkodl. (literally: I called Katkodl.)
alternative: Mein Name ist Katkodl.


Wie alt bist du? – How old are you?

23 – 23
Ich bin 23. – I’m 23.
Ich bin 23 Jahre alt. – I’m 23 years old.


Susanne has already conjugated „to have“ for you in the present tense. (I have, you have…)
it’s safe to say that “haben” (to have) and “sein” (to be) are the most important verbs to form sentences.
are you familiar with German articles (der, die, das)? if not, we could talk about it in our next lesson.


exercise:
Hallo! Mein Name ist Katkodl. Ich bin 23 Jahre alt.
Wie heißt du? Wie geht es dir? Wie alt bist du?


katkodl

*sits back in chair and relaxes*

Hallo!!!
Danielle, wie heißt du?
Wie alt bist du?
Wie geht es dir?

katkodl

Tag! Ich heiße Danielle , und du? Ich bin dreizehn Jahre alt. Gut, danke. Und dir?

Hallo!
Ich heisse Kathryn, Ich bin ein hundert Jahre alt. Ich bin krank!

Sie heisst Danielle und sie ist dreizehn Jahre alt.
Sie sind Danielle und Katkodl, und zusammen sie sechsunddreizehn Jahre haben.

Ich mag sie in meinem Bett haben

Hallo!
I'm callde Kathryn, I am 100 years old. I am sick!

Sie is called Danielle and she is 13 years old.
They are Danielle and Katkodl, and together they have 36 years.

OH DAMN!!!

*hides in the smallest place she can find*

PLEASE ignore the fact I wrote "I like to have her in my bed" in that post.
I was talking to someone on msn and I wrote that because I was thinking of something else and...
*dies of embarrassment*

*bursts into a fit of laughter*

Hallo!

corrections:
100 – einhundert
36 – sechsunddreißig (you said 13 instead of 30)
"…und zusammen sind sie 36 Jahre alt." (if it was your intention to tease us with “haben” (see post 27), it would have been “…und zusammen haben sie 36 Jahre.")

the sentence „ICH MAG SIE IN MEINEM BETT HABEN.“ was correct. as well as the other sentences.

Hallo Cat-Eyes!!!
Wie heißt du? Wie geht es dir? Wie alt bist du?

Cat-eyes won't play the game!!! Come on and stop being silly Chris!

And I'm soooooo glad my sentence was correct *scowls*

*confused stare*

Hallo!

I forgot to tell you some terms and phrases for „good-bye“. well, probably you already know them, but for the sake of completeness I will write them down anyway:

Auf Wiedersehen! – Good bye! (formal)
Tschüß! – Bye! (informal; it’s more likely to hear it in Germany than in Austria.)
Ciao! – Bye! (from Italian, some people write it „tschau“)
Ba-ba! – Bye-bye! (mostly used by small children, or people talking to small children; I’m not sure if it’s used in Germany (Susanne?), but it’s very common in Austria.)
Man sieht sich! – See you!
Bis dann! – So long!
Bis später! – See you later!

today we also learn:
Danke! – Thank you!
Vielen Dank! – Thank you very much!
Bitte! – Please!
Wie bitte? – Pardon?
ja – yes
nein – no
ja bitte – yes, please
nein danke – no, thanks


what about Cat-Eyes? is she mad at me cause my first lessons were too complicated? I hope she’ll join in again.

my next lesson will be about articles (der, die, das...). is that okay?

Bis dann!

katkodl

I'm here! I'm here! It's just school just started again and I've been busy...

Also, in an administrative role, can everyone PLEASE remember to put in ALL the translations?

In a me role, I DON'T GET ANY OF IT. What's with all the verb stuff? I've never learnt a language (except for a semester of french) where we did verbs. I don't get it. Totally lost. Out to sea.

Cat

Ok, I think I should clarify cause I'll end up with you all trying to tell me what verbs are. I know what verbs are, and how to use them in English, but I don't get it in German. Why do you just learn the verb? What's with all the you(formal) stuff? How do you use them? What are you all on about?

Cat (won't be back on until my Friday night, so Friday morning BST)

Cat-Eyes is back!!! that’s good news, isn’t it?

Cat-Eyes, forget about the verbs. we’ll come back to that later. I’ve realized that it’s pretty hard to get the rules for someone who doesn’t speak any other languages than English. German grammar is weird, I know. but we’ll sort this out…
if you have time, just have a look at the “basic phrases” like “Ich heiße…” (my name is…), how to say “hello” and stuff like that. it will help you to get some kind of feeling for the German language.

question to all: how do you learn the German pronunciation? I think the German pronunciation is much easier than the English or French one. basically we pronounce a letter the same way all the time. well, there are exceptions, but not that many.
if required I can give you an example for each letter of the alphabet.

Bis später!

katkodl

Mmmm... I would explain, but I am sleepy, and people usually never understand me anyway, plus I am lazy... if no one has explained like, tomorrow night or something and I am bored, I might explain, but I doubt it. It's not that hard to understand though... pretty straight forward, really, but oh well.