Germany Isn't Scary (Anymore): German Crash Course

Before this blog was so rudely interrupted by my pregnancy announcement, I promised I would post some basic German phrases for my folks who will be here on Friday — and for anyone else with plans to visit us here in the next two and a half years. (Which I would recommend. We just got a futon.)

First, let's go over some basic pronunciation. One of the most important things to remember is that the letter W is always pronounced like a V and the letter V is always pronounced like the letter F. (F, as it turns out, is still F. But before you start bawling about it, allow me to remind you of the useless letter C.)

Please don't panic if you see this: ß. All it means is SS. So it just gets a soft S sound. Otherwise, most stand-alone S's sound like Z's.

And you know in English how I's and E's get arbitrarily swapped around in words that sound the same, like "weird" and "pier"? You never have to worry about that confusion in German. There are a lot of IE combinations in German, but the sound always goes with the second letter. For example, one word for "the" in German is "die". But it's not die, like dead, it's dee. And the word "leider" is pronounced "lyder". (That means sadly, by the way.)

Also, when a word starts with ST, like Straße, the word for street, it's given a "sht..." sound, so Straße is "shtrahsseh".

Oh yeah, and Z's sound like TS, as in Nazi. But we've all learned that one.

OK. Onto the fun stuff. Here are some words you're likely to use.

Guten Tag (goo-ten tahg): formal hello
Hallo: hi
Auf Wiedersehen (owf veed-er-zay-en): formal goodbye
Tschüss (chooss ... sort of. ¨'s make things a little weird, but I can't explain it in text.): casual goodbye
Danke (don-keh): thank you
Danke schön (shoon): thanks a lot
Vielen Dank (feel-in donk): many thanks
Bitte (bit-eh): please AND you're welcome AND here you are, as in when you give somebody something. Your all-purpose magic word.
Entschuldigung (ent-shool-dee-goong): excuse me

Now some handy phrases, just in case.

Wo ist die Toilette? (voh isst dee toy-lett-eh?): Where is the bathroom?
Wir sind Jasmines Eltern. (veer zint Jasmine's el-turn): We are Jasmine's parents.
Wir können nicht Deutsch. (veer koohn-en nikht doych): We can't speak German.
Können Sie English? (koohn-en zee ang-lish): Can you speak English?
Wir kommen aus Amerika. (veer kohm-en owss a-mer-eek-a) We're from America.
Was kostet das? (vahss kohst-et dahss): What does that/this cost?
Wie viel? (vee feel): How much?

That's enough for one session, I think. Good luck with the packing, Mom and Dad, and have a fun flight! We can't wait to see you! Bis dann! (biss dahn): Until then!



JEM