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LESSON NOTES

Beginner #3

The Oldtown

CONTENTS

2 German

2 English

2 Vocabulary3 Sample Sentences

3 Grammar

4 Cultural Insight

#

3

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GERMAN

1. #2: Es gibt viele schöne Gebäude hier.

2. #1: Ja, das ist die Altstadt. Hier gibt es auch viele Bars.

3. #2: Und was ist das?

4. #1: Das ist der Rhein dort drüben.

5. ...

6. #1: John, wir sind da. Das ist mein Haus.

ENGLISH

1. #2: There are many nice buildings here.

2. #1: Yes, this is the oldtown. There are also many bars here.

3. #2: And what is that?

4. #1: That is the [river] Rhine over there.

5. ...

6. #1: John, we’re there. This is my house.

VOCABULARY

Ge r man E nglish C lass Ge nde r

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es gibt there is, there areexpression; very

useful expression!

very useful

expression!

viele many adverb

schön nice, pretty adjective

Gebäude building noun

Neuter; plural is the

same.

das that, the (neuter)

demonstrative

pronoun / definite

article

Altstadt oldtown noun, feminine, die

was what pronoun

Haus house noun plural: Häuser

SAMPLE SENTENCES

Es gibt viele C afés hier.

There are many cafés here.

Viele S tudente n sind arm .

Many students are poor.

Es ist schön, dass S ie da sind.

It's nice that you're there.

Die ses Gebäude i st 100 J ahre al t.

This building is 100 years old.

Das Wasser ist kalt.

The water is cold.

Die D üsseldo rfer Altstadt ist sehr

schön.

Düsseldorf's oldtown is very nice.

Was ist das?

What is this?

Mein Ha us ist n icht groß.

My house isn't big.

GRAMMAR

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Here’s an extremely important notion when learning German: German divides everything

into three genders: masculine (male), feminine (female) and neuter (neutral). This means

that not just people or pets have a gender but all random objects (e. g. a pencil is masculine)

and even concepts (e. g. hope is feminine) do. Most of the time the assignment of gender

doesn’t make sense, so you have to learn it along with the noun. A great way to learn the

gender is to imagine some male or female or neutral archetypes or stars in a memorable,

funny or weird situation along with the word.

Masculine words get the article “der”, feminine words get the article “die” and neuter words

get the article “das”. The gender of a noun will always be mentioned in the vocabulary list. For

compound words like „Altstadt“, it’s easy to determine the gender: just look at the noun that is

the last part of it. That noun determines the gender of the whole word. In this case the last part

is “Stadt”, which is feminine, and so “Altstadt” is feminine too.

CULTURAL INSIGHT

Many German cities have nice historic oldtowns. Some cities can be traced as far back as 500

BC. If you are interested in history, the Western part of Germany should be particularly

interesting to you, because that is where Frankish empire with its medieval castles stretched.

Especially the area along the upper Rhine is known for its castles. In the extreme western part

of Germany, you can also find Roman ruins. The Rhine was a natural border to their empire.

Germans tend not to identify much with Germany as a modern country and there is probably

less patriotism in Germany than anywhere else in the world, but there is a broad interest inhistorical Germany. For example, there are parks, fairs and re-enactments festivals dedicated

to any part of German history before 1900: the “barbarian” life, the Romans, the Frankish

empire, medieval crafts and trades, the industrial revolution, the war against Napoleon, and

so on.

So Germany is the place to be if you like history – or also beauty, because most cities and

most houses are designed with beauty in mind, not plain functionality. And of course there

are also plenty of museums, theatres, amusement parks, spas and the like. In fact, when

there are several big cities close to each other, like Düsseldorf and Cologne or like all of thecities of the Ruhrgebiet, there is rivalry between them and every city tries to outdo the other in

terms of museums, parks, theatres, clubs etcetera, which is beneficial for the people living

there, who can benefit from a wide variety of choices.

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