40. Basic Everyday Phrases You Might Need in Germany

40.  Basic Everyday Phrases You Might Need in Germany

Your experience of travelling in any country can be greatly enhanced if you can say at least a few of the basic phrases, order a meal or buy a ticket on the bus or train. Sometimes a little knowledge, however, can get you into trouble especially if a local rattles back at you assuming that you can speak quite fluently. That's when you will need the phrase Sprechen Sie Englisch? [sh prair ch en zee  eng lish] = Do you speak English? Nonetheless, that can be all part of the fun and I thought in this post we should look at some of the basics phrases of German.

The two most obvious phrases you might like to know are please & thank you ....

bitte  [bitter] = please   &   danke [dunker] = thanks. These two expressions are contractions of ich bitte  and  ich danke = I bid/ask (you)  &  I thank (you).

These two phrases work together. If you offer something to someone, you will say bitte (schön) and your partner most likely will reply  danke (schön) ....  schön [shern] = nice, beautiful and basically it just increases the niceness of the statement.

If you say danke schön to somebody who has lent you something, (s)he will most likely reply bitte schön. 

Another common expression of thanks is vielen Dank [feelin' dunk] = many thanks. I haven't mentioned it yet but you might have noticed that ALL nouns in German are written with a capital letter. For the grammatically challenged, a noun is the name of a person or thing … if you can put 'the' in front of  a word and it makes sense .... the book, the cat etc.  but not the is. (verb), you have a noun.

The title for this post "I'd like" is rendered in German as  ich möchte [i ch  mur  ch ter]. I have offered this up as a title because this phrase is such a handy expression in all manner of situations ...

e.g  Ich möchte ein Bier bitte  [ ich  mur ch ter    eye n   beer   bitter] = I'd like a beer please

Bitte, ich möchte das Steak [ duss   sh take] I'd like the steak please ( Note 'bitte' often comes first)

Ich möchte die rote Bluse [dee roh ter  blooh zer] = I'd like the red blouse

Wir möchten zwei Karten für die Oper [tsveye carten  fue r  dee Ohper] = we'd like 2 tickets for the opera - note the ending change on the verb when you use wir. 

We will  look at how German verbs work in the near future.

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