Lektion 5: Erweiterung

Hören

Vor dem Hören

Raten (predict) Sie, was diese Wörter bedeuten.

Before you listen to Karin talking about moving into her new apartment, try and predict what the following words mean:

Frage 1: Umziehen means to change apartments. Taking this into account, can you guess which one of the following verbs means to move in and which one means to move out?

Decide whether einziehen means to move in or to move out.
Decide whether ausziehen means to move in or to move out.

Frage 2: Mieten means to rent. Is die Nachmieterin/der Nachmieter the prior renters or the tenants taking over the apartment after the prior renter moves out?

Frage 3: Nehmen means to take. Decide whether mitnehmen means to take along or to take away.

Kulturelle Bemerkung

In the listening below, Karin talks about how she is taking her kitchen along when she moves. This is a common practice in German-speaking countries where people often remove not only movable furniture, but also built-in elements when they change apartments /houses. Kitchens can be left behind if the new renters have agreed to take over the old kitchen. This relatively expensive practice is an indication that moving in German-speaking countries happens less often. The expression you will hear Karin use is: die Küche ausbauen. 

Hören

Listen to Karin describe her move. She also answers the question, “Welche Möbel bringen Sie mit und wo stellen Sie sie hin? Und was haben Sie noch nicht, aber was brauchen Sie?”



 

Strukturen

Two-Way Prepositions

Accusative and Dative forms

Look at the chart below to review the dative and accusative forms of both the definite and indefinite articles. Do your best to memorize them!

NominativAkkusativDativ
pldie
keine
die
keine
den
keinen
diedie
eine
die
eine
der
einer
dasdas
ein
das
ein
dem
einem
derder
ein
den
einen
dem
einem

stehen versus stellen

Hören Sie sich den Teil des Textes über den Herd und den Kühlschrank noch einmal an.

Ich glaube, ich kann jetzt den Herd neben das Spülbecken stellen, was ich sehr praktisch finde, denn man kann abwaschen und dann kochen, das Spagettiwasser gleich auf den Herd stellen.

This is a description of a destination. You can tell by the use of the verb stellen und by the use of the accusative forms of neben das Spülbecken and auf den Herd.

Also wenn der Kühlschrank an dieser Wand steht, brauche ich noch einen Tisch oder ein kleines Regal, das dann neben dem Kühlschrank steht, dass ich dann die Dinge in den Kühlschrank ein- und ausladen kann.

This is a description of a location. You can tell by the use of the verb stehen und by the use of the dative forms of an dieser Wand and neben dem Kühlschrank.

stellen versus legen

You can use stehen/stellen and liegen/legen with animate and inanimate objects. That means that people, animal and things can stand and lie.

Stehen/stellen and liegen/legen have different positions/direction associated with:

stehen/stellen: upright or vertical
liegen/legen: on the side or horizontal

This means that your listener will know in what position the object is that you describe. Bottles is an obvious example:

Ich stelle die Flasche Milch in den Kühlschrank.
Ich lege die Milch in den Kühlschrank.

This is why Gläser stand in the table and Teller, too. Even though plates take up much horizontal space, they stand upright on a stand. This is why you say in German that Ein Teller steht auf dem Tisch. 

Wer kann sitzen?

In German, only people and animals can sit somewhere. Important here, too, is the vertical position of the person or animal. This means when you say Eine Katze sitzt auf dem Tisch, the listener will know that the cat is upright. Die Katze liegt auf dem Teppich lets you know that the cat has changed positions and is now in a horizontal position.

For English-speakers, sitzen and setzen can be confusing when you think of it as to set. Although setzen shares the directional quality of to set, it is much more limited in its application because it only is usable with people and animals. While you can say in English that you set the dishes on the table, in German you have to say Ich stelle das Geschirr auf den Tisch.

liegen/legen and hängen/hängen

Liegen and legen can be tricky for speakers of English, simply because they are verbs that we often misuse in English. While liegen means to lie, legen means to lay. In English, we can lay down a book or we can lay the placements on the table, but when someone is stretched out are in bed or on a lounge chair, that person is lying or lies on the bed. You can see that these two English verbs are closely related to the German.

Why two different verbs, hängen and hängen? They look the same to me! Well, in the present tense, they are indeed the same, but these verbs are conjugated differently in the past tense. You haven’t learned past tense yet, so you don’t have to worry about this, but we included these two verbs in the table to make you aware of the difference. Perhaps, too, you can understand that the verbs can get used in different ways, in German as well as in English:

Ich hänge das Poster an die Wand. (I hang the poster on the wall.)
Das Poster hängt an der Wand. (The poster is hanging on the wall.)

Note that the first example indicates destination and thus uses the accusative case, whereas the second example describes location and thus uses the dative case.

Remember the table from the main lesson? Here it is again as a reminder.

Verbs with AccusativeVerbs with Dative
legen (to lay)liegen (to lie)
stellen (to place)stehen (to stand)
setzen (to set)sitzen (to sit)
hängen (to hang up)hängen (to hang)
sein (to be)

Separable Verbs: Verbklammer

In the introduction to modal verbs in Module 2, Einkaufen und Essen, you have learned about the concept of Verbklammer where you have one part of the verb group in position 2 and the other part at the final position.

Ich möchte das Sofa in das Wohnzimmer stellen.

Verbs with separable prefixes follow the same principle, only here you separate the prefix from the stem of the verb. Just like with modals, the prefix goes to the end of the sentence.

umziehen: Karin zieht morgen in ihre neue Wohnung um.

Recognizing separable prefix verbs:

Separable prefix verbs often have prefixes which in other contexts can be used on their own: nach – after; mit – with; um – around or about; ab – off. This might not be the exact same meaning that they carry when combined with a verb, but this trick will allow you to identify and make an educated guess about the meaning of the verb overall.

This does not mean that non-separable prefixes such as ver– do not carry meaning. It is just that you cannot use ver- as an independent word.

Useful separable prefix verbs in the context of umziehen are:

ziehen (to pull):
umziehen (to move from one apartment to the other)
einziehen (to move in)
ausziehen (to move out)

transportieren (to transport)
abtransportieren (to move away [goods])

nehmen (to take)
mitnehmen (to take along)

bauen (to build)
ausbauen (here: to remove something)



 

Schreiben

Ich ziehe um! You are moving! Take a piece of paper to take some notes (as follows) to plan for your move.

icon reading "von Hand" with paper and pencil

Machen Sie eine Liste mit Ihren Möbeln und den Zimmern. Zum Beispiel: Küche: der Herd, der Kühlschrank, der Küchenschrank

Zeichen (draw) Sie einen Plan für Ihre neue Wohnung: Wohin stellen Sie Ihre Möbel? 

 

Ihre Freundin Emma hilft Ihnen morgen beim Umzug. Weil Sie ihr kein Attachment mit Ihrer Zeichnung schicken können, schreiben Sie ihr schnell eine E-mail. Sagen Sie ihr, was Sie wohin stellen. Die E-mail beginnt so:

Liebe Emma, vielen Dank für deine Hilfe morgen. Hier ist der Plan. Ich stelle das Bett….



 

Wortschatz

Ort und Platz

Ort and Platz overlap in their meaning because they can describe a location, an open space.

Ort is more general and generic in its meaning, referring to location in general. Because of its relationship to Ortschaft, it can be used to refer to a small town or a village Ich komme aus einem kleinen Ort, ein Ort im Gebirge.

Special meanings connected to Platz are

keinen Platz für etwas haben (to have no space for something)
square in a city Heldenplatz, Fußballplatz, Sportplatz
ranking in a sporting event: auf dem ersten (1.)/ auf dem letzten (last) Platz sein

Nouns

der Boden,¨en
der Kamin,-e
der Ort,-e
der Platz,¨e
der Umzug,¨e

and review the words for furniture in Lektion 2!

Verbs

liegen/legen
hängen/hängen
sitzen/setzen
stehen/stellen
bauen: ausbauen
nehmen: mitnehmen
transportieren: abtransportieren
ziehen: ausziehen, einziehen, umziehen

Adjectives and Adverbs

praktisch
unpraktisch