In dieser Lektion
Hören
Vor dem Hören
Wortschatz
Learn about common garden herbs and their names in German by doing the following matching activity!
Strukturen
In the video that you’re about to watch, there is a grammatical structure that you might not yet be familiar with in German. While you’re not expected to be able to produce this form yet, it will help you understand the text to know what the form is and what it looks like; in other words, being able to recognize this form as past tense will help you with your comprehension. (And don’t worry—you will learn to produce the past tense soon!)
The structure in question is the perfect tense. It is used to talk about events in the past. This verb form has two parts: a helping verb (haben or sein) and a past participle. German is not unlike English in this sense, since in English you can say “I have done my homework” (have is the helping verb, done is the past participle) and in German you say “Ich habe meine Hausaufgaben gemacht” (habe is the helping verb and gemacht is the past participle).
How do you know what the verb is when you see the past participle? If you take the stem of the participle and add an -en at the end, you’ll get the infinitive form. We’ll explore in the following activity.
Hören
Listen to the two videos below and then complete the activity that follows!
Arbeit mit dem Hören
Strukturen
Zu-Sätze
Infinitive constructions (to be, to read, to run) work very similarly in English in German. Read over the following examples to see the similarity in patterns.
Wir haben vor, einen Garten zu haben.
We plan to have a garden.
Wir fangen an, Blumen zu pflanzen.
We’re starting to plant flowers.
Die Bewohner der Nachbarschaft versuchen, durch einen Garten eine Gemeinschaft zu bauen.
The residents of the neighborhood are trying to build a community through the garden.
Frau Lang schlägt vor, rosa Rosen zu pflanzen.
Mrs. Lang suggests to plant pink roses.
As you can see, building a zu-Satz or an infinitive construction in German is simple: place the word zu in front of the infinitive form of the verb. The infinitive construction goes at the end of the phrase, and a comma is usually placed before the zu-Satz.
Um… zu- Sätze
To express the idea that one action has to happen in order for another to happen (“in order to”), German uses um… zu. Here are some examples:
Um Pflanzen zu gießen braucht man eine Gießkanne.
You need a watering can to water the plants.
Pflanzen brauchen Sonne, um zu wachsen.
Plants need sun, in order to grow.
Note that the um introduces the phrase, and the zu + infinitive is at the end of the phrase.
Also, note that while in English, you can express the idea of “in order to” with a simple infinitive clause (“I went to the store to buy a book” OR “I went to the store in order to buy a book”), in German you MUST use an um/zu-construction if the meaning conveys “in order to.”
Beispiel: Ich gehe in die Buchhandlung, um ein Buch zu kaufen.
Modal Verbs in German and Infinitives in English
You have already learned modal verbs. Note that while English uses an infinitive phrase with modal verbs, German does not. In other words, you do NOT need to add a zu when you use modal verbs in German. A few examples:
The child wants to water the plants.
Das Kind will die Pflanzen gießen.
Somebody has to water the plants.
Jemand muss die Pflanzen gießen.
Neighborhood residents are allowed to take care of a plot.
BewohnerInnen der Nachbarschaft dürfen ein Beet betreuen.
Practice these constructions with the following activities!
Sprechen
Einen Garten planen
Stellen Sie sich vor (imagine), sie wollen einen Garten haben. Planen Sie in einer kleinen Gruppe Ihren Garten. Schreiben Sie Ihre Pläne auf. Sie brauchen diese Pläne vielleicht für eine Schreibaktivität.
- Welche Gemüse- und Obstsorten wollen Sie haben?
- Welche Aktivitäten soll man in einem Garten machen?
- Wer macht diese Aktivitäten?