The Lernen to Talk Show: Episode 19

On Sunday, December 4th, I traveled to Aachen for a taste of what I’d heard was one of the best Weihnachtsmarkts in all of Deutschland. It was a group excursion, led by the ever delightful Alfons, who also appears as my guest in today’s episode! Alfons is one of the administrators of the program in which I’m participating here in Germany, and I am very grateful for the time he’s put into showing us around the beautiful Bundesland that is Nordrhein-Westphalen. Join us as we expand on Episode 17’s discussion of one of Germany’s longest Christmas traditions and the tourism it inspires.

0:18 – Believe it or not, I have only chewed gum perhaps three times in the last ten years. For some crazy reason, this was one of those times. I am sorry I look like a some kind of ridiculous ruminant. I guess I didn’t know what a person looks like when they chew gum and talk.

0:39 – “Aaachaner Weihnachtsmarkt”, say I. Just like you see on the sign behind us later on. I think this is a fun little detail about Deutsch. One ads the suffix “-er” to the end of a city when using it as an adjective. See if you can here it later on with other cities! (Hint: Duisburger, Bonner…) It’s like if we said “The New Yorker Film Festival” or the “Las Vegaser Mayor”.

0:54 – I do not know the word for motorcycle. That seems weird. Here I use the word for “bicycle”, Fahrrad.

1:19 – I’m starting to get the hang of this putting verbs on the end of dependent clauses thing! I don’t think such patience on my part with the word “hat” has ever before been caught on film.

1:23 – I am not 100% sure that this is what he said here… it was hard to hear.

1:37 – Screwed up the gender of the word “See” here. You see, the word for “lake” is “der See”. The word for “big, perhaps salty, lake” is “die See”. Unsure whether the English Channel would technically be “der See” or “die See”, I split the difference and called it “das See”, thus assuring my incorrectness.

1:45 – I think I should have said “einen Weihnachstmarkt” here, not “ein Weihnachtsmarkt”.

2:04 – Alfons reemphasizes the phrase “und Belgien” here, because when I say “und” it sounds like I’m saying “in”. It is humbling to realize that after 18 weeks I still have trouble pronouncing words like “and”.

2:12 – There’s gotta be another “Dreiländereck” somewhere, right? Ah yes, Wikipedia tells me there may be as many as 207! Not sure why this required a fancy name.

2:32 – I’m moving to Köln! At least I was as of the filming of this video… There are some obstacles still standing in my way…

2:38 – I should have said “neues”. Sometimes adjective endings are not as much fun as at 0:39. I won’t get into it here.

3:15 – I learned how to say useful things like “the 19th century” mere hours before filming this episode. I couldn’t quite get it right here.