The Lernen to Talk Show: Episode 28 – At the Factory!

Could it really be true? Another episode, so soon?

Believe it, people! We here at LTTS Enterprises have been pumping out the subtitles in a push to bring things up to real time. A few recent episodes alluded to my big move from Duisburg to Cologne. It occurred to me just now that I don’t think I’ve told you why I moved to Cologne. Well, you see, the third and final phase of the program through which I’m here requires all participants to find an internship with a German company. Through a series of crazy coincidences, I managed to find the best internship I possibly could have asked for. Since February I’ve been working for a film/media production company called Bildundtonfabrik. Besides being just an all-around great group of talented people, what makes the internship especially serendipitous is the fact that the main project we’re working on right now is a real German talk show! More on that later!

In today’s episode I speak with Patrick Arbeiter, director of the aforementioned talk show. He describes the ins and outs of live-editing and I feign comprehension. Special thanks to Philipp for filming in a new and innovative way. Viewers, don’t be alarmed! He’s a professional.

0:14 – Did you know that in German, there are two different verbs for “sit”? Sitzen is used when describing something that is already sitting, and setzen is used to describe the actual act of sitting. I mistakenly say “sitzen wir uns”, which mixes up the two.

0:53 – Kollege means male colleague, Kollegin means female colleague. And Kollegen means more than one male colleague, and Kolleginnen means more than one female colleague.

0:56 – Arbeit means “work”. Patrick would make a good ant.

1:17 – Once again, I misuse the word grüssen to instruct the cameraman to wave at the three minute mark…

2:08 – That (means) is because I used the verb beudeuten, which does in fact mean “mean”, but more in the sense of how words mean things, not how people mean things. When talking about people, as in, “what do you mean?” you should use the word meinen, as in, “Was meinst du?”

3:53 – I say this as though all previous episodes of the show were totally scripted…

4:00 – It’s true! Well, just about true.

4:09 – I think it was actually called Gebratene Pfandkuchen… not “burnt pancakes”. But it’s true about the meatlessness!

4:23 – Speisemeister is translated by Google to mean “feast”. I wish there was a restaurant called Feast.

4:26 – I haven’t been back there, but I’ve eaten a lot of take-out from there!

4:36 – A sneak preview of a future episode…