Hanse Study

Welcome to this German course. Please note that these courses are cumulative, so if you did not complete the previous courses you might face some difficulties in understanding.

Let us start with repeating the words we learned in our first lesson.

a beer

ein Bier 

a glass

ein Glas

a coffee

ein Kaffee

a cup

ein Becher

a burger

ein Burger

a glass of beer

ein Glas Bier

a cup of coffee

ein Becher Kaffee

We also learned the German phrase to ask for something. So let us try to ask for some things.

I would like a glass of beer.

Ich hätte gerne ein Glas Bier.

I would like a cup of coffee.

Ich hätte gerne einen Becher Kaffee.

Did you remember to exchange “ein” for “einen” ? If not, do not worry, you will have plenty of opportunities to practice.

But first let us try to learn a few new words.

The German word for water is:

Wasser

Similar to English, “WASSER” can be used to describe water for drinking, for swimming, a water leak and so on. 

But in German we also say “a water” to say a cup of water or a bottle of water.

So a cup of water or a glass of water is:

ein Wasser

Similarly a portion of Icecream is:

ein Eis

Eis literally means Ice, but can also be used for ice cream.

The german word for Tea is:

Tee

Exactly as water and ice “a tea” means one portion of tea.

a tea

ein Tee

Now that we know the words for ice and tea, how would you say an iced tea ? 

an iced tea

ein Eistee

How do we say: “I would like a Burger.” ?

Ich hätte gerne einen Burger.

I would like a glass.

Ich hätte gerne ein Glas.

I would like a cup of coffee.

Ich hätte gerne einen Becher Kaffee.

So neuter nouns can keep their article, while male nouns need to swap “ein” for “einen”.

Based on this, what gender do the new words have ? Listen to them used in a sentence.

Ich hätte gerne ein Wasser.

So water is neuter. Let us try the other ones.

Ich hätte gerne ein Eis.

Ice is neuter as well. How about tea ?

Ich hätte gerne einen Tee.

So Tea is male.

Then how about iced tea ? 

Ich hätte gerne einen Eistee. 

As a rule of thumb, if you have words which are a combination of multiple words, the gender of the whole word is the same as that of the last word.

A Quick Tipp:

A big part of learning a language is starting to think in that language. This will make it a lot easier to respond to questions and to remember to change word endings and so on.

So even if you do not think in german words, try to think in german grammar before translating it. For example if you wanted to order a cup of water, you can think of the phrase “a water” instead of “a cup of water”, this will make it a lot easier to adapt.

Let us learn one more word, it is the German word for please.

Bitte.

So if someone asked you

What would you like to drink ?

You could respond with:

Tee bitte.

Ein Glas Bier bitte.

Ein Wasser bitte.

This concludes this Episode.