Instant! German. Nick Ph.D Theobald

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      Speak German in seconds

      Instant! German

      Nick Theobald & Jan Adams

      Published for the Internet by eBookIt.com

       http://www.eBookIt.com

      © 2011 Nick Theobald & Jan Adams

       [email protected]

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0653-4

      Cover design: Russell Chambers, [email protected]

      A Writer & Writer book.

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. So watch it, because we’ll be on to you in an Instant!

      Speak German in seconds

      This little book is your passport to speaking German, Instantly!

      Instant! German is packed full of practical, everyday, street-wise phrases and words. For the more down-to-earth reader, we’ve included a few carefully chosen, internationally-recognisable swear words too. Why…here are but some examples:

      “Does my bum look big in this?”

      “My German is not very good.”

      “Some porknuckles please.”

      “Do you have any vegetarian food?”

      “Follow that cab!”

      “Hi honey, I’m home.”

      “I’ll see you in court”

      “Stick it up your arse.”

      “Can I see you again?”

      “Where is the toilet?”

      “Stop your dog barking.”

      “What a wanker.”

      “I’ve been mugged.”

      “Honey, have I got a clean shirt?”

      Instant! German uses phonetics - Fon-net-ix. We keep it simple.

      German is a challenging language and some pronunciations are difficult to explain in print. However, in our experience, if you seem to be at least making an effort to speak German, you’ll gain Instant! respect.

      Thanks for buying our book: one author is saving up for a 2,000sqm apartment on The Peak in Hong Kong, while the other one urgently needs more conflict-free diamonds to grace his imaginary girlfriends’ fingers.

      How our stupendously simple phonetics work.

      Please read the following care-full-lee…

      English: Sorry, my German is not very good.

      German: Tut mir leid, mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut.

      Phonetics: Toot mere light, mine Doytch ist nisht zeer goot.

      Toot - what boats do

      mere - a mere handful

      light - the opposite of dark

      mine - it’s mine, not yours

      Doytch - kind of as you’d expect

      ist - same sound as list

      nisht - nish + a ‘t’ at the end

      zeer - same sound as beer

      goot - same sound as foot

      English: What’s new?

      German: Was gibt's neues?

      Phonetics: Vass gibs noy-iss?

      Vass - like pass

      gibs - like ribs

      noy-iss - noy + iss

      English: How much please?

      German: Was kostet ess bitte?

      Phonetics: Vass cost-est ess bitter?

      Vass - like pass

      cost-est - cost + est

      ess - same sound as less

      bitter - as in bitter

      English: Do you have an English menu?

      German: Haben sie eine englische Karte?

      Phonetics: Ha-ben zee eye-ner Englisher carter?

      Ha-ben - Ha + ben

      zee - as you’d expect

      eye-ner - same sound as miner

      Englisher - as you’d expect

      carter - as in get carter

      English: May I ask who’s calling?

      German: Wer ist dort?

      Phonetics: Vair ist dort?

      Vair - same sound as fair

      ist - like list

      dort - like sort

      Pronouncing the “Ich” word & other Teutonic technicalities

      Ich is the first person singular in German.

      Ich can be hard to pronounce, so we’ve cheated slightly and phoneticised it throughout as Ish. Ich and all German words with an ich or ch in them, are pronounced like the end of Bach. Ish is close enough, and in some parts of Germany, Ich is in fact pronounced as Ish.

      • You’ll see that some phrases vary slightly when addressing friends, or strangers.

      • We hyphenate many words so the the component parts are easier to sound out. Always run hy-phen-ated words together. OK?

      Essential phrases

      English: Hello.

      German: Hallo.

      Phonetics: Hello.

      Goodbye.

      Auf Wiedersehen. (formal)

      Owf vee-der-zay-en.

      Goodbye.

      Tschüss. (casual)

      Chews.

      Yes.

      Ja.

      Yah.

      No.

      Nein.

      Nine.

      Please.

      Bitte.

      Bitter.

      Thank you.

      Danke.

      Dun-kah.

      Excuse me.

      Entschuldigung.

      Ent-shull-dee-gung.

      How are you?

      Wie geht es dir? (friend)

      Vee gate ess dear?

      How are you?

      Wie geht es ihnen? (stranger)

      Vee gate ess ee-nen?

      Good-natured