German in bite-sized chunks

Lesson 3: Asking about others

What if somebody doesn't volunteer the information you'd like to know about him. In this lesson, you'll learn how to ask specific questions.

A: "Wie heißen Sie?"
B: "Ich heiße Schmidt."
A: "Ah, heißen Sie Lutz Schmidt?"
B: "Nein, ich heiße Martin Schmidt."

A: "Wo wohnen Sie?"
B: "Ich wohne in Berlin."

A: "Woher kommen Sie? Kommen Sie aus Österreich?"
B: "Ja, ich komme aus Österreich."

A: "Woher kommen Anna und Maria?"
B: "Sie kommen aus Deutschland."
A: "Und wo wohnen sie?"
B: "Sie wohnen in Düsseldorf."

A: "Ich arbeite als Fremdenführer, und Sie? Als was arbeiten Sie?"
B: "Ich arbeite als Übersetzer."

Vocabulary

Explanations

1. In this text, you saw "heißen" and other verb forms ending in -n. They are not the infinitive, they are 3rd person plural ("they") - but for regular verbs this form looks exactly like the infinitive. The pronoun "sie" is necessary in order to make it clear that this is not the infinitive, so you can't just leave out a pronoun in German, unlike in Italian for example. The 3rd person plural form is not just used in the sense of "they", but also, and more commonly, for the formal address "Sie", which corresponds to the French "Vous"(see vocabulary list for corresponding words in other languages). There is no difference in pronunciation between the "Sie" used as a formal address and the "sie" meaning "they", but in writing you will find that the "Sie" of the formal address is spelled with a capital S. So "Sie heißen" means "you (formal) are called" and "sie heißen" means "they are called".

2. Making yes/no questions. In order to make a yes/no question, take a normal sentence, such as "Sie kommen aus Deutschland."(You come from Germany.), put the verb at the beginning and replace the dot with a question mark: "Kommen Sie aus Deutschland?"(Do you come from Germany?). This is easier than in English because you never have to add another word like "do", "does", "did" or the like.

3. Making other questions. In order to make any other question, do as above and then put a question word even before the verb. For example: "Sie wohnen in Berlin."(You live in Berlin.) -> "Wohnen Sie in Berlin?"(Do you live in Berlin?) -> "Wo wohnen Sie in Berlin?"(Where do you live in Berlin?).

Exercises

Use the words you have learned in this lesson as often as you can in the next few days. If you don't know any Germans or German-learning friends on whom you could try them out, at least call them up in your memory whenever you have a few minutes to spare and imagine conversations. You could also use the Unilang VSL German forum in order to practise.

If you have some spare time left, do the exercises I created for this lesson: there's an odd-man-out game, a crossword as javascript game or for printout and a test involving active usage of the language.

Extension

If you'd like to learn more words that you can use without having to study another lesson, use this section in order to find them. Feel free to learn selectively, picking out words you consider useful for your situation or interesting. If you don't have the time, feel free to just skip this section. I will not require you to know any of these words in the next lessons.

Additional expressions: "Ich studiere Linguistik. Ich unterrichte Englisch."
New words: studieren (to study at university), Linguistik (linguistics), unterrichten (to teach).

Word lists (not complete) for use with this lesson's expressions:
(for lists of languages, countries or professions see the previous lesson)