Lesson 2

Freizeit

Dialogue

“Freizeit” means “Free time”. This dialog is of Franz and Greta familiarizing each other with their sports activities.

German Dialogue • Freizeit Sports and time Sport und Zeit
Franz	Hallo, Greta! Wie spät ist es?
Greta	Es ist Viertel vor drei.
Franz	Wirklich? Ich spiele um drei Fußball. Machst du Sport, Greta?
Greta	Nein, ich bin faul. Ich gehe jetzt nach Hause.
Franz	Fußball macht aber Spaß!
Greta	Bis dann.
Franz	Wiedersehen!

Sports and Activities

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Sports and activities Sport und Aktivitäten
English	German
sport(s)	Sport
interests, hobbies, activities	Hobbys
football/soccer	Fußball
American football	Football (spoken as in English)
volleyball	Volleyball
basketball	Basketball
tennis	Tennis
baseball	Baseball (spoken as in English)
9-pin bowling	Kegeln
chess	Schach
board game	das Brettspiel
game	das Spiel
homework	Hausaufgaben (pl.)
television	das Fernsehen/der Fernseher
movie	der Film

Spielen, Machen and Other Verbs

All three verbs that you were introduced to in Lesson 1 are irregular in some way; however, most verbs are regular verbs. The following is a table of the endings you add to the stems of regular verbs to conjugate them:

German Verb • Freizeit conjugation Konjugation
	Singular			Plural
first person	ich	-e	wir	-en
second person	du	-st	ihr	-t
third person	er	-t	sie	-en
	sie	-t
	es	-t

For example, the verbs spielen and machen,

German Verb • Freizeit to play spielen
	Singular			Plural
first person	ich	spiele	wir	spielen
second person	du	spielst	ihr	spielt
third person	er	spielt	sie	spielen
	sie	spielt
	es	spielt

German Verb • Freizeit to do_make machen
	Singular			Plural
first person	ich	mache	wir	machen
second person	du	machst	ihr	macht
third person	er	macht	sie	machen
	sie	macht
	es	macht

Applications

• Was machst du?

What are you doing?

• Ich spiele Basketball.

I play basketball.

• Spielst du Fußball?

Do you play soccer?

• Ich mache Hausaufgaben.

I do homework.

• Er macht Hausaufgaben.

He does homework.

• Machst du Sport?

Do you play sports?

Note the last sentence. In English one plays sport, while in German one does sport. You can also use the w-words from Lesson 1 to make some more combinations:

• Warum spielst du Baseball?

Why do you play baseball?

• Wer hat Hausaufgaben?

Who has homework?

To say “not”, use “nicht”. “Nicht” goes after the verb but before the sport.

• Wer spielt nicht Fußball?

Who doesn’t play soccer?

• Wir spielen nicht Tennis.

We don’t play tennis.

Compound Sentences

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Conjunctions Verbindungen
English	German
and	und
but	aber
or	oder

Both German and English have compound sentences; the applications of these are enormous. They can be used in lists, but also in compound sentences. For example,

• Ich spiele Basketball und er spielt auch Basketball.

I play basketball, and he also plays basketball.

The new word, “auch”, is very important and it means “also”. The one grammar rule about “auch” is that it always comes after the verb.

Other Verbs and Their Conjugations

German Grammar • Freizeit Verbs Verben
German	English
lesen	to read
schauen	to watch
sehen	to see
arbeiten	to work
schreiben	to write
schwimmen	to swim

Schauen, schreiben and schwimmen are all regular verbs, they follow normal conjugations. To conjugate , you first remove the ‘ en ‘, then add the correct ending, here is an example,

Verb	First Step	Finished
schauen	schau	ich schaue

• Arbeiten is an irregular verb; however, it has a simple change. Whenever the ending starts with a consonant, an ‘e’ is added before it. So it would be du arbeitest, not du arbeitst. As well as er, sie, es, and ihr arbeitet, not er, sie, es, nor ihr arbeitt.

• Lesen is also an irregular verb. First, when forming with “du, er, sie, and es”, it is du liest, not du liesst or du lesst.

• Sehen is the last irregular verb. When forming “du” it is siehst and with “er, sie, and es” it is sieht.

Two More Verb Forms

There are two more verb forms in English that you will learn this lesson: the present progressive (“I am playing, he is making”), and the affirmative “I do play, he does not play”, which includes a form of ‘to do’.
It might be tempting to make the present progressive sentence, “I am playing.” into “Ich bin spielen.”. After all, ‘spielen’ sounds a lot like ‘play-ing’, but that is not the definition. ‘Spielen’ means ‘to play’, which makes “Ich bin spielen.” into “I am to play.”, not at all what you are trying to say. So it is not “Ich bin spielen.”
The second phrase, “I do play”, is another tricky one. This one may seem like, “Ich mache spielen.” But don’t forget, there are no helping verbs in German. “Ich mache spielen.” just doesn’t work.
Both of the phrases above are simplified in German. Instead of “I am playing.” and “I do play.”, German makes them both simply: “Ich spiele.” When using ‘not’, instead of “does not play”, you get “Ich spiele nicht”. This may sound like old English, and there you see where English came from, and why it is called a “Germanic” language.

Expressing likes and dislikes

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Expressing likes and dislikes Verbindungen
English	German
I like…	Ich habe … gern
I like to play…	Ich spiele gern…
What do you like?	Was hast du gern?

* I like … also translates to: Ich mag. Mögen being the root verb, to like. What do you like? translates to: Was magst du? Ich mag, du magst, er/sie/es mag, wir mögen, ihr mögt, sie mögen.

In German, there are several ways to express likes and dislikes. This way is a casual way. You can also add other verbs for other things, like asking or saying if they like to play, or make things.

• To express preference, use lieber instead of gern. For example, “Wir spielen lieber Fußball.”

• To express favorites, you use am liebsten, meaning “most of all”, in the same context as lieber. For example, “Ich spiele am liebsten Schach.”.

• To express dislikes, use nicht gern instead of gern.

Numbers

The first big unit in this level is time, which we are just about to get to. German time is very much like English time. However, we must begin with German numbers.

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Numbers Zahlen
English	German
zero	null
one	eins
two	zwei
three	drei
four	vier
five	fünf
six	sechs
seven	sieben
eight	acht
nine	neun
ten	zehn
eleven	elf
twelve	zwölf
thirteen	dreizehn
fourteen	vierzehn
fifteen	fünfzehn
sixteen	sechzehn
seventeen	siebzehn
eighteen	achtzehn
nineteen	neunzehn
twenty	zwanzig
thirty	dreißig
forty	vierzig
fifty	fünfzig
sixty	sechzig
seventy	siebzig
eighty	achtzig
ninety	neunzig
hundred	hundert
hundred and one	hunderteins
thousand	tausend
1001	tausendeins
1101	tausendeinhunderteins
3000	dreitausend
200 000	zweihunderttausend

• Above are some basic numbers in German. If you haven’t noticed the pattern, “-zehn” creates “-teen” and “-zig” creates “-ty.”

• The numerals, when written as figures, appear the same in German and English, but when spoken or written in full, the units normally come before the tens. They are connected by und.

for example, “einundfünfzig”, which is 51, from “eins” and “fünfzig”, notice “eins” turned into “ein”.

• In spoken words, “zwo” can be used for “zwei”, distinguishing it from “drei”.

Time

Asking the Time

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Time Zeit
	English	German
	What time is it? (How late is it?)	Wie spät ist es?
	What time is it? (How much clock is it?)	Wie viel Uhr ist es?
Ef	It is 10:15	Es ist zehn Uhr fünfzehn.
BoA	It is 10:15	Viertel nach Zehn
BoA	It is 10:45	Viertel vor Elf

In table above you might have seen the Ef and BoA, those stand for exact form and before or after. Specific times can be expressed in two ways: Exact form (e.g. “Four thirty-seven”) or before or after form (e.g. “Twenty-three to five”).

Exact form

This form is the same as English. For example,

• Es ist zehn Uhr fünfzehn.

It is 10:15 a.m.

• The new word Uhr means “o’clock”, and is used in all exact times, it comes between the hour and the minute.

• Also, German-speakers generally use the 24-hour clock when expressing time this way, therefore, 3:29 p.m. (15:29) is “fünfzehn Uhr neunundzwanzig.”

Before or After the Hour

German Vocabulary • Freizeit BoA BoA
English	German
After, Past	nach
Till, to	vor
quarter	Viertel
half before	Halb

• Use the same form as in English. For example, 10:57 can be said as, “drei vor Elf(three minutes to eleven”. Likewise, 4:10 would be “zehn nach Vier(ten minutes past four).”

• Typically, use the smaller time interval with ‘nach’ or ‘vor’. Don’t say, “siebenundfünfzig nach Zehn.”

• You don’t need a vor when using halb. For example, 11:30 can be said as, “Halb zwölf” and 5:15 can be said as “Viertel nach Fünf”, 5:45 would be “Viertel vor Sechs”.

Note: This is only used with informal time telling. You don’t use ‘Uhr’.

Saying When You Do Something

Wann spielst du Football? (Football means American Football. The much more popular soccer would be “Fußball”, which lit. means Football)
To say you play a sport at a certain time in English, you would answer, “I play football at 3:30.” This is all the same in German, with the translation of ‘at’ being um. That makes the above response “Ich spiele Football um halb Vier.” or “Ich spiele Football um fünfzehn Uhr dreißig.”.

Other Time

Times of Day

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Times of Day Tageszeiten
English	German
the day	der Tag
today	heute
tomorrow	morgen
the day after tomorrow	übermorgen
yesterday	gestern
the day before yesterday	vorgestern
(early) morning	Morgen*
morning	Vormittag
afternoon	Nachmittag
evening	Abend
night	Nacht

*In German, except the capitalization, the words for “morning” and “tomorrow” are the same: morgen. If you want to say tomorrow morning use morgen früh (meaning: early on the next day) instead of Morgen morgen.

• The words above can be combined into phrases like “gestern Abend”.

Days and Months

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Days Tage
English	German
Monday	Montag
Tuesday	Dienstag
Wednesday	Mittwoch
Thursday	Donnerstag
Friday	Freitag
Saturday	Samstag
Sunday	Sonntag

• Instead of “Samstag” you can say “Sonnabend”.

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Months Monate
English	German
January	Januar
February	Februar
March	März
April	April
May	Mai
June	Juni
July	Juli
August	August
September	September
October	Oktober
November	November
December	Dezember

• To say “on Monday”, say “am Montag” or whatever applies. To say “in January”, say “im Januar” or whatever applies. This is the same for all of the days and months.

• You can also combine the times of day from earlier with the days of the week. But they’re both nouns. To do this, therefore, we must combine the two words into one, as in “Dienstagnacht” (Tuesday night).

Culture Note: The German week begins on Monday.

Dates

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Dates Daten
English	German
first of (month)	erster
second of (month)	zweiter
third of (month)	dritter
fourth of (month)	vierter
seventh of (month)	siebter
eighth of (month)	achter
-th of [below 20]	-ter
tenth of	zehnter
twentieth of	zwanzigster
thirty-first of	einunddreißigster
-th of [20 to 31]	-ster
on (the)	am

• The ordinal numbers from 2 to 19 take the endings t and from 20 upwards take the ending st

• For example “on the 25th of December”,

Simply say “am fünfundzwanzigsten Dezember.”

In other cases you say “fünfundzwanzigster Dezember” or “der fünfundzwanzigste Dezember”.

• In Germany, dates are written out in the logical order Day . Month . Year, instead of the American Month/Day/Year.

German uses a dot instead of a slash. Do not use the slash in dates, as it is unusual and confusing because you cannot tell if “4/6” means 4th of June (4.6.) or 6th of April (6.4.)

Birthdays

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Birthdays Geburtstage
English	German
Birthday	Geburtstag
Happy Birthday	Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!
Best wishes on your birthday!	Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag!
Here is your present!	Hier ist dein Geschenk!
Thank you!	Dankeschön!
That’s a nice party!	Das ist eine tolle Party!

• To say, “My birthday is on November 13th”, say, “Ich habe am dreizehnten November Geburtstag.”

Here am dreizehnten November, 13. November and 13. 11. represent the same date.

Note the order; it translates back literally as “I have on the 13th of November birthday.”

Seasons

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Seasons Jahreszeiten
English	German
Spring	Frühling
Summer	Sommer
Autumn	Herbst
Winter	Winter
in (the)	im

To say “in Summer”, say “im Sommer”. For example,

• Im Sommer spiele ich Baseball.

I play baseball in summer.

The time always goes before the verb and the subject. (time, verb, and subject)

Periods of Time

If you want to express a certain period of time, but it doesn’t have a specific name, like Nachmittag, you can do it like this:,

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Seasons Jahreszeiten
German	Time
von	Starting Time
bis	Ending Time

• This is the same as from … till … in English.

• This can also apply with dates. For example, “Wir haben Schule (school) von Montag bis Freitag”.

• Exceptions

Wir haben frei vom fünfundzwanzigsten Dezember bis zum zweiten Januar.

How often?

Wie oft?, there are many ways to answer this question. Two are “once, twice, or three times in a …” or “always, often, or never.”

A Number or Times

To say, “once a month”, or “four times a week”, add “mal” to the end of the number and use the examples below.

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Daily Täglich
English	German
Day	am Tag
Week	in der Woche
Month	im Monat
Year	im Jahr
Weekend	am Wochenende
Morning	morgens
Evening	abends
Afternoon	nachmittags
Night	nachts oder in der Nacht

For example

• Wir kegeln zweimal in der Woche.

We bowl twice a week.

Common Adverbs

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Sometimes Manchmal
English	German
always	immer
most of the time	meistens
often	oft
sometimes	manchmal
seldom	selten
never	nie
only	nur

• To apply these words, put them in the sentence, after the verb and subject, but before the sport/activity.

• You can also use ‘nur’ to say things like, Sie spielt nur manchmal Tennis.

• Note that if this is translated word-for-word, it becomes, She plays only sometimes tennis. That’s just the way German is.

Time-Related Words

German Vocabulary • Freizeit Sometimes Manchmal
English	German
Time	die Zeit
Free time	die Freizeit

• To say you have time, ignore the ‘die’.
• To say when, insert other phrases you have learned this lesson. For example, Ich habe am Samstagabend Zeit.
• Note that the word order is the same as that of birthdays. You can use Freizeit in the same way.