LAWLzoR

I know that my history lessons might be getting on your nerves, so I'm going to mix it up. I'm going to teach you guys a few German words and phrases, such as how to greet people, and basic verbs. Let's not waste any time meine Freunde!

Firstly, greetings. There are multiple ways to greet people, but perhaps the most used is "Hallo! Wie geht's?" I'm sure you guys know what "Hallo" means (it means "Hello") but "Wie geht's" is actually a contraction of "Geht es?" It literally translates to "How goes it?" but it's seen as a "How are you?"

The proper way to respond would be "Es geht mir..." and instead of the periods, you would put one of the following:

Gut (good)
Blöd (lame)
Wunderbar (wonderful)
schlecht (bad)

The phrase "Es geht mir" means "It goes ... for me". German has a different sentence structure than English. For those of you who are still taking a foreign language, you'll perhaps know this because Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, and indeed German all have different ways to construct a sentence. In German, the basic structure of a sentence is that the verb always goes second after any who/where/what information.

For example: Im 5 Uhr habe ich Abendessen gegessen. (At 5 o clock, I had dinner).

Now for ways to say goodbye. There are two for when you're saying goodbye to a friend, or someone who is of equal rank (Student to Student, or Child to Child): "Tschau" and "Tschüss" which both mean "good bye!" (Side note: whenever you see "tsch" it's said as the English "ch"). However, when you want to say goodbye to a teacher, or someone you just met, or someone of higher rank, you would say "Auf wiedersehen".

To recap:
Hallo! Wie geht's? = Hello! How are you?
Es geht mir... = It goes... for me
Tschau/Tschüss = Goodbye (friend, or equal rank)
Auf wiedersehen = Goodbye (higher rank)

And now for some basic German verbs that can help you introduce yourself, or are just found frequently in German. We'll first look at another greeting word: sein (to be) and heißen (to be called/named).

The way you conjugate sein is a bit confusing, but it's around the same idea as English. I am/You are/He/She/It is, etc.

(I) ich - bin (am)
(familiar/equal rank You) du - bist (are)
(he/she/it) er/sie/es - ist (is)
(we) wir - sind (are)
(you all) ihr - sint (are)
(formal/higher rank You) Sie - sind (are)
(they) sie - sind (are)

Another wonky thing about the German language, there are multiple "Sie"s in it, and there is a different. If you are using "Sie" it's usually used as a formal way to say "you". The "S" is capital no matter where it is in the sentence. If you are using "sie" it can either mean "they" or "she" and it depends on the context.

When you use the phrase "Ich heiße" or "Du heißt" what you're really saying is "I am called" or "You are called". It's another way to say "My name is". You can also use "sein" or "Meine Name ist...", but I'm sure you get the idea.

ich - heiße
du - heißt
er/sie/es - heißt
wir - heißen
ihr - heißet
Sie/sie - heißen

To recap:
To be is "sein", to be called something is "heißen", and "Meine Name ist..." means "My name is...". The conjugations are above.

One last thing before this lesson is completed: in German, EVERY noun is capitalized, no matter where it is in the sentence, and "ich" is never capitalized unless it is the first word of the sentence. I'll give you an example of each.

"Ich gehe aus dem Bus zur Schule."
(I use the bus to go to school)

"Du isst (eat) die Eis (ice cream), und ich esse (eat) das Brot (bread)."
(You eat the ice cream, and I eat the bread)

Another last thing before this ends: Don't confuse "ei" and "ie"
ei sounds like "I"
ie sounds like "ee"

It's confusing for English speakers to first get that, but when you practice it a lot, it'll just stick with you I promise. I hope this lesson helped all of you Tschau!