Coffee Break German

Lesson 03
Study Notes

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 1 of 15

LESSON NOTES

ICH KOMME AUS DEUTSCHLAND. UND SIE?

In this lesson of Coffee Break German we will learn to talk about
where we come from, and ask other people where they come from.
We’ll cover the names for a number of countries, and learn greetings
used in different parts of the German-speaking world.

INTRODUCTION
Following a brief review of the question wie heißen Sie? Thomas
and Mark began the lesson with a short conversation:

Mark: Bist du fertig?

Thomas: Ja...
Mark: Dann lass uns anfangen!

We have encountered the phrases bist du fertig? (are you ready?)

and lass uns anfangen (let’s begin) before. The additional word to
consider here is dann:

dann
then, so

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 2 of 15

dann lass uns anfangen
then let’s begin / so let’s begin

SIE AND DU
In lesson 2 we learned the question wie heißen Sie? meaning “what
is your name?” This is the formal version of this sentence: as we
learned last time there are two forms for “you” in German, just as
there are in many other languages. Our Grammar Guru Kirsten will
tell us more about this later in the lesson.

For now, let’s consider the informal way of asking the question, “what
is your name?”:

wie heißt du?

what is your name? (informal)

Note that heißen becomes heißt when using the informal form. We
will study this pattern later.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

If you are asked a question in German, you can direct the same
question back to the person who asked you the question by using the
phrase:

und Sie?
and you? (formal)

Here is an example of this phrase in a conversation:

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 3 of 15

 Mark: Wie heißen Sie?
Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas. Und Sie?
Mark: Ich heiße Mark.

Of course, if you are using the informal form, you can replace the Sie
with du:

und du?
and you? (informal)

Mark: Wie heißt du?

Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas. Und du?
Mark: Ich heiße Mark.

TALKING ABOUT WHERE YOU’RE FROM

Using the formal form, to ask someone “where do you come from?” or
“where are you from?” you use the following phrase:

woher kommen Sie?

where do you come from?

The word wo means “where”, and woher means “where from” or

“from where”, so the sentence literally means “where from come
you?”

To answer the question, Thomas says:

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 4 of 15

ich komme aus Deutschland
I come from Germany

Since Mark is from Scotland, he has to say:

ich komme aus Schottland

I come from Scotland

Thomas and Mark have a role-play conversation in which they meet

each other in a business context and introduce themselves. This
conversation uses a number of phrases we have covered so far in our
lessons.

Mark: Guten Tag.

Thomas: Guten Tag. Wie heißen Sie?
Mark: Ich heiße Mark. Und Sie?
Thomas: Mein Name ist Thomas. Woher kommen Sie?
Mark: Ich komme aus Schottland. Woher kommen Sie?
Thomas: Ich komme aus Deutschland.
Mark: Sehr gut. Auf Wiedersehen.
Thomas: Danke, tschüss.

Another phrase which could be useful in this context is the German

for “it’s nice to meet you” or “pleased to meet you”:

es freut mich
it’s nice to meet you

Note that you can shorten this expression to freut mich. It literally
means “it’s a joy to me”. Es freut mich is already a shortened form
of this longer phrase:

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 5 of 15

es freut mich Sie kennenzulernen
it’s a pleasure to get to know you

We can add this phrase to another sample conversation:

Thomas: Guten Morgen.

Mark: Guten Morgen. Wie geht’s?
Thomas: Gut, danke. Wie geht’s Ihnen?
Mark: Mir geht’s ausgezeichnet. Woher kommen Sie?
Thomas: Ich komme aus Deutschland. Und Sie?
Mark: Ich komme aus Schottland. Ich heiße Mark. Wie heißen
Sie?
Thomas: Ich heiße Thomas.
Mark: Es freut mich.
Thomas: Es freut mich auch.

Note the word auch used by Thomas in this conversation:

es freut mich auch

I’m also pleased to meet you

The word auch can be used with a subject pronoun (e.g. ich, du,
Sie, etc.):

ich auch
me too

du auch
you too (informal)

Sie auch
you too (formal)

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 6 of 15

Note in particular with ich auch, the literal translation is “I too”,
rather than “me too”. It’s important to note little nuances of this to
avoid mistranslating in the future.

Note also the word order in this sentence:

ich komme auch aus Schottland

I also come from Scotland

mir geht’s auch gut

I’m also well / things are also good for me

ICH KOMME AUS ...

Listed below are some other countries within the context of the
phrase “I come from...”:

ich komme aus England

I come from England

ich komme aus Irland

I come from Ireland

ich komme aus Wales

I come from Wales

ich komme aus Amerika

I come from “America”

ich komme aus den U.S.A.

I come from the U.S.A.

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 7 of 15

Note that since you’re talking about “the United States” you need the
definite article den here. We’ll explain more about definite articles in
future lessons. The actual translation of “the United States” is die
Vereinigte Staaten. It’s probably easier to stick to ich komme
aus den U.S.A. for now!

ich komme aus Kanada

I come from Canada

ich komme aus Autralien

I come from Australia

ich komme aus Österreich

I come from Austria

ich komme aus der Schweiz

I come from Switzerland

CULTURAL CORRESPONDENT

“Hello from me, Julia, your Cultural

Correspondent. Last time I told you about the
different parts of the world where German is
spoken. It’s also important to know that even
within Germany itself there are different
cultures. There are some things which are
associated with the country as a whole, but
you’ll find that there are other aspects,
whether that be food or architecture, or traditions which are very
different from one place to another.

Historically Germany was like a patchwork of different kingdoms,

so if I explain to you that, for example, we have sixteen different

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 8 of 15

 school systems in the different federal states of our country, I think
you’ll understand what I mean!

The other big difference is the accent and dialects used. I’m sure
you know by now that Thomas is from the south and he
pronounces some words a bit differently from me. That’s ok, I
understand him perfectly, but I thought it would be nice to teach
you some greetings you’ll come across in the different parts of the
German-speaking world.

Let’s start in the north: near the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts,
you’ll hear moin or moin, moin, meaning Morgen, or “good
morning”, but you can use this at other times of the day too.

In the south of Germany and throughout Austria you’ll often hear

servus, a greeting both for saying “hello” and “goodbye”.

Greetings in different parts of the German-speaking world: Moin in

the north, Servus or Grüß Gott in the south and in Austria, and
Grüezi in Switzerland.

Another southern German and Austria expression for “hello” is

Grüß Gott. This literally means, “greet God”, which might sound
a bit strange, but these areas are traditionally Catholic, so it

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 9 of 15

 makes sense. In fact, I guarantee that you’ll hear Grüß Gott when
you walk into a shop anywhere in Austria!

One last greeting, this time from Switzerland, is Grüezi, and like
Grüß Gott, it’s only used when you meet someone, not when
you’re saying your goodbyes.

So you’re now fully equipped to greet native German speakers

anywhere you go.”

GRAMMAR GURU

“Today we’ve introduced you to the two

forms of the word “you” in German. As
Thomas explained, du is the informal
form, and it’s used for talking to someone
you know. Sie is the formal form, and
that’s used for talking to someone you
don’t know. If you’re a school pupil, for
example, you’d use this when talking to your teacher. If you’ve
ever studied French, it’s the same idea as “tu” and “vous”, and it’s
like “tú” and “usted” in Spanish.
Although we only use one form of “you” in English nowadays, we
actually used to have two: we used “thou” for informal situations,
and “you” for formal ones. In fact this usage still exists in parts of
the English-speaking world today.
Anyway, two forms for “you”: du and Sie. So far, so good! But
we’ve also learned that these different forms cause changes to the
verbs which follow them. We learned du heißt, but Sie heißen,
so you can see that the verb has a different ending after each one.
We can see the same endings if we use those formal and informal
forms with the other verb you’ve learned today, kommen, which
means “to come”. We had the formal question woher kommen

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 10 of 15

 Sie? and then the informal version of that sentence would be
woher kommst du? Does that make sense?
So that you can see these changes more clearly, let’s consider these
verbs side by side: informal first, followed by formal.

INFORMAL FORMAL

du heißt Sie heißen

du kommst Sie kommen

I’ll be explaining exactly how to make these changes later in the

course. For now, try to focus on the pattern of the formal Sie
heißen changing to du heißt for the informal form; and Sie
kommen becoming du kommst.
Hopefully this makes sense, and you’ll learn more about verbs in
future lessons.”

Ready for more? Turn the page to continue with the

bonus materials for this lesson.

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 11 of 15

BONUS MATERIALS
In each edition of Coffee Break German we cover the basic language
you need to communicate. As part of the study pack we provide some
additional vocabulary to help you increase your range of expression.
This section of bonus materials provides additional content to help
you master the words and phrases contained in the lesson.

✤ Start with the Bonus audio lesson, our “review podcast”

✤ Review the Core Vocabulary and learn the Bonus Vocabulary

CORE VOCABULARY
grüß Gott
greeting in the south of Germany and Austria, literally meaning
“greet God”

wie heißt du?

what is your name? (informal)

und Sie?
and you? what about you? (formal)

und du?
and you? what about you? (informal)

woher kommen Sie?

where do you come from? (formal)

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 12 of 15

woher kommst du?
where do you come from (informal)

ich komme aus...

I come from

Deutschland
Germany

Schottland
Scotland

England
England

Irland
Ireland

Wales
Wales

Amerika
America

ich komme aus den U.S.A.

I come from the USA

Australien
Australia

Österreich
Austria

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 13 of 15

der Schweiz
Switzerland

ich komme aus der Schweiz

I come from Switzerland

es freut mich
I’m pleased to meet you (shortened form)

es freut mich Sie kennenzulernen

I’m pleased to meet you (full phrase)

Sie auch?
you too? (formal)

du auch?
you too? (informal)

ich auch
me too

BONUS VOCABULARY
Japan
Japan

Südafrika
South Africa

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 14 of 15

China
China

Italien
Italy

Frankreich
France

Spanien
Spain

Niederlande
the Netherlands

Belgien
Belgium

Norwegen
Norway

Dänemark
Denmark

Indien
India

Schweden
Sweden

Coffee Break German: Lesson 03 - Notes page 15 of 15