Lektionsüberblick

In this lesson, we will expand on your ability to talk about your day-to-day life, by introducing the words and phrases necessary to talk about your morning and evening care routines. As with the previous topic of home and furniture, you should focus on committing to memory the words and phrases most relevant to you. In the end, you will be able to 1) talk about your morning (and night) care routines in the present, 2) say how often you perform elements of your care routine, and 3) talk about your past care routine.

1) Die Morgenroutine

Wie sieht deine Morgenroutine aus? What is your morning routine like? In the previous lesson, we remembered how to say when we get up, shower, have breakfast, and go to campus. But what about the in-between steps like getting dressed and brushing our teeth? Let’s look at the first set of phrases of a care routine. Be sure to listen to the audio before turning the card over. If you want to challenge yourself, write down what you hear, before turning the card over.

You may have noticed that many of those phrases look a bit different from the way we talk about care in English. Every sentence had the word mich in it, which means “myself” when ich is the subject. The biggest difference in these phrases is that you can’t leave off the mich in German like you often can in English. Yet another reason to enter your “German mindset” while learning and then using German, instead of thinking of German through English!

So far, we have been looking at how to talk about yourself. But what would these phrases look like, if we are talking about or to someone else? Let’s look at those phrases again. Be sure to listen to the audio before turning the card over. If you want to challenge yourself, write down what you hear, before turning the card over.

You may be wondering where the other bits of the morning routine are, like brushing one’s teeth. Let’s look at the next set of phrases. Pay closest attention to the phrases that are most relevant to you! Be sure to listen to the audio before turning the card over. If you want to challenge yourself, write down what you hear, before turning the card over.

What do you think about those phrases? Did you notice similar or even bigger differences from how we talk about care in English. You can probably guess what the next comment will be! Genau, now is a great time to work on committing words and phrases to memory without thinking about the English translations. The pictures on the cards should be a great help! This set of phrases lends itself to the bathroom mirror method: Write down the ones that are relevant to you and tape them on your bathroom mirror. Then say them to yourself every time you see your note – especially when you doing the action!

Like before, let’s see how those phrases look, if we want to talk about or to someone else. Be sure to listen to the audio before turning the card over. If you want to challenge yourself, write down what you hear, before turning the card over.

2) Täglich, wöchentlich

Wie oft putzt du dir die Zähne? Wie oft wäscht du dir die Haare? Wie oft schneidest du dir die Nägel? Do you have the same answer to all of these questions? Or do you perform some care activities more frequently than others? For example, a dentist will recommend that you brush your teeth at least twice a day, but maybe you do so more (or less) often. This section reviews and introduces different ways of talking about frequency, when it comes to your care routine.

3) Gestern nach dem Aufstehen

Was hast du gestern nach dem Aufstehen gemacht? What did you do yesterday when you got up? Now let’s see how to talk about the morning routine in the past.