Thema 1: Mein Alltag – heute und gestern

In Thema 1: Mein Alltag und Zuhause – gestern und heute, our focus will be on talking about your Alltag (daily life), from your daily routine to your college schedule, hobbies, and meeting up with friends. We will also learn how to talk about where you live and with whom. This should provide some review of previously learned topics, while introducing you to the language necessary to talk about these things in the past.

Talking about the past in German is, in many ways, much easier than in English (or in any of the Romance languages). It may not feel easy to the English native speaker, because we generally do not have to think about whether “Yesterday, I went to the movies with my new boyfriend.” or “Yesterday, I was going to the movies with my new boyfriend.” is correct. We instinctively know that the second sentence is not complete. If we say “I was going” instead of “I went” then we have to add more information, e.g. “Yesterday, I was going to the movies with my new boyfriend when I ran into my ex-boyfriend. Yikes!” By contrast, talking about either of these situations in German is much simpler: Both “I went” and “I was going” are “Ich bin gegangen“.

By the end of this Thema, you will be able to talk about where you live and have lived as well as the every day activities you do and have done yesterday, a few days ago, a week ago, a month ago, and so on.

Los geht’s!

1.1 Mein Alltag

1. talk about your daily routine
2. say how often you perform elements of your care routine
3. talk about your daily routine yesterday
4. say what you skip, when you are running late

1.2 Mein Wochenende

1. talk about last weekend
2. understand others talking about their weekends

1.3 Mein Zuhause

1. name typical residences and state yours now and in the past
2. name typical living areas and describe your living area now and in the past
3. say whether you live with other people and whether you lived with others in the past

1.4 Meine Wohnungslage

1. talk about a typical city
2. talk about the location of your apartment and the university, past and present
3. explain how to get to the university from your apartment
4. talk about disruptions in your commute to class

1.5 Meine Wohnungseinrichtung

1. talk about the typical rooms in a house or apartment
2. talk about the typical features and furniture
3. describe your living space

1.6 Die Zimmereinrichtung

1. state the absolute location of an object
2. talk about floor plans and features more specifically
3. talk about objects in relation to each other
4. talk about the location of “it”

1.7 Aufräumen nach der Party

1. say where things were in your apartment
2. say where everything needs to go
3. say where you put everything