Hallo liebe Studierende!

Zum Aufwärmen machen wir unseren Tagesminiplausch und eine Wiederholung.

Wiederholung

In the previous lesson, you learned how to say what your favorite item of clothing is, what item of clothing you like, and what you like and do not like to wear. Let’s review what you have learned.

Lektionsüberblick

Learning about someone’s friends can tell you a lot about that person. As you get to know people in Germany, you can talk about your friends back home. You have already learned enough German that you can now give a basic introduction and description of your friends. In this lesson, you will recall past lessons in service of describing your best friend. In the end, you will be able to 1) introduce your best friend, 2) state some of their basic biographical information, and 3) say how long you have known each other.

1) Introduce your best friend

Perhaps you have ein bester Freund, eine beste Freundin, or eina besta Freund*in.

Let’s see how these people introduce their best friends to you.

Let’s practice! Be sure to click through to each question/picture. If you want to challenge yourself, fill in the blanks without looking at the speech bubble!

2) Mehr zum besten Freund/ zur besten Freundin/ zur bestan Freund*in?

Let’s move to the next part of an introduction: Saying where someone is from, where they live, and how old they are. You may remember this from learning how to introduce yourself in Thema 1 and how to talk about your family and origins in Thema 2. If needed, you can review before moving on.

Now look at the cartoon below. Focus on how each person says where the other person lives and then where they come from. Then complete the activity.

Now let’s focus on stating the age of our best friend. If you need help with ages, review the numbers and listen for the age of your best friend.

Let’s practice stating our friend’s age. Read the comic and then listen, before completing the practice activities.

3) Wie lange seid ihr befreundet? Wie lange kennt ihr euch?

You’ve learned how to use numbers to describe someone’s age. Let’s learn how to use numbers to describe a length of time.

Ich habe viele Freunde, aber eine meiner besten Freundinnen ist Meike. Ich kenne Meike seit fünf Jahren.

Now let’s practice! Read the comic and answer the questions.

🎥You can listen to a hit song by Nena called Du kennst die Liebe nicht (1985) that uses the word kennen that you just learned. Follow along with the lyrics and notice how many words you kennen!

Zum Schluß

In this lesson, you learned how to 1) introduce your best friend, 2) state some of their basic biographical information, and 3) say how long you have known them. If you are feeling unsure about any part of the expanded introduction, go back to that section and review.

Imagine you are in a café in Germany, talking to a person who just might become a friend. You are getting to know each other. You’ve covered the basic information and are now talking to each other about your best friends. This potential new friend says, “Hast du einen besten Freund?” You open the photo album on your phone, show a picture of your best friend, and talk a little about them. Write out this part of the conversation in your journal, using the language modeled in this lesson. Be sure to start with “Das ist…” and then include their name, age, where they are from and now live, and how long you have known them.

You may also use Julia’s journal entry as a model.

When you are done, record yourself in your audio journal. If you can do it immediately without reading, that’s great! Otherwise, practice saying it a couple times before recording. Or rerecord, if you are not satisfied. Here is Julia’s recording:

*As you conclude this lesson, don’t forget to check Canvas!*

Media Attributions

• Friend descriptions adapted from Grenzenlos Deutsch, licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International License.