this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
5 points (100.0% liked)

Language Learning

857 readers
1 users here now

A community all about learning languages!

Ask / talk about a specific language or language learning in general.

Sopuli's instance rules apply

  1. Remember the human! (no harassment, threats, etc.)
  2. No racism or other discrimination
  3. No Nazis, QAnon or similar whackos and no endorsement of them
  4. No porn
  5. No ads or spam
  6. No content against Finnish law

Other active Lemmy language communities:

Other communities outside Lemmy:

Community banner & icon credits:

Icon: The book cover of Babel (2022 novel by R. F. Kuang)

Banner: Epic of Gilgamesh tablet (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Lazycog@sopuli.xyz
5
German A1 level Roleplay: experiment topic... Alice calls Hanz and then ..... (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by dragontamer@lemmy.world to c/languagelearning@sopuli.xyz
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm at the level where I must start forming sentences. The best exercise I've found for this is roleplay. So let's make a forum game out of this!!

In character roleplay will be done in German only. Meta-discussion (rules questions, edits, takebacks...) will be done in English only.

Rules:

  1. No AI, make sentences of your own accord. Correct other people's mistakes with your own effort.

  2. Set the topic to sort-by-new. Try to work off the most recent post.

  3. Reply in a thread if you think someone else made a grammar mistake, explain the mistake in English so that we know it is 'out of character's. If making a correction post, please include your rough level (A0, A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, or native).

  4. Wait for either 24 hours before replying to yourself (as the other character), or wait for some human to respond. IE: if two people are logged in at the same time, feel free to keep roleplaying with each other in German.

  5. You may play both roles, as long as you aren't repeatably responding to yourself. (24 hour delay before responding to yourself as per rule #4).

  6. Try to keep the roleplay words to the level of the topic. If A1 is too easy, make a new topic aiming for a higher level.

  7. Start every roleplay with a character name, making it clear 'who is talking'.

Roleplay situation: Alice has just called Hanz, and Hanz has picked up the phone. Alice wants to invite Hanz and hang out over the weekend. Try to figure out the time and schedule of each other in German.

I'll start with

Hanz:Hallo. Ich bin Hanz.

top 11 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm going to make a summary thus-far (using the "most correct" form made thus far...)

Hans: Hallo. Ich bin Hans.

Alice: Hallo Hanz! Am Wochenende habe ich veile Freizeit. Magst du das Theater gehen? Ich will Hamelton sehen.

Hans: Ich gehe gern in das Theater am Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist! Hamilton kostet über 500€! Welche Theaterstücke sind billiger?

Alice: Naja. 500€ ist zu teuer! “Wicked” kostet am Sonntag um 19 Uhr nur 150 €. Geht das?

New sentence from Hans:

Das geht nicht. Obwohl der Preis nicht schlecht ist, müss ich Früh am Montag arbeiten. Der Preis um 15 Uhr ist 170 €. Dürfen wir um 15 Uhr gehen?

Hmm, I'm realizing I'm using a lot of stuff from my A2 lessons and A2 classes. Although I'm at A1+, I'm obviously trying to practice my new lessons closer to A2 level. Strict adherence to the "level of German" doesn't seem too necessary... as long as we're in the rough ballpark.

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Alice:

Na ja. $500 ist zu teuer! "Wicked" ist nur $150 um 19 Uhr an Sonnetag. Das geht?

Ooophh. I think my A1 level vocabulary is hurting me here. I'm basically trying to have Alice ask for the 7pm show on Sunday, since Hamilton was rejected by Hans in the last sentence. Also yeah, these are the rough prices for Hamelton vs Wicked last time I checked NYC Broadway, the shows there can be stupidly expensive!

"Das geht" I've used in class as "that works for me". I'm hoping the question form ("Das geht?") is usable? I don't really know though. Formally it'd be "Geht es das?", but this is also a casual phrase that probably can't be manipulated by formal grammar. I'm searching for a simple phrase for "Does that work for you?" (or really, trying to give Hans the opportunity to respond with "Das geht" next sentence).

DeepL did recommend the verb "kostet" btw. "ist" is how the sentence was formed originally with my own level of German. It does seem to flow better to use the verb kostet.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Ahhhh, I might have misunderstood.

If "Das Geht?" was meant to say: "Is that [time and price] all right [with you]?", then as I said below, it should be "Geht das [für dich]?".

But if you meant to essentially verbally shrug your shoulders and say "Eh, that's fine, isn't it?" then yes, "Das geht [eigentlich, oder]?" is totally fine.

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Good info. Hmmm. I think I'll go with your sentence exactly. It all looks to be A1+ level to me, and if its more clear + natural to a native, then that's even better.

Alice:

Naja. 500€ ist zu teuer! “Wicked” kostet am Sonntag um 19 Uhr nur 150 €. Geht das?

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 2 points 2 days ago

“Das geht” I’ve used in class as “that works for me”. I’m hoping the question form (“Das geht?”) is usable?

Almost. It's a question, so it should be:

Geht das?

which is a super common expression.

All in all:

Na ja. $500 ist zu teuer! “Wicked” ist nur $150 um 19 Uhr am Sonnetag. Geht das?

Also:

DeepL did recommend the verb “kostet” btw. “ist” is how the sentence was formed originally with my own level of German. It does seem to flow better to use the verb kostet.

Yep, slightly, also see my other comment below. "ist" is fine, especially in spoken language. "kostet" might be a bit nicer, but not technically "more correct".

If I'd have said/written the sentence out of my own volition, I'd probably have swapped the word order around a bit:

Naja. $500 is zu teuer! "Wicked" kostet am Sonntag um 19 Uhr nur $150. Geht das?

Your sentence is also grammatically correct though.

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I'm changing the name to Hans. Apparently I'm very bad at spelling in German.

Hans:

Ich gehe gern an das Theater im Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu tauer ist! Hamilton ist mehr als $500! Welche Theaterstück ist billiger?

Is the correct preposition "an (akk) das Theater" in this case? I feel like it is but I'm not 100% sure.

Obwohl looks like a subordinate clause so I'm using verb last form. I'm not very good with mehr vs sehr either so if someone could double check my sentence structure that be great!

EDIT: I might have to use the subjunctive mood for the above statement actually. But that's well above the A1 level I was hoping to keep this exercise to....

[–] zitronenschnitte@feddit.org 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

German level: Nativ

Is the correct preposition “an (akk) das Theater” in this case? I feel like it is but I’m not 100% sure.

It is "in das Theater".

Obwohl looks like a subordinate clause so I’m using verb last form.

Structure is correct, but little typo. It's "teuer"

I’m not very good with mehr vs sehr either so if someone could double check my sentence structure that be great!

"Hamilton ist mehr als $500!" is correct.

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks!

So corrected:

Hans:

Ich gehe gern in das Theater im Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist! Hamilton ist mehr als $500! Welche Theaterstück ist billiger?

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

(Not the person you originally replied to, but also German native speaker)

Ich gehe gern in das Theater im Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist! Hamilton ist mehr als $500! Welche Theaterstück ist billiger?

This is 100% understanable, so: good job! There's a couple things you could improve though. The first two are small grammar mistakes:

[...] im Wochenende [...]

It's "am Wochenende". Just like in English, where "in the weekend" would probably be understandable, but "on the weekend" is correct, here it's "am Wochenende".

Welche Theaterstück ist billiger?

Again, completely understandable. However, "Welche" needs to be in the Genitiv and Neutrum hier, i.e.: "Welches Theaterstück ist billiger?". I can't really know where the mistake came from, but as far as I can tell, the options are either: you assumed Theaterstück is Feminin (e.g. "Welche Frau" / "which woman" would be correct, since "Frau" is Feminin / "die Frau"), or you intended to ask the question in the plural ("Welche Theaterstücke sind billiger?").

With those two changes, your sentences would be completely grammatically correct.

Now I got a couple of nits. They do not make the sentence "more correct", just "more natural".

Ich gehe gern in das Theater am Wochenende.

Due to the word order and the use of "in das" here, the emphasis is (slightly) on "that theater". I.e. it sounds a little bit like you are trying to say, "I like to visit this specific theater on the weekend". I assume you wanted to express a more general "visiting a theater is something I like to do on the weekend", in which case I'd suggest swapping the word order around a little, plus changing "in das" to "ins":

Ich gehe am Wochenende gern ins Theater.

The word order is a little more natural in German, but the main thing to note here is "ins". This might seem similar to a contraction like "it is" -> "it's" in English, and I guess it kinda is similar, but "ins" does not carry the same connotation of colloquiality. Even in very formal written texts, I'd be very surprised to find "in das" used over "ins" (maybe excluding some very old usage of that phrase? Not sure tbh).

This is actually something I see very frequently with folks speaking German as their second language and it always sticks out a bit. So, rule of thumb: If the place you'd like to go to/into is Neutrum, contract "in das" to "ins" to sound more natural, even in written text. (The same is not true for Feminin places like Bakery/Bäckerei, there "Ich gehe in die Bäckerei" is correct and natural, and Maskulin places like Forest/Wald, where "Ich gehe in den Wald" also can't be contracted.)

Next point:

Hamilton ist mehr als $500!

Small thing first: In German, the currency symbol/word goes after the number (e.g. 500€), though I'm not sure if that rule applies to $ in German. But €500 would definitely be incorrect.

The other thing I wanted to point out is the usage of "mehr als" here. It's not wrong. It just doesn't "vibe" with the verb is/ist to native ears. "Hamilton kostet mehr als 500€" would sound completely natural, just the "ist mehr als" sounds off because those words are rarely if ever used in that combination. The more natural alternative would either be to use "kostet", or simply:

Hamilton ist über 500€!

Although, now that I'm writing it, I'd personally recommend:

Karten für Hamilton kosten über 500€!

or

Hamilton kostet über 500€!

...but that is quite a lot of changes to your original sentence. So: all the options are fine. Your original is grammatically correct. I'm just nitpicking with a focus on natural-sounding-ness.

Final point:

Ich gehe gern in das Theater am Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist!

Could you tell me what the English sentence/meaning was that you had in your mind and wanted to translate? If it's something along the line of "I like going to the theater on weekends, despite Hamilton being too expensive!" then disregard everything below this point.

However, if your intention was something more like: "I'd like to go to the theater this weekend, but Hamilton is too expensive!", let me know, then I have some additional thoughts on the sentence.

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Could you tell me what the English sentence/meaning was that you had in your mind and wanted to translate? If it’s something along the line of “I like going to the theater on weekends, despite Hamilton being too expensive!” then disregard everything below this point.

However, if your intention was something more like: “I’d like to go to the theater this weekend, but Hamilton is too expensive!”, let me know, then I have some additional thoughts on the sentence.

The second paragraph is indeed what I was aiming to say. However, the subjunctive mood ("I'd like to...") is seemingly above-and-beyond A1 or maybe even A2 level. I could of course study subjunctive mood and build such a sentence... but I'd be leaving the bounds of this exercise (A1+ level roleplay).

So my priority is to "Stay within A1, maybe A2-" (meaning not to use the subjunctive mood).

I guess that means I'm "forced" to accept the former (ie: first quoted paragraph) meaning as the true meaning. If only because of the skill-level issue. I'm having enough trouble with simple-past and indicitive as it is!

Hans:

Ich gehe gern in das Theater am Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist! Hamilton kostet über 500€! Welche Theaterstücke sind billiger?

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Alice:

Hallo Hanz! Am Wochenende habe ich veile Freizeit. Magst du das Theater gehen? Ich will Hamelton sehen.