# German/Level I/Schule

Lesson I.9: Schule

## Hello from Berlin!
### School in Germany

* School is not regulated nationwide, but by each Land
* German "Kindergarten" is optional - it translates rather to "play school", "Vorschule" being roughly the equivalent to "Kindergarten"
* From the age of six on, all Germans attend a "Grundschule" (elementary school) for four or six years, depending on the Land.
* After that, they go to either
** the "Hauptschule" which is industrially oriented,
** the "Realschule", which is skill oriented,
** the "Gymnasium", which is academically oriented,
** or the "Gesamtschule", or comprehensive school.
* Schooling is obligatory until the age of 16, but the Gymnasium diploma "Abitur" can only be obtained after 12 or 13 years, i.e. at age 18 or 19.
* Latin and sometimes even ancient Greek are regularly taught at the Gymnasium. For the "Abitur", at least two foreign languages as well as some calculus and analysis classes have to be taken.
* School days often are from 8:00-13:00. In most 'Länder', only the older students have additional classes between about 14:00-15:30 (i.e. 8AM - 1PM and 2PM - 3:30PM)
* In most schools, Extracurricular Activities are offered, such as Drama Club or School Choir, but they are less common than in the U.S. Though many students feel some sort of identification with their school, most are just happy when they can go home.
* Generally speaking, many schools still are more formal than US or Canadian schools.
* The marking system uses
** 1 (very good, 87,5% or 96%),
** 2 (good 75% or 85%), **
** 3 (satisfactory, 62,5% or 65%),
** 4 (sufficient 50% or 45%).
** 5 (faulty) is failed or 25%.
** 6 (not sufficient) is only used when the student literally hands in a blank sheet or failed.
* These marks can be modified with a "+" or a "-" to indicate a tendency, so e.g. 2+ is a fairly good mark that corresponds to about 80%.

## Und Satz für Satz ...

"Lust (zu etwas) haben" means "feeling like (it)". "Ich habe keine Lust (dazu)" is "I don't feel like (it)". "Ich habe überhaupt keine Lust" emphasizes it, meaning "I don't feel like it at all."
"Did you do your homework?"
This is a common practice of students everywhere in the world, I guess...
Notice the contraction of "im", which is derived from "in dem", "in the".
"Super", "Cool", "Toll", are common exclamations ... "Noch schnell" is here meant as "while there is still time"
"Who would like to do these questions on the blackboard?" Note that "Tafel" is related to "table", meaning a flat surface, and indeed German "Tafel" can also designate a table prepared for a feast.
Don't let the weird order of the words disturb you, even if the phrase seems totally incomprehensible at first. I'll try to construct this bit by bit:
This is the basic question and answer pair:
To ask, if you want to do something, you use a construction similar to English:
Note that the "to" is already included in the German word "rechnen". "Rechnen" is clearly already an infinitive, and doesn't need a "zu" to prove it. This is one of the main reasons why complicated conjugations can survive, they contain information that doesn't have to be expressed otherwise then...
To be a little more polite (or at least seem like it, since our teacher probably wouldn't take a no for an answer)
This is another example for brevity by conjugation. The word "möchte" contains the "would", as it is a "Konjunktiv"-form of the word "mögen" which translates to "like". Don't be discouraged, many Germans don't realize this, and many don't use the Konjunktiv correctly, if ever. However, "ich möchte"-phrases are extremely popular, so just use them, even if you didn't understand yet a word of the explanation above ;-)
Let's introduce objects in our phrase:
This is a direct object, "Aufgabe" is in the accusative case. Because this is a feminine noun, this is not so obvious, but the structure is the same as in:
Now, we also have an adverbial expression of the place. This is an expression that defines the verb, thus ad-verbial.
Now let's put all this together:
Note that the order expressions is widely interchangeable. You can emphasize something by putting it closer to the end of the question.
And now for the whole phrase in all its glory:
It wasn't THAT bad, was it?
"Florian goes to the blackboard, writes down and reads out aloud"
"zur" is another contraction, this time of "zu" and "der". Note that after "zu" follows the dative case, so "der" is not the masculine but the feminine article.
"anschreiben" splits to "schreibt an", and means literally "writing on". It is often used when writing legibly on a large, visible surface such as blackboard or a flipchart.
"vorlesen" splits to "liest vor" and translates to "read aloud".
So, as you might have guessed, plus and minus are the same as in English - they are just pronounced German. The verbs "addieren" and "subtrahieren" are probably not difficult either... "Ist gleich" or short "gleich" or just "ist" corresponds obviously to "is equal to" or "equals".
"mal" means "times". This is also used in every day phrases, such as "100mal habe ich dir gesagt ..." "I told you a 100 times ..." The corresponding verb is "malnehmen" or "multiplizieren"
"geteilt durch" is literally "divided by", and the verb is "teilen" or "dividieren".
Lehrer: Sehr gut, Florian! Very good, Florian!
Now, that was easy!
Between single classes, there is usually a break of five minutes to allow teachers and students to go from one classroom to another. In most schools, classes such as German, English, History, Philosophy are taught in the classroom. Classes that use special equipment, such as all sciences, music and arts and of course computers and sport are being taught in a specialized lab classes. Roughly every second break is 15 minutes long, and if there are lessons in the afternoon, there's often a break of 45 to 60 minutes for lunch.
This sentence sounds strange. This is, because in everyday German, sometimes the verb gehen can be left out, if it is clear what is meant. In this case, the complete phrase would have to be "Wir müssen zu Musik gehen". But since Torsten will not think Silke is going to fly there, there will be no misunderstanding. Additionally, the word "class", or "course" is missing, which is the usual way of students to talk about their subjects.
Note: In English, the phrase might be "We have to go to the music room" instead of must. The German translation "Wir haben in den Musikraum zu gehen" would be understood, but is quite formal. Additionally, there is a connotation that the speaker distances himself from the order he is being given.
Whew, what was that?
Let's start at the beginning. "Au ja" ist an exclamation meaning "cool", "that's great". It has nothing to do with the German equivalent of "ouch!", which is "au(a)!"
"Sich freuen" means "being happy". It is reflexive such as in "I help myself", because the subject and the object are the same. Some phrases simply are constructed like this, even if there seems to be no real reason to this, and many languages know this phenomenon. The "sich" here is technically the accusative of "he, she, it" and is being changed depending on the person:
Note that "to be happy" actually would be rather translated by "glücklich sein", but it is the closest English equivalent to "sich freuen".
"Sich über etwas freuen" means "to be happy about something". This is kind of self-explanatory. But "sich auf etwas freuen", literally "to be happy on something" means "to look forward to". This is a common phrase that uses the on in the same wide sense as in "on drugs", or "living on something" - there is no spatial relation here...
In "darauf" you recognize the "auf". The "da" is a demonstrative prounoun such as in "that place". "Darauf" actually is another contraction which developped a long time ago from "da-herauf". The "darauf" is referencing the word "Musik" from Silke's sentence.
So "Au ja, darauf freue ich mich schon" or "to-this look-forward I myself already" just means "Great, I'm already looking forward to that"
Maybe it comforts you a little that the English phrase in a word-by-word translation to German would be just as unintelligible...
"What we (are going to) do today?" Note again, that "machen" often does not translate to "make", but to "do"!
"We want to sing a song by Grönemeyer!"
Note that adding a "glaube ich" is another common phrase, exacly as "I think" or "I believe" can be added to an English phrase. (Never mind the word order, this is because Alcohol is the object, so the verb is at the second position in the text)
Herbert Grönemeyer is a very popular German rock singer from the Ruhr region. His most famous songs include "Männer", "Bochum" (a city in the Ruhr region), "Mensch" and also "Alkohol".
"Unterricht" comes from "unterrichten" "to teach", and means simply "class". Better not think about "under" and "right" here, which you might have correctly recognized as the word's components "richten" literally means "to correct".
"Now we have only history left"
"Come on, let's skip class and go to the bistro instead". As in English, "Komm" can be used to motivate others.
There is yet another contraction here "ins" is derived from "in das", meaning "in the". "das" is the neutral article in accusative case here.

## Aufgabe

* Make a list of all the contractions used in this chapter. Can you determine the full tables?

## School
### Vocabulary
#### School Supplies and Ect.

Die Straße the street