Basic German Phrases To Know Before Visiting Germany

Learning German phrases not only comes in handy when trying to get around, but it might also inspire you to want to take a step further and actually learn the language. German is spoken by about 95 million people in the world. It is the official language of 6 countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg. Over 78% of the world’s total German speakers live in Germany.

A German learner will have to get used to the fact that nouns have genders. They are either feminine, masculine or neutral, and other than some spelling patterns, there is no rhyme or reason in regard to how they were assigned. Another aspect that may take some getting used to are the cases: the nominative, the genitive, the German dative case and the accusative.

Formulating sentences in German can feel a bit like solving a mathematical equation, but with practice, the various spelling and article changes will come a bit more intuitively. The problem is, when learning how to use the cases, one must keep in mind that they will cause changes to the spelling of adjectives as well, but only if they are listed before the noun.

For example: Das Haus ist schön. (The house is beautiful.) The word “schön” (beautiful) is unchanged, as it comes after the noun. However: “Das ist ein schönes Haus. (This is a beautiful house.) The word “schön” changed to “schönes”, because it appeared before the noun, and this particular noun is in the nominative.

The German alphabet consists of 26 letters (21 consonants and 5 vowels), plus 3 “umlauts”: “Ä ä”, “Ö ö” and “Ü ü”. To pronounce the “ä”, one can cheat a bit by using the sound that the long-a sound (like in “say,” or “fair,” in the case of short “ä”) makes. It is not identical, but close enough. To formulate the “ö” sound, one can try to say “urgent”, and focus on the sound that the very same syllable makes “ur”. Again, not identical, but relatively close. The letter “ü” may be the hardest of the three, as there isn’t really an English equivalent, but “ewww” is close. The best way to practice them is to try to repeat after a native speaker until you get it.

Below are 20 basic German phrases to know before visiting Germany. Note: There is a difference between addressing someone whom you don’t know, or someone who you are not close to (work, public places, strangers, etc), and friends and family. This is an important distinction to keep in mind when traveling or moving there.

1. Hello/Good Day: Hallo!/Guten Tag!

2. My name is Robin: Ich heisse Robin. /Mein name ist Robin.

3. How are you? Wie geht es dir? (friends/family) Wie geht es Ihnen? (formal)

4. Where are you from? Woher kommst du? (friends/family) Woher kommen Sie? (formal)

5. What’s up/What’s new? Was gibt’s? / Was gibt’s neues?