Day 161: Dad's Saxon Comes Back
Driving home to Dresden after a family visit in Zwickau, Mattis (A), a teenager, teases his father Kay (B) for slipping into Saxon dialect the minute they arrived.
How to study this lesson 3 steps
- Read the situation under the title. It says who is talking and how they know each other, which decides how politely they speak.
- Read the dialogue line by line with its translation, until every line makes sense. Point at (or tap) a German word to see what it means.
- Spend at least 30 minutes listening to native German, for example from the Resources page. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it yet.
Dialogue
Audio recordings are on the way. For now, each lesson is the dialogue with its English translation.
Keys: E hide English · ← → previous / next day · point at a word to see its meaning
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A
Papa, kaum waren wir bei Oma in Zwickau, hast du nur noch „nu“ und „ni“ gesagt.
Dad, the moment we got to Grandma's in Zwickau, all you said was 'nu' and 'ni'.
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B
Das passiert ganz von allein, wenn ich meine Mutter höre. Bis zum Studium sprach ich ja nur so.
It happens all by itself when I hear my mother. Until I went to university, that's the only way I spoke.
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A
Und warum redest du dann zu Hause wie ein Nachrichtensprecher?
So why do you talk like a newsreader at home?
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B
Weil man in Bonn über mich lachte. Wegen meiner Aussprache sagte ich während des ersten Semesters kaum ein Wort.
Because people laughed at me in Bonn. Because of my accent, I hardly said a word during my first term.
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A
Voll gemein. Dabei klingst du mit Dialekt viel entspannter, ehrlich.
That's so mean. And you sound much more relaxed with the dialect, honestly.
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B
Das fand deine Mutter damals auch: Sie sprach mich in der Mensa an, nur weil ich „Gaffee“ sagte.
Your mother thought so too back then: she came up to me in the canteen just because I said 'Gaffee'.
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