Day 184 of 185

Day 184: Reading Mentor at Seventy

Over coffee and Printen in a café in Aachen, Sigrid (A), who is seventy, has news for her old friend Inge (B).

How to study this lesson 3 steps
  1. Read the situation under the title. It says who is talking and how they know each other, which decides how politely they speak.
  2. 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.
  3. 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

  1. A

    Stell dir vor, Inge, ich bin jetzt ehrenamtlich Lesepatin an der Grundschule um die Ecke.

    Guess what, Inge, I'm a volunteer reading mentor at the primary school round the corner now.

  2. B

    Lesepatin? Zu unserer Zeit brauchte man so was nicht: Mit ein bisschen Disziplin konnten wir alle lesen.

    A reading mentor? We didn't need that sort of thing in our day: with a bit of discipline, we could all read.

  3. A

    Nicht alle. Denk mal an Erich aus der letzten Bank: Der ist zweimal sitzen geblieben.

    Not all of us. Think of Erich from the back row: he had to repeat a year twice.

  4. B

    Der war halt ein Träumer. Und was machst du da, liest du den Kleinen Märchen vor?

    He was just a dreamer. And what do you do there, read fairy tales to the little ones?

  5. A

    Nein, die Kinder lesen mir vor. Ich helfe, indem ich nicht gleich verbessere, sondern frage, was sie verstanden haben.

    No, the children read to me. I help by not correcting them straight away, but asking what they've understood.

  6. B

    Mich hat bei vierzig Schülern in der Klasse nie jemand gefragt, was ich verstanden habe.

    With forty pupils in the class, nobody ever asked me what I'd understood.

  7. A

    Siehst du. Übrigens hab ich dich schon angemeldet: Dienstag um acht, Lesebrille nicht vergessen.

    See? By the way, I've already put your name down: Tuesday at eight, and don't forget your reading glasses.

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