German — Travel
The words for the ticket desk are all in your head — they just have to leave it in order.
Travel German is short, public and grammatical anyway: one line at a counter still needs the right article, the right ending and the right order, and there is no room to start again. It is also regional in a way the textbook does not mention, beginning with the word for a bread roll.
Six exchanges too short to leave room for a second attempt.
The word for a bread roll
It is a Brötchen in standard German, a Schrippe in Berlin, a Semmel in Munich and Vienna, a Weckle in Swabia and a Rundstück in Hamburg. Whichever you pick, it comes with a number in front of it and an accusative around it, and it has to leave your mouth in one piece.
Paying, and paying separately
Zusammen oder getrennt is asked fast and expects an immediate answer. Plenty of places are still cash only, and the tip is not left on the table — you say the rounded-up total out loud before the money or the card changes hands.
A platform change, announced
Deutsche Bahn announcements are clipped, fast and often only in German on regional services. Gleiswechsel, Schienenersatzverkehr and voraussichtlich zwanzig Minuten später are the words that decide whether you are on the right platform in two minutes.
Behind the counter at the Apotheke
German pharmacies keep most of the shelf behind the staff, so nothing is handed over until you have built the sentence: which part, how long, what you have already taken. On a Sunday only the Notdienst is open, and you have to find it and then ask for it.
Swiss German is not an accent
It is a group of dialects rather than a layer over the German you learned, and B2 will not get you through it. Ask, and people switch to Standard German without fuss. That one request is worth practising, because you need it on day one.
Jänner, Erdäpfel, Sackerl
Austrian standard German is not a mistake, it is simply not the vocabulary you were taught: Jänner for Januar, Erdäpfel for Kartoffeln, Sackerl for Tüte, Paradeiser for Tomaten. You greet with Grüß Gott or Servus and ask for the bill with Zahlen bitte.
Small exchanges, and the grammar still has to be assembled in advance.
These sessions stay at the counter, the desk and the platform. Afterwards you get the ones that came out backwards, with the version that would have worked beside each.
- einundzwanzig said back to front, and sieben Euro fünfzig arriving at the till as a single word.
- Könnten Sie das bitte wiederholen, produced fast enough that the exchange keeps moving.
- Sie for anyone behind a counter and du in a hostel or on a ski lift, chosen before the first verb rather than after it.
- Two-way prepositions in directions — in die Stadt for going there, in der Stadt for being there already.
- Doch as an answer, because German has a word for contradicting a negative question and English does not.
- Greetings by region: Guten Tag, Moin in the north, Grüß Gott in the south, Grüezi in Switzerland.
Start with ten minutes
Nothing to book, and a written report at the end of the first session.
Try 10 minutes freeIt will not teach dialect
Dialect is learned by hearing it. Bavarian, Swabian, Saxon and Swiss German are not on offer here, and no practice tool can hand them to you — this partner speaks the standard. It is useful for the half of the exchange you control: your own sentence, out cleanly, so that one request to repeat is enough to rescue the rest.