I’m at the level where I must start forming sentences. The best exercise I’ve found for this is roleplay. So let’s make a forum game out of this!!

In character roleplay will be done in German only. Meta-discussion (rules questions, edits, takebacks…) will be done in English only.

Rules:

  1. No AI, make sentences of your own accord. Correct other people’s mistakes with your own effort.

  2. Set the topic to sort-by-new. Try to work off the most recent post.

  3. Reply in a thread if you think someone else made a grammar mistake, explain the mistake in English so that we know it is 'out of character’s. If making a correction post, please include your rough level (A0, A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, or native).

  4. Wait for either 24 hours before replying to yourself (as the other character), or wait for some human to respond. IE: if two people are logged in at the same time, feel free to keep roleplaying with each other in German.

  5. You may play both roles, as long as you aren’t repeatably responding to yourself. (24 hour delay before responding to yourself as per rule #4).

  6. Try to keep the roleplay words to the level of the topic. If A1 is too easy, make a new topic aiming for a higher level.

  7. Start every roleplay with a character name, making it clear ‘who is talking’.

Roleplay situation: Alice has just called Hanz, and Hanz has picked up the phone. Alice wants to invite Hanz and hang out over the weekend. Try to figure out the time and schedule of each other in German.

I’ll start with

Hanz:Hallo. Ich bin Hanz.

  • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOP
    3·
    6 days ago

    Alice:

    Hallo Hanz! Am Wochenende habe ich veile Freizeit. Magst du das Theater gehen? Ich will Hamelton sehen.

  • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOP
    1·
    23 hours ago

    Alice:

    Na ja. $500 ist zu teuer! “Wicked” ist nur $150 um 19 Uhr an Sonnetag. Das geht?

    Ooophh. I think my A1 level vocabulary is hurting me here. I’m basically trying to have Alice ask for the 7pm show on Sunday, since Hamilton was rejected by Hans in the last sentence. Also yeah, these are the rough prices for Hamelton vs Wicked last time I checked NYC Broadway, the shows there can be stupidly expensive!

    “Das geht” I’ve used in class as “that works for me”. I’m hoping the question form (“Das geht?”) is usable? I don’t really know though. Formally it’d be “Geht es das?”, but this is also a casual phrase that probably can’t be manipulated by formal grammar. I’m searching for a simple phrase for “Does that work for you?” (or really, trying to give Hans the opportunity to respond with “Das geht” next sentence).

    DeepL did recommend the verb “kostet” btw. “ist” is how the sentence was formed originally with my own level of German. It does seem to flow better to use the verb kostet.

    • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
      1·
      12 hours ago

      “Das geht” I’ve used in class as “that works for me”. I’m hoping the question form (“Das geht?”) is usable?

      Almost. It’s a question, so it should be:

      Geht das?

      which is a super common expression.

      All in all:

      Na ja. $500 ist zu teuer! “Wicked” ist nur $150 um 19 Uhr am Sonnetag. Geht das?

      Also:

      DeepL did recommend the verb “kostet” btw. “ist” is how the sentence was formed originally with my own level of German. It does seem to flow better to use the verb kostet.

      Yep, slightly, also see my other comment below. “ist” is fine, especially in spoken language. “kostet” might be a bit nicer, but not technically “more correct”.

      If I’d have said/written the sentence out of my own volition, I’d probably have swapped the word order around a bit:

      Naja. $500 is zu teuer! “Wicked” kostet am Sonntag um 19 Uhr nur $150. Geht das?

      Your sentence is also grammatically correct though.

    • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
      2·
      12 hours ago

      Ahhhh, I might have misunderstood.

      If “Das Geht?” was meant to say: “Is that [time and price] all right [with you]?”, then as I said below, it should be “Geht das [für dich]?”.

      But if you meant to essentially verbally shrug your shoulders and say “Eh, that’s fine, isn’t it?” then yes, “Das geht [eigentlich, oder]?” is totally fine.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOP
        1·
        3 hours ago

        Good info. Hmmm. I think I’ll go with your sentence exactly. It all looks to be A1+ level to me, and if its more clear + natural to a native, then that’s even better.

        Alice:

        Naja. 500€ ist zu teuer! “Wicked” kostet am Sonntag um 19 Uhr nur $150. Geht das?

  • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOP
    2·
    2 days ago

    I’m changing the name to Hans. Apparently I’m very bad at spelling in German.

    Hans:

    Ich gehe gern an das Theater im Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu tauer ist! Hamilton ist mehr als $500! Welche Theaterstück ist billiger?

    Is the correct preposition “an (akk) das Theater” in this case? I feel like it is but I’m not 100% sure.

    Obwohl looks like a subordinate clause so I’m using verb last form. I’m not very good with mehr vs sehr either so if someone could double check my sentence structure that be great!

    EDIT: I might have to use the subjunctive mood for the above statement actually. But that’s well above the A1 level I was hoping to keep this exercise to…