| German I, Semester 1; Die Uhrzeit |
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| Sections: |
Introduction | Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Dictionaries |
| Section One: |
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Section One - Part B
In Unit 4, we are going to focus on Switzerland, located south of Germany, west of Austria and Liechtenstein, north of Italy, and east of France. One of the smaller German speaking countries, it has four official languages, although German is spoken by the majority of the people. (The other three are French, Italian, and Romansh, the latter spoken only by a small number of people in the Alps.) In order to be impartial to all the language groups, Switzerland uses the Latin Confoederatio Helvetica ("Swiss Confederation") as its official name. This is why we see the letters CH on cars from Switzerland and in Swiss postal codes. The Swiss flag has a white cross on a red background. The Red Cross movement, which was inspired by a Swiss man's concern for those suffering during war, simply reversed the colors of the Swiss flag for its emblem. Although Switzerland is often thought of as synonymous with snow-covered Alps, there is a range of much lower mountains in the north (the Jura) as well as a relatively flat middle section. With a population of over 6.5 million the Swiss are very careful to use their land wisely. Huge farms and factories don't make as much sense as mountain pastures and a focus on precision instruments or tourism; hence the cheese (e.g. Emmenthaler "with the holes"), watches (e.g. Swatch, Omega, Tissot), and tourist areas (e.g. Lucerne, the Matterhorn, and Davos) that are so well known. There are several large cities: Zürich (the largest), Bern (the capital), and Geneva (in the French-speaking section). The latter name may remind you of the strict neutrality that Switzerland strives hard to maintain, especially in the political and banking worlds. We sometimes find such neutrality hard to comprehend, but it is a stance that has made the country home to numerous international organizations. The Swiss emphasis on precision has also led to the stereotypical phrase, "You can set your watch by a Swiss train."
In the presentation you watched in Part A, you probably noted that not all of the verbs changed exactly like the regular ones. Let's review the verbs known as "stem-changing" verbs, because their stems change in the du and er,sie,es forms. The normal stem is used in the other forms, and all the endings are the familiar ones. Did you notice the three patterns of vowel changes? a > ä e > i e > ie As you learn more verbs, you'll see that sometimes the consonants change a bit also, so it's important to learn both the infinitive and the er, sie,es form of stem-changing verbs. Try your hand at changing these new verbs. The er,sie,es form is given for you above the box.
You should not go on until you can do these with relative ease. If you reload the page, you can try them again and do these kinds of activities over and over again.
Writing Assignment Lecture Read the following passage and then answer the questions that follow. After you have answered the questions, click on each question to see the answer. Again, when you see words that you do not know yet, first try to guess at their meaning.
Do you remember the words in bold? They are called interrogatives, or question words, that we use to ask for specific information--who?, when?, why?, where?, how?, what? Let's see if you can remember them individually:
Asking "yes/no" Questions
However, if we want to ask a question to get specific information (who, when, where, why, how, etc.), we start with the necessary question word and then reverse the order of the subject and verb.
See if you can make questions using the words given.
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Practice Activity