7.4 Die vier Jahreszeiten — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read 571 words of continuous German about the weather and the year, with no glossary. Use the impersonal es — the subject that means nothing — in the eight patterns that cover the weather: es regnet , es schneit , es friert , es donnert , es ist kalt , es wird dunkel , es gibt , es bleibt hell . Use es gibt correctly, including the case it governs, which is not the one an English speaker expects: auf den Märkten gibt es Kürbisse und Nüsse . Say what the weather is doing, in any season, in one short sentence: Es regnet mehr, und oft ist es neblig. , Es friert in der Nacht . Prerequisites : 7.3 — the third text, and 3.2 — sein , haben and werden . Read 7.3 Reading first if you have not. About this text The text is called Die vier Jahreszeiten — the four seasons — and it runs to 571 words in 9 paragraphs, one for each season with five more around them. It was written for this course; it is not an adaptation of anything, and every word in it was checked against an open corpus of German before it was used. The subject was chosen for one grammatical reason. The weather is where German uses a subject that means nothing. English does this too — it is raining , and nobody asks what it is — but German goes further, using the same empty subject for the commonest existence sentence in the language, and that is the construction this text is here to teach. The second reason is cultural. Talking about the weather is a common way to open a conversation, and it carries real information because the weather changes quickly and the day changes with it. A learner who can say four sentences about the weather can begin four conversations. The empty subject A German sentence needs a subject, and when there is nothing to be the subject, es stands in. Here are the eight patterns from the text. German English Note es regnet it is raining weather verbs have no subject but es es schneit it is snowing the same; the verb is almost always used with this empty subject es friert it is freezing also used with a person in the accusative: it freezes me es donnert it is thundering built on the noun for thunder es ist kalt it is cold with an adjective, exactly as English does es wird dunkel it is getting dark the verb for becoming carries the change es gibt there is, there are ★literally it gives ; always singular, and the thing that exists is in the accusative es bleibt hell it stays light a state continuing, with the same empty subject The first six are straightforward, and they match English closely enough that you can produce them by translating. The seventh does not, and it is worth the rest of this section. Es gibt — the existence sentence German's way of saying that something exists is literally it gives , and three things about it have to be learned rather than guessed. It is always singular. English chooses between there is and there are according to what follows; German does not. One apple or forty apples, the verb does not move. What exists is in the accusative. This is the part that trips English speakers, because in English the thing that exists is the subject of the sentence. In German it is the object of a verb whose subject is the empty es , so the article changes: the masculine one takes its accusative form. The autumn paragraph has the sentence once, with two plural nouns — auf den Märkten gibt es Kürbisse und Nüsse — where the case does not show; the text has no masculine example, so make one yourself: Es gibt einen Markt. It means more than there is . It also covers there exists , they have in a shop, and what is on — a menu, a programme, a plan. The proverb at the end of the text uses it twice in one sentence: there is no bad weather, there is only bad clothing . Notice that the proverb also gives you the negative form: the negative article, with the accusative ending, in front of the thing that does not exist. Reading it a second time, paragraph by paragraph Paragraph 1 sets the frame: four seasons, and weather as a topic of conversation. The last sentence contains the verb for changing with the reflexive pronoun, which is how German says that something changes by itself. Paragraphs 2 to 5 take the seasons in order. Read them for the pattern rather than the vocabulary: each one opens by naming the season, moves to the temperature — usually with the verb for becoming, though winter simply is cold — and then gives the light — how long it lasts and when it goes. Paragraph 6 is the festivals, the paragraph that names them: Easter, the Oktoberfest, Christmas. They are given without explanation because they need none. Paragraph 7 turns to language itself, and contains the one piece of the text that is a claim rather than a description: that German has many words for rain and cold and few for heat. Treat it as an observation about vocabulary rather than a law. Paragraph 8 is clothing, and paragraph 9 is the proverb. Both are here to be quoted back at a German, who will be pleased. Six words worth keeping Word (article, plural) Meaning Notes die Jahreszeit, -en de season Gender / part of speech noun, feminine How English differs literally the year-time; the four are all masculine Welche Jahreszeit magst du am liebsten? Which season do you like best? das Wetter de weather Gender / part of speech noun, neuter How English differs no plural, and the first topic of every conversation Wie ist das Wetter heute? What is the weather like today? es gibt de there is, there are Gender / part of speech fixed expression How English differs ★always singular, always with the accusative Im Park gibt es einen See. There is a lake in the park. werden de to become, to get Gender / part of speech verb, strong How English differs carries every change of state in the text Im Herbst werden die Tage kurz. In autumn the days get short. hell de light, bright Gender / part of speech adjective How English differs used of daylight; the opposite is in the same paragraph Im Sommer ist es lange hell. In summer it sta