captioning provided bydisability access services at oregon state university [german music] catherine liggett: 'hallo alle.' so today i have the pleasure of teaching you guysabout 'zu-infinitiv,' which will get you on theway to really writing nice, german sentences in which you have different ideas containedwithin the same sentence
just like you would in english. this will allow you towrite better in general. i'm going to write a coupleof examples and let me know, i guess you really can't let me know because you're on a computerand i'm in the computer, but in any event, just thinkabout what they might mean. 'jeff sagt, dass es wichtig ist,' 'viel gemã¼se zu essen.' "oder nach ein beispiel,'
'du must aufhã¶ren,' which means stop, 'zu trinken,' 'bevor du alkoholiker wirst.' 'das ist rot wein zum beispiel,' 'du must aufhã¶ren zu trinken,bevor du alkoholiker wirst.' 'oder das nã¤chste,' 'ich habe vergessen,' 'mein buch zu bringen.'
let's look at these sentencesand see if we understand why the 'zu's are where they are. 'jeff sagt, dass es wichtigist, viel gemã¼se zu essen.' so here's 'zu,' what would that mean in english? it would say, jeff saysthat it's important to eat, 'zu essen viel gemã¼se.' we have to construct it abit differently in german but it's the same idea.
about the next example here, what this means is, you have to stop drinkingbefore you become an alcoholic. 'du must aufhã¶ren zu trinken.' the next one, 'ich habevergessen, mein buch zu bringen.' i forgot to bring my book. what's a pattern thatyou notice about where the 'zu-infinitiv' lie in the sentence? a 'zu-infinitiv' issomething like this.
this, this, or this. those are our zu-infinitivs,our 'zu-infinitiv.' they're always going to beat the end of that clause. let's see if you can do some on your own if i give you a fewelements to work with. in your head or on paper, we'll have the verb,to try, 'versuchen.' we'll have 'etwasneues,' so something new. we have peter and oursecond verb is 'machen.'
can you make a sentencewith a 'zu-infinitiv' using these elements? i'll give you a few momentshere to think about it. then i'll start writing it very slowly so you can have a chance ifyou haven't yet finished it. what's our subject here? then verb in second position? is probably going to be that, to try.
'peter versucht,' and now we have a comma. the commas here separate the clauses, they seperate the ideas here. 'etwas neues,' where's the 'zu-infinitiv?' 'zu machen.' because in english you would say, peter is trying to do something new.
let's do another example. again i'll give you a few elements. so this time, 'die milch, sara,' 'kaufen, vergessen.' let's see if you can makea sentence out of those. it's pretty simple tofind the subject, right? i'll give you a few moments. we can actually add something else if you want to keep this inpresent tense, an 'immer.'
that might change whatyou're writing a little bit, but let's see if we canget the sentence together. 'sara vergisst immer,' 'die milch zu kaufen.' she always forgets to buy the milk. do you see how by using the commas and by using the 'zu-infinitiv,'we can break sentences down, or break ideas down withinsentences into clauses. i'll give you another few elements
with which to write a sentence. 'es ist wichtig,' see if you can constructa sentence out of that. there's a couple ways you could do it. but i'll show you the wayi would do it right now. really simply, probablythe simplest way to do it would be to start with'es ist wichtig, komma,' 'viel wasser zu trinken,' 'sagt mein freund.'
you can break these downinto more than two clauses. we have two commas and threeseparate clauses in the sentence. it is important to drink alot of water, says my friend. you could also alternatively say, 'mein freund sagt, das ist wichtiges, viel wasser zu trinken.' but i don't want to get intoindirect speech quite yet, which is what that would need. anyway, how about one more and this will use a phrasethat you see a lot, probably.
'keine lust haben,' that means, you don't feel like it. see if you can createa sentence with that. again the subject, so 'wir haben keine lust,' 'hausaufgaben zu machen.' we don't feel like,well, like doing homework, you would say in english. but in german it's something like,
we don't have any desire to do homework. without taking up too much time, let me just make a littlenote of what happens when you have a separable verb. let's take 'anrufen,' youcould say something like, 'ich hatte keine zeit, dich anzurufen.' with a separable verb, just like what happenswith separable verbs in the 'perfekt' with 'ge-,'
in the 'zu-infinitiv,'it goes right between and makes a 'zu' sandwichin between the two parts, between the prefix and the suffixof the separable prefix verb. this is something thatjust takes practice and it takes doing a lot ofreading and writing yourself to get the feel for it, but i promise that you willif you put the time into it. and congratulationson being able to make more complicated sentences in german.
'danke, und bis zum nã¤chsten mal, tschã¼ãÿ!'
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