German for your first 48 hours in Germany

Two days in Germany turn on two facts you cannot see from outside: what is shut, and what needs a document. A prepaid SIM stays dead until somebody has looked at your passport. Sunday closes almost everything. The registration at the town office needs a form your landlord has to sign, and our note on that row says the tax ID, the bank account and the phone contract all wait behind it. This page runs the 48 hours in order, from the platform announcement to that office on day two, and gives you the German for each stop. Every row is quoted from the survive lane of our German collection, 207 phrases we wrote and reviewed, with the train, the room and the restaurant rows taken from the travel lane beside it. There are 39 of them.

The first sentence, and the word that changes what comes back

One small word does more work in your first hour than any other on this page. Mein Deutsch ist noch nicht so gut. contains noch, meaning not yet, and our note on that row spells out what it signals: you are learning. Drop the noch and the same sentence reads as an apology. Keep it and most people slow down and pick simpler words.

Around it sit three plain moves. Ich bin neu hier. does at a counter what a paragraph of explanation would. Entschuldigen Sie, darf ich Sie kurz etwas fragen? is long for a first day, and it is long on purpose: kurz promises the person their afternoon back. Sprechen Sie Englisch? goes last, once your German has run out in front of a witness.

Into the city: the platform, the ticket, the stamp

Ask for the Gleis. Von welchem Gleis? gets you the track number on the departure board, which is the number an announcement will use. Bahnsteig is the physical platform you stand on, and asking for that gets you a slower answer to a question you did not have.

Muss ich das Ticket entwerten? is the row that keeps a fine out of your first afternoon. In many cities a paper ticket counts for nothing until it is stamped in the little box on the platform or inside the bus, and an inspector treats an unstamped ticket as no ticket. If you already hold the monthly flat-rate ticket, Ich habe das Deutschlandticket. answers the inspector on its own and covers local and regional transport.

The last two are for standing up. Fährt dieser Bus ins Zentrum? you say from the pavement, before boarding. Entschuldigung, ich muss hier raus. you say from inside a packed tram, one stop early, and the crowd rearranges itself.

The SIM that stays dead until somebody sees your passport

This is the stop that surprises people. Ich brauche eine Prepaid-SIM-Karte. is easy enough to say, and the card in your hand does nothing until it is registered against an identity document. The shop does that for you at the counter, or you do it yourself online with a video call. Bring the passport into the shop on day one and the problem never appears.

Then the two questions that decide the price. Wie viel Datenvolumen ist dabei? asks what data comes with the pack. Wie lade ich Guthaben auf? asks how you top it up, which in practice means a supermarket till, a machine or an app, and it is worth asking while somebody who knows is still in front of you.

Cash, the card that does not work, and Sunday

Germany still runs on cash more than a visitor expects, so Wo ist der nächste Geldautomat? belongs in the first hour. Geht kontaktlos? is the question at the till, and the note on that row carries the trap: plenty of machines take only the domestic Girocard, a foreign credit card can be refused with no warning, and twenty euros in your pocket settles it.

Wo ist der Pfandautomat? is about the deposit on bottles and cans. You feed the empties into the machine near the supermarket entrance, it prints a voucher, and the voucher comes off your shopping at the till. Nobody explains this to you. The empties are worth real money and they are easy to throw away by mistake.

Then the one that catches everybody in the first week. Haben Sie sonntags geöffnet? almost always gets a no. Bakeries open for a few hours, station shops and petrol stations stay open, and everything else is shut. Do the first big shop on Saturday.

The first meal, and how the paying works

Die Karte, bitte. asks for the list of dishes. Menü in German means a set meal, so the English word points at the wrong object and the swap is worth making before you sit down.

Order Ein großes Wasser, bitte. and expect a bottle. Tap water is rarely offered in a German restaurant, and asking for Leitungswasser can get you a look, so the bottle is the path of least friction on a first evening.

Paying has two steps and no bill arrives on its own. Zahlen, bitte. starts it, said across the room with eye contact. Stimmt so. finishes it as you hand over the money, and it means keep the change. Tipping here is rounding up while you pay. Coins left on the table after you stand up read as odd.

The room, the wifi and the heating

Ich habe eine Reservierung auf den Namen Kowalski. is all of check-in. Wie ist das WLAN-Passwort? is next, and say it vee-lahn: the German word for wifi is WLAN, and the English word gets a blank look from older staff.

Something in the room is wrong. In a German winter it is the heating, and Die Heizung funktioniert nicht. is the sentence. When the problem is the room itself, use the frame that runs through the whole collection: Ich hätte gern ein ruhigeres Zimmer. Ich hätte gern is how an adult asks for anything here, from a quieter room to a second coffee. Ich will is what a small child says.

The doorbell, the neighbour and the parcel

German flats have no numbers. A courier holding a box for you reads the names on the doorbell panel and looks for yours, which makes Der Klingelname ist Kowalski. a sentence you type into an order form as often as you say it. A bell still carrying the previous tenant's name is worth fixing on day one.

Können Sie das beim Nachbarn abgeben? fits the same world. Couriers leave parcels with neighbours as a matter of course and drop a card in your letterbox naming whoever has it, so a missing delivery usually means a short conversation two doors along.

For the flat itself, Können Sie jemanden vorbeischicken? is what you say to a landlord or an agency once you have named the problem. It asks for a person and a visit, which is harder to leave unanswered than a complaint.

The pharmacy after hours

The division matters more here than in most countries. An Apotheke sells medicine and a Drogerie sells shampoo and vitamins, and even ibuprofen sits behind the Apotheke counter, so Wo ist die nächste Apotheke? is the question and the drugstore two doors down cannot help you.

Ich brauche etwas gegen Schmerzen. works for pain of any kind, and gegen, meaning against, is the frame for every complaint you will have. Ist das rezeptfrei? asks whether you can walk out with it today or need a doctor first.

At nine in the evening the row you want is Welche Apotheke hat heute Notdienst? One pharmacy per area stays open through the night and on Sundays, the duty moves around, and the current list is printed in the window of every pharmacy nearby. A closed pharmacy still tells you where the open one is.

112, 110, and the first thing you say

Ich rufe die 112. is said eins eins zwei. That number reaches the ambulance and the fire service; 110 reaches the police. Both are free from any phone.

The order of what you say is the part worth rehearsing. Die Adresse ist Hauptstraße zwölf. goes near the front of a 112 call, street and number and town, because a dispatcher can send a vehicle while still asking you the rest. Es ist ein Notfall. and Jemand ist verletzt. fill in what the vehicle is for.

Swap the street name for your own before you need it. This is the one row on the page that is useless as written and useful the moment you edit it, which is also the honest limit of any phrase list in an emergency.

Day two: the Bürgeramt

The errand is registering your address, and it is the one people underestimate. Ich möchte mich anmelden. is the sentence at the counter. Our note on that row says the Anmeldung happens at the Bürgeramt within fourteen days of moving in, and that the tax ID, the bank account and the phone contract all wait behind it. That is what the note says and it is where this page stops: deadlines, exemptions and the papers required differ by city and change, so check the current rules for the city you are moving to before you book anything.

The document people forget belongs to the landlord. Hier ist meine Wohnungsgeberbestätigung. is the landlord's signed confirmation that you actually live at the address, and the office turns you away without it. Ask your landlord for it the day you get the keys, before the appointment exists.

Two rows make the rest of the morning shorter. Welche Unterlagen brauche ich? asked on the phone beforehand saves the trip you would otherwise repeat. Wer ist dafür zuständig? is the sentence German offices are built around: zuständig means responsible for this, and asking who is zuständig moves you to the right desk faster than describing your problem again at the wrong one.

Where this page runs out

Start with what we are unsure about in our own file. Every survive row here is Sie, because a stranger in a uniform is Sie and that is the safe default at a counter. A hostel desk, a bike shop and a co-working reception will very often open in du, and the collection does not mark that, so you will hear a first sentence this page did not prepare you for. Answer in Sie and follow whatever comes back.

The second gap is speed. German compounds run long and spoken German runs them together, so a word you know on paper can pass you as a syllable in the middle of something else. No phrase fixes that. The repair kit in the German collection runs to 26 rows, all of them ways of asking again, and that is the honest tool.

The third gap is the counter that asks for a paper nobody mentioned. No sentence rescues that appointment. Asking which documents are wanted before you cross a city is the most the collection can do for you, and it cannot sign a landlord's confirmation on your behalf.

Making it stick

Choose one section, the one that matches tomorrow morning, and read its rows aloud twice before you go to sleep. Reading them silently is a comfortable way to spend an evening and it trains nothing you will need at a counter.

The app takes over from there, one phrase per charge. Plug in and you hear the German, a pause, the English, a pause, the German again, provided the Shortcuts automation is set up and the platform allows the audio through. A weighted sampler decides which entry that is, favouring what you have not heard for a while, and it does not measure recall. The thinking behind the trigger is written up in One word per charge: why a lesson would fail.

The collections are web pages now and become app packs with text-to-speech audio later, with no date attached. The six lists and the method sit on The Vocabcord 500, and the German list in full, travel and work lanes included, is The 500 German phrases you actually need.

Common questions

What German do you need when you first arrive?

Four sentences carry the first hour. Ich bin neu hier. explains you at any counter. Entschuldigen Sie, darf ich Sie kurz etwas fragen? opens a question politely. Mein Deutsch ist noch nicht so gut. uses noch to say you are learning, and Sprechen Sie Englisch? is what you reach for after those, once your German has run out.

Do you need to validate a train or bus ticket in Germany?

For a paper ticket in many cities, yes. Ask Muss ich das Ticket entwerten? and stamp it in the small box on the platform or inside the vehicle, because an inspector counts an unstamped ticket as no ticket at all. If you hold the monthly flat-rate ticket instead, Ich habe das Deutschlandticket. is the whole answer.

What is the emergency number in Germany?

112 for an ambulance or the fire service, 110 for the police, both free from any phone. Say Ich rufe die 112. as eins eins zwei. On the call, give the address early, in the shape of Die Adresse ist Hauptstraße zwölf. with your own street and number in it, then Es ist ein Notfall.

Are shops open on Sunday in Germany?

Almost none. Bakeries open for a few hours, station shops and petrol stations keep going, and the rest is shut, so the question Haben Sie sonntags geöffnet? is worth asking on Saturday about anywhere you are relying on. Buy what you need on Saturday.