All About Me: Exam Skills (AQA GCSE German): Revision Note

Yanis is talking about himself. Answer the questions in English.

1. How old is he?
2. What is his nationality?
3. What colour are his eyes?
4. How does he describe his hair? (give two details)

Answers:

The correct answers are:

1. 15 (fünfzehn)

2. German (ich bin Deutscher)

3. blue (blaue Augen)

4. long and black (lange, schwarze Haare)

Be careful to include the correct number of details as indicated by the question and number of marks, like in part 4 of the question above.

Read aloud these sentences in German.

Ich heiße Thomas.
Ich bin ziemlich groß.
Ich habe grüne Augen und kurze, braune Haare.
Ich bin deutsch.

Answers:

• You should have pronounced the ei in heiße as the English word 'eye', not as 'ee'

• You should have pronounced the soft -ch sound in ich correctly - not as a hard 'k' or 'sh'

• You should have pronounced the final -e in Haare, heiße and kurze - it is never silent in German

Lena is talking about herself. Which two statements are true?

Ich heiße Lena und ich bin achtzehn Jahre alt. Ich habe graue Augen und lange, rote Haare. Ich bin spanisch. Ich bin sehr freundlich, aber ich bin nicht sportlich.

A. Lena is sixteen.
B. Lena has red hair.
C. Lena has blue eyes.
D. Lena is Spanish.
E. Lena is sporty.

Answers:

The correct answers are:

• Lena has red hair. Ich habe lange, rote Haare.

• Lena is Spanish. Ich bin spanisch.

Spotting why the other answers are wrong can also help identify the correct answers:

• Lena is sixteen is incorrect. Lena says ich bin achtzehn Jahre alt, which means she is eighteen. 'Sixteen' would be sechzehn

• Lena has blue eyes is incorrect. Graue Augen means 'grey eyes', not blue

• Lena is sporty is also incorrect. Lena says ich bin nicht sportlich - be careful with negatives!

Choose the correct word from the three options.

• Ich habe .......... Haare.

Answer:

The correct answer is lange. The sentence means ‘I have long hair’.

When choosing the correct form of an adjective, ask yourself these four things:

• Is the adjective before or after a noun? (adjectives that precede a noun need to agree with its gender)

• Is the noun masculine, feminine or neuter? (Haare is a plural noun)

• Is the noun singular or plural? ('hair' is plural in German, unlike in English)

• Which adjective ending reflects the correct number? (adjectives before plural nouns always take -e)

Choose the correct word from the three options.

• Meine Schwester ist ziemlich ..........

Answer:

The correct answer is klein. The sentence means ‘My sister is quite small'.

Adjectives that follow the verb sein (to be) stay in their base form and take no ending. Kleine and kleines would only be used when the adjective comes directly before a noun.

Translate these sentences into German.

1. I have pretty, brown hair.

2. I am sometimes jealous, but I am also very generous.

3. I am Swiss but I live in Austria.

4. Although I’m quite shy, I get on well with the other students.

5. My best friend, who I have known for ten years, is very helpful.

Answers:

1. Ich habe hübsche, braune Haare.

2. Ich bin manchmal eifersüchtig, aber ich bin auch sehr großzügig.

3. Ich bin Schweizer, aber ich wohne in Österreich.

4. Obwohl ich ziemlich schüchtern bin, komme ich gut mit den anderen Schülern aus.

5. Mein bester Freund, den ich seit zehn Jahren kenne, ist sehr hilfsbereit.

• In sentence 1, both adjectives take an -e ending because both adjectives come before the noun and Haare is plural

• In sentence 3, watch the capitalisation: Schweizer, as an exception, is always capitalised and all countries have a capital letter