When it comes to leisure, we may engage in sports or other hobbies and activities, but most people also enjoy listening to music or radio programs, watching films or TV, and/or reading in their free time. This week's lesson is devoted to vocabulary related to media and entertainment. 

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It used to be that music collections took up lots of space, but now this depends on how you listen. Many people still collect records (die Schallplatte, plural die Schallplatten), CDs (die CD, plural die CDs) or even cassettes (die Kassette, plural die Kassetten), but not all. 

Also, der hat ein Lied „Fireflies“ und habe ich mir auch gleich das Album gekauft.

Well, he has a song called "Fireflies" and I bought the album right away too.

Caption 33, Eva Croissant: Interview

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Die Nashville-LP „Could Have Been Mine“ ist die dritte Platte der Band.

The Nashville LP "Could Have Been Mine" is the band's third disc.

Caption 43, Ann Doka & Band: New Country aus dem Rhein-Main-Gebiet

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Komm, dreh noch mal die Kassette.

Come on, play the cassette again.

Caption 28, Max Mutzke: Welt hinter Glas

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Den Platz im Regal für diese kunststoffreichen Staubfresser kann man sich sparen, indem man Musik und Filme online streamt oder herunterlädt.

You can save the shelf space taken up by these plastic-rich dust collectors by streaming or downloading music and movies online.

Captions 36-37, WWF Deutschland: Tipps zur Vermeidung von Plastikmüll

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Movies and TV series are also often accessed through streaming services, but some people have DVD collections with their favorite films. Others think nothing compares to the big screen:

Ich schenke ihr eine DVD.

I'm giving her a DVD.

Caption 18, Nicos Weg: Herzlichen Glückwunsch!

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Wohin gehst du heute noch? Ins Kino. Es läuft ein neuer Film.

Where else are you going to today? To the cinema. A new film is playing.

Captions 35-36, Diane erklärt: Fragewörter

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For TV series, there are two nouns to know: die Sendung and die Serie. A season of a TV show is called die Staffel, and an episode is die Folge.

Ja, ein Team dreht hier bald eine aktuelle Serie fürs Fernsehen.

Yes, a team is filming a current series for television here soon.

Caption 15, Nicos Weg: Ein Praktikum beim Film

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Die meisten kennen mich wahrscheinlich aus der Sendung „Der Bachelor“.

Most of you probably know me from the series "Der Bachelor."

Caption 11, Anja Polzer: Interview

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Nochmal zu deiner Karriere. Germany's Next Topmodel, zweite Staffel, Platz zwei.

Back to your career. Germany's Next Top Model, second season, second place.

Caption 24, Peyman Amin: Der Modelmacher

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It should be noted that die Sendung is also used for radio broadcasts and shows. You may hear der Rundfunk instead of das Radio, but the word "podcast" remains the same in German and in English:

Wir zeigen denen, wie man eine Radiosendung macht, richtig professionell. 

We show them how you do a radio broadcast, really professionally.

Caption 59, Sallys Tortenwelt und Kochwelt: Backen mit Kindern & Auftritt bei Radio Rumms

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Schon jetzt gibt es Enkel, die ihren Großeltern einen Podcast aufnehmen,

There are already grandchildren who are recording a podcast for their grandparents

Captions 61-62, Coronavirus: Fernsehansprache von Angela Merkel

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Further Learning
What do you like to do? Write down a few sentences about your habits related to music, radio, films, or TV. And don't forget that accessing these in German is a great way to learn the language. You can find a number of different fun series and interesting films, as well as great music to listen to on Yabla German.

Ordinal numbers ("first," "second," "third") differ from cardinal numbers ("one," "two," "three") in that they establish order or rank. Forming the ordinal numbers is luckily relatively easy in German. Generally, you will either add -te or -ste on the end, and make sure you have the correct declension.

For numbers below twenty, you simply add -te (zwei — zweite) with the exception of the following ordinal numbers: eins, drei, sieben, and acht.

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Die erste Station seines Besuches im September ist Berlin.

The first stop of his visit in September is Berlin.

Caption 2, Der Papst - Hier wohnt der Papst

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Die Nashville-LP „Could Have Been Mine“ [sic, „Could've Been Mine“] ist die dritte Platte der Band.

The Nashville LP "Could Have Been Mine" [sic, "Could've Been Mine"] is the band's third disc.

Caption 43, Ann Doka & Band - New Country aus dem Rhein-Main-Gebiet

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Beim Bauern gibt es noch eine weitere Sonderregel,

With pawns there is yet another special rule,

und zwar: Wenn der Bauer von der siebten auf die achte Linie vorrückt.

and that is: if the pawn advances from the seventh to the eighth line.

Captions 56-57, Schach - mit Jenny - Part 1

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In this last example, you can see the declension based on grammatical case (dative — note the "n"— and then accusative) at work. It follows the same patterns that adjectives do. Note that you may also see "seventh" translated as siebente (in this case it would be siebenten) rather than siebte.

Starting with the cardinal number zwanzig ("twenty"), -ste is added to create the ordinal number. 

Man sagt zum Beispiel:

We say, for example:

„der erste Januar“ oder „der vierundzwanzigste Dezember“

"the first of January" or the "twenty-fourth of December"

oder „der dreißigste Februar“, den es nicht gibt.

or "the thirtieth of February," which doesn't exist.

Captions 12-15, Zahlen mit Diane - Ordinalzahlen, Vielfache und Bruchzahlen

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Zu seinem einhundertfünfundneunzigsten Geburtstag

For his one hundred ninety-fifth birthday,

hat der Philosoph seine Geburtsstadt Trier erobert.

the philosopher has conquered his birth city of Trier.

Captions 3-4, „Mini-Marxe“ - In Trier

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It is important to note that, just as "first," "thirteenth," and "twenty-third" would often be abbreviated as "1st," "13th," and "23rd" in English, a period may be used in German to denote ordinal numbers, particularly with dates. The example above would read: 

Man sagt zum Beispiel: „der 1. Januar“ oder „der 24. Dezember“ oder „der 30. Februar“, den es nicht gibt.

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Further Learning
Take a look at this chart and watch Diane's video in its entirety to get a great overview of this topic. For more on adjective declension, refer to this page.

Both English and German refer to past events using the simple past tense and the present perfect tense. The perfect past tense is called Perfekt in German, but it is important to understand that although the German Perfekt is considered the closest equivalent of present perfect in English in terms of its structure, in fact there are some notable differences in the ways each language uses this tense. 

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Both English present perfect and German Perfekt have in common that they are compound tenses, formed with an auxiliary or helping verb together with the past participle. This auxiliary verb is usually "to have" (haben) and sometimes, in German, "to be" (sein):
 

Meine Schwester und ich,

My sister and I,

wir haben zusammen sieben Tafeln Schokolade gegessen.

together we have eaten seven bars of chocolate.

Caption 15, Konjugation - Das Verb „essen“

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Wir sind zusammen in die Stadt gegangen.

We have gone to the city together.

Caption 12, Konjugation - Das Verb „gehen“

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The main difference, however, is that the English present perfect refers to an action or state that begins in the past and continues into the present, whereas the German Perfekt is usually used to speak about completed states and actions, and is therefore rather the direct equivalent of the simple past tense. In fact, Perfekt is often called the "conversational past" because it is the primary spoken form of the past tense. In many cases where spoken English would use the simple past tense ("We already ate."), German would almost always use the Perfekt tense (Wir haben schon gegessen).

Alternately, the German Präsenz (present tense) can sometimes be best translated into the English present perfect: 
 

Und Gitarre spielt die Vierunddreißigjährige schon seit ihrem sechsten Lebensjahr.

And the thirty-four year old has played guitar since her sixth year of age.

Caption 12, Ann Doka & Band - New Country aus dem Rhein-Main-Gebiet

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Further Learning
Read this article about simple past vs. Perfekt and check out this item about the German Perfekt tense, then find some examples of the tense used in real conversations on Yabla German.