This week, we'll continue our work on travel vocabulary. The last lesson looked at words related to booking and traveling to a destination, so let's pick up there, and continue with types of accommodation.

When you book a trip, there's the question of both die Hinreise (the outward journey) and die Rückreise (the return journey). Depending on your mode of travel, you may instead talk about die Hinfahrt and die Rückfahrt for bus or train travel, or der Hinflug and der Rückflug for a flight. You can also say die einfache Fahrt for a single ticket, and der Gabelflug for a trip with multiple stops. Most of the time, however, you will be booking a round trip ticket:

Hin- und Rückfahrt kosten fünfzig Euro, und du musst nicht umsteigen.

A round trip costs fifty euros, and you don't have to change trains.

Caption 22, Nicos Weg: Bahnreisen

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Part of planning your trip is selecting accommodation (die Unterkunft), which is generally based on your chosen destination and budget:

Mit Hotel, Jugendherberge und Kapelle ist das achthundert Jahre alte Hospiz heute das Tor ins Innergschlöß.

With a hotel, youth hostel, and chapel, the eight-hundred-year-old former hospice is today the gateway to Innergschlöß.

Captions 26-27, Die letzten Paradiese: Die Schönheit der Alpen 2

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...und vor allen Dingen mit dem Komfort einer Ferienwohnung.

...and, above all else, with the comfort of a vacation home.

Caption 11, Glamping: Camping mit Stil

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Hierzulande hat zwar noch nicht jeder Campingplatz den Glamping-Faktor, aber schon im kommenden Jahr soll es in Deutschland soweit sein.

Here in Germany, admittedly, not every campground has this "glamping" factor, but it should already be available in Germany in the coming year.

Captions 34-35, Glamping: Camping mit Stil

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You will have to choose whether you require ein Einzelzimmer, ein Doppelzimmer, or ein Mehrbettzimmer, which is more often found at youth hostels and may involve bunk beds. At some types of accommodation, you can choose between die Halbpension, which includes breakfast and dinner, and die Vollpension, which includes all meals. More common, however, is a simple Übernachtung mit Frühstück. 

Für ein Einzelzimmer zahlt man siebzig Euro die Nacht.

For a single room you pay seventy euros a night.

Caption 32, Berlin: Indoor-Camping im „Hüttenpalast“

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Inklusive Halbpension, die Ihre Frau selber kocht.

Including half board, which your wife cooks herself.

Caption 54, heute-show Schule, Geschäfte, Urlaub: Leben in Zeiten von Corona

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In Germany, you may also find consider die Pension or das Gästehaus, which are generally smaller and less formal than a hotel. Of course, there is at least one mode of travel that eliminates the question of where to stay:

Mit dem Wohnmobil durch Luxemburg zu fahren bedeutet inzwischen, sich entscheiden zu müssen.

Driving through Luxembourg in a motorhome means having to make decisions these days.

Captions 31-32, Reisebericht: Luxemburg

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Further Learning

In addition to watching travel videos on Yabla German, go to a German booking website and do a casual search for flights and hotels in order to see the vocabulary above used in context. For an even more advanced exercise, have a look at this article on unusual places to stay in Germany. 

An indefinite pronoun describes an indefinite number of things or people. Words such as "few," "some," "many," and "most" are indefinite pronouns. The German indefinite pronoun manch can be a bit difficult to translate when used as an adjective paired to noun.

The pronoun manch suggests "some" or "a few" things or persons—enough to be significant—but not "many" things or people, which inherently may suggest "most." The indefinite pronoun manch is usually translated as "some" when used in a plural sense:

Manche Menschen sind immer hungrig und werden nie satt.

Some people are always hungry and never get full.

Caption 33, Deutsch mit Eylin: Adjektive und ihre Gegenteile

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Manche Länder bilden auf der Rückseite ihre Königin oder ihren König ab.

Some countries depict their queen or their king on the reverse side.

Caption 7, Sparefroh-TV: Warum sehen die Euromünzen in jedem Land anders aus?

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You run into a problem, however, when you encounter manch used in a singular sense, because the indefinite pronoun "some" can only be used in the plural form in English. If you say "some man," you mean one single man, which is different than "some men." Even if you say, for example, "some person or another," which might at first seem singular because "person" is singular, by adding "or another" you are still referring in plural to two or more people.

If you try to translate the singular version of manch on Google Translate, it translates "some" correctly, but renders the noun and verb less literally as plural. Whereas if you translate the singular version of manch on DeepL, it keeps the noun and verb singular, but instead of using "some," it translates manch as "Many a..." This is problematic, because as we also discussed, manch implies the smaller proportion ("some") of those mentioned, not the larger proportion ("many").

Original German phrase using:
Mancher Finanzminister ist...

Google translation:
Some finance ministers are...

Deepl translation:
Many a finance minister is...

DeepL retains the singular of the noun and verb, but translates manch as "many," suggesting falsely "most" of the finance ministers, rather than "some" or "few," as the original German suggested. Because of the erroneous translation of manch as many, the less literal Google translation is the better compromise. There is actually no way to translate manch in German and retain this literal accuracy with the singular of the noun and verb, since in English, all indefinite pronouns such as "some" (or "a few of..." etc.) require a plural noun and verb.

Notice, in this next example, that Pflanze is singular and uses the singular verb form ist. In both examples, the singular noun and verb in German have had to be translated into the plural in order to get the correct meaning of manch:

Manche Pflanze, wie das flammende Indische Springkraut, ist grad erst bei uns eingewandert.

Some plants, such as the flaming Himalayan balsam, have migrated to our area only recently.

Caption 31, Die letzten Paradiese: Die Schönheit der Alpen

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Mancher Finanzminister der Länder ist der Meinung...

Some state finance ministers are of the opinion...

Caption 15, Angela Merkel: beim Nachhaltigkeitsrat

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It's a subtle difference, but when somebody with a large audience is making a statement that needs to be precise, such as (soon to be former) German Chancellor Angel Merkel, it can be an important distinction.

Further Learning
Go to Yabla German and look for videos using manch as an adjective before a noun. Then make up some German sentences using manch with a singular noun and verb, and practice translating them using "some" and changing the noun and verb to plural. Have your teacher or a fellow pupil or student check your work.