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Dear Germanee,

I hope you’ve already had your breakfast today?!?
I’m going to talk about yummy stuff, while introducing you to a German verb starting with B.
We pronounce our B similarly to English (bread or banana).

The second verb out of 26, the B-verb of my choice is:

It comes to you with a bunch of mouth-watering new words. 

Welcome, welcome for part three. Yippeeeee!

Bist du bereit? Are you ready?

As I guess, you have baked something – at least once in your life –
and so you have an idea about the action itself. 

If not, maybe at the end of that lesson, you can’t help and wanna bake something. 

Or if you’re a bit like me, you’ll run to your baker and grab your favorite piece. 

But first, let’s have a look how the verb backen changes in action.
Do you recognize these different endings already from part 2-verb arbeiten?

Verb

basic form

Singular

Plural

ich

I

du

you informal

er/sie/es

he/she/it

wir

we

ihr

you

sie/Sie

they/you formal

backen

backe

backst

backt

backen

backt

backen

To see, how we’d use the verb backen in our everyday German,

I’d like to invite you to meet
Benno, the baker.

Let’s imagine Clara, a Journalist from a local newspaper, interviews Benno,
who runs a popular bakery in a small town, called Neustadt.

CLARAHallo. Guten Morgen. Ich bin Clara Schreiber und ich arbeite als Journalistin bei Neustadt-News. Und wer bist du?
Hello. Good morning. I am Clara Schreiber and I work as(a) journalist for Neustadt-News. And who are your?
BENNOGuten Morgen, Clara. Mein Name ist Benno Müller. Ich arbeite als Bäcker und ich liebe es.
Good morning, Clara. My name is Benno Müller. I work as(a) baker and I love it.
CLARABenno, der Bäcker. Wie schön! Wie heißt deine Bäckerei?
Benno, the baker. How nice! How (is)called your bakery?
BENNOMeine Bäckerei heißt “Benno’s Backwerk” und ich habe drei Filialen in Neustadt.
My bakery (is)called “Benno’s Bake-factory” and I have three branches in Neustadt.
CLARAWow, drei Filialen! Backst du ganz allein?
Wow, three branches! (Do)bake you all alone?
BENNOOh nein, natürlich backe ich nicht allein. Ich habe ein super Team aus fünf Bäckerinnen und Bäckern.
Oh no, of course bake I not alone. I have a great team of five (female) bakers and (male) bakers.
CLARASuper, Benno! Und was backt ihr hier? Was sind Benno’s Spezialitäten?
Great , Benno. And what (do)bake you here? What are Benno’s specialties?
BENNOWir backen früh am Morgen Brot und Brötchen und dann später auch viele verschiedene Kuchen.
We bake early in the morning bread and rolls and then later also many different cakes.
Meine Kunden lieben unser Dinkelbrot und den saftigen Mohnkuchen. Hier bitte, Clara, probier doch mal!
My customers love our spelt bread and the juicy poppy-seed cake. Here please, Clara, try it!
CLARAMhhhhm … ist das lecker! Alles schmeckt soooo gut. Ich komme auf jeden Fall wieder.
Mhhhm … is that yummy! Everything tastes soooooo good. I (‘ll) come definitely again.

I hope, you could follow the conversation between Clara and Benno.

Isn’t it great, that you understand what they say?

As you could see, the verb backen changes its endings in a regular way, depending on its heroes aka pronouns.

At this point, I can’t miss out on the chance to give you some tasty insights and more vocabulary related to baking.

Have you ever heard someone swooning over
German bakeries?

Just thinking about it, makes me feel awfully sentimental. Especially on a cold winter’s day, when you enter eine Bäckerei and the warm, flavory air embraces you and tells you to forget all your knowledge about calories as well as the danger of white flour and sugar.

It’s just heaven!

Loafs of Brot come in all shapes and in about 3,200 shades of brown. Yes. That’s the official number of registered bread types, according to the German Bread Institute. (https://www.brotinstitut.de) The German Bread Culture has been acknowledged as part of the UNESCO Cultural Heritage.

Don’t laugh here! Brot is very serious business in Germany.

I don’t know about the number of bakeries in other countries. But in Germany, you can find one, even in the smallest village and in a city definitely just around every corner. While in the Arab part of the world people would grab a Zataar-mankheesh or a Shawarma-sandwich – Germans go for Brötchen.

You can buy these rolls, of course in a wide range of flavors, from Rosinenbrötchen – a white milky dough with raisins and nuts – up to multigrain and healthy Roggenbrötchen – similar to rye bread. You can ask the Bäcker for a filling of your taste, such as Butter, Ei, Tomate mit Mozzarella, Salami and / or Käse.

An einem Samstagmorgen, on a Saturday morning, you’d see a queue of Brötchen-buyers in front of every Bäckerei, since frische Brötchen are essential for Frühstück on weekends.

Of course, you can find tons of Torte, Kuchen and any kind of baked sweets in every Bäckerei too.

Each Bäckerei is somehow famous for its specialties in town.

Do you feel hungry now?

I definitely do.

But, let’s just increase your appetite a bit more
by practicing all those tasty new words:

Ich wünsche dir einen schönen Tag und bitte grüß auch deinen Bäcker von mir ;)! /
I wish you a great day and please send my regards also to your baker ;)!

Bis bald,

deine Tina Heimberg