Der Damit-Song
© 2015 by Margareth Jabczynski & smarterGerman (counsel)
If you want to support Maggie’s work, please consider purchasing the single on iTunes. You’ll get this song in three versions: mixed like in the video below but in much better sound quality, German only and “literal” English only. For the price of a Latte Macchiato you can support her good work. We also highly appreciate your feedback in any form. A simple like or a share mean a lot to us.
Inspired by
This song is inspired by Smarter Ever Day Episode 133 – The Backwards Brain Bicycle (link at the bottom). When we watched this video, we got to the idea that this might be the solution to almost every German learner’s problem with the German sentence structure. All we had to figure out was to transfer that video’s message to German learning. I was already using literal translation for more than 20 years already but Maggie had the idea to write a song in “literally translated” English, meaning English with an underlying German sentence structure.
One day she presented me a special version where there were both languages sung at the same time. “Literal” English on the left ear and proper German on the right one. I was initially confused but then closed my eyes and listened into the song that I had only heard in German before. I realized that this might be something really great and we decided to explore this direction a bit more. So this will certainly not be our last experiment to make your learning German easier with music and brain-friendly lyrics.
Sentence Structure in German – The German Dependent Clauses
The song’s aim is to help you understand how to use damit in German. Damit-sentences are so called Nebensätze, dependent clauses, in which you’ll always find the verb at the end of the sentence. This is in contrast to the English language and causes every German learner initial trouble. But with help of our little experimental song here we hope that from now on, you’ll actually start to like the German Nebensätze. As soon as you know how to use damit in German, you will easily master all other Nebensätze in German as well.
Now listen to the beautiful song and sing along. You’ll find the lyrics in English and German below.
And here’s the promised link to Smarter Every Day Episode 133. Thank you Destin for your inspiration.
[shariff]