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Quick-Lerncheck Englisch   
 
Dear Telekolleg students,
The election is over in Germany. What were the results? The CDU/CSU got 34%, the SPD 23%, - to take only the two parties with the most votes. Well, uhm, actually (tatsächlich) they only got 34% and 23% of the votes cast in the election! As only 71% of the electorate decided to vote, they only got roughly 24% and 16% of the votes. What a shame that more than one in four were not interested in participating in the election.
In Great Britain there is a completely different sort of electoral system. It is called ‘the-first-past-the-post’ system. In a horse race the first horse to go past the post (Pfahl) at the end of the race has won and all the other horses have lost. How does that work in an election? Let us say that in a constituency party A gets 10,000 of the votes cast, party B gets 9,450 votes and Party C gets 8,999 votes. Here the ‘winning horse’ is party A Party B’s 9,450 votes and Party C’s 8,999 votes are completely useless for parties B and C. In Germany, of course, party B and party C have more chances because even if they do not win a single constituency, they can still get into the Bundestag over the ‘list’ with the second votes. Which system is better? Many people in Great Britain believe that their system is better because the result of each election is a clear victory for one party and this party forms the government: Labour or Conservative. There are no ‘messy’ coalitions. Many people in Germany, however, would say that the German system is better, because it allows small parties like the Greens or The Left to get into the Bundestag. In Great Britain, the Greens will have no chance at all of getting into Parliament until the electoral law is changed.
Dear Telekolleg students, you may find some words in the first paragraph which are new to you, but I am sure that you can guess them from the context. Do you now know what the English words for Stimme, Wahlkreis, Wahl, eine Stimme abgeben, Wahlsystem?*
I really hope that before you CARRY ON (continue) enjoying the sunny weather of early autumn you can PUT UP WITH a little more grammar! If not, you can PUT OFF reading this letter until next weekend. Or, alternatively you can GET UP a little earlier on Sunday and GET THROUGH this letter very easily. As you can see, from the beginning of this letter and the exercise 29-33 in AB 4-6 THE BUSINESS WORLD, the English love to take a verb and add a preposition (ON, OF, FOR, ABOUT, OUT, etc) to it. If you look at the exercise in AB 4-6, you’ll see that the resulting ‘phrasal verbs’, as we call them, have completely different meanings, according to (entsprechend) which prepositions we use: put UP’ (to raise/ erhöhen) has nothing to do with the phrasal verb: ‘to put OFF’ (to postpone/verschieben).
Let’s look at some more of these phrasal verbs. ‘To look DOWN ON someone’ is rather easy. After all (schliesslich) in German we have the expression: ‘herabschauen auf…’ John is always looking DOWN on his colleagues-he thinks he’s much better than they are.’ However, what do you think the phrasal verbs with ‘look’ in these sentences mean?

1) “Please look AFTER Janice while I’m at the shops.”
2) “Where’s my watch? I’ve been looking FOR it for over an hour.”
3) “We’re looking FORWARD to seeing you next week.”
4) “ The police is looking INTO the crime.”

I’m sure you didn’t have too much difficulty finding out their meanings- they have appeared in previous Arbeitsbögen. But sometimes it’s not so easy to guess the meanings of the new expressions that are created just by adding one or two prepositions to a simple verb like ‘to take’, ‘to make’, ‘to run’. Try your luck with these:

1) “Bill really takes AFTER his dad – he has the same sense of humour, at least.”
2) “What a surprise I had yesterday. I ran INTO my old friend Cynthia.”
3) “Can you help me Bert? We’re running UP AGAINST a few difficulties here.”
4) “ I’m sorry that you’ve had to wait so long for me, Darling. However, I’ll make UP FOR it: I’ll buy you the biggest plate of spaghetti you’ve ever seen!”
5) “Our Telekolleg teachers are fantastic- They always manage to put ACROSS what they want to say in a way that everyone can understand.”
6) “Can you make OUT who that is over there?”
7) “My father always used to make UP wonderful stories for us.”
8) “The firm turned DOWN his application.”
9) “ Poor Bill lost his job on the submarine because he kept ON opening the window to get fresh air.”
10) “ I must say, I really get ALONG (well) with your girl friend.” “Not too well, I hope.”

See if you can translate the phrasal verbs into German. To help you, I’ve written their translations and a few synonymous expressions at the end of this letter. ** But don’t you dare look at the answers before you’ve tried to translate them yourself first!

There is one verb, dear Telekolleg students which can express a very large number of our everyday activities, if we add the right prepositions. Here it is: I GOT UP early this morning, GOT dressed, GOT my food DOWN and then GOT OUT of the house. I GOT ON the bus with my colleague Humphrey who has just GOT OVER (recovered- über…hinweggekommen) a bad cold. Humphrey is a wonderful guy- I really GET ON very well with him. When the bus GOT TO Piccadilly Circus we GOT OFF and GOT TO our office at about 9 am. I immediately GOT DOWN TO (konzentrierte mich auf) my work. I GOT THROUGH the work by midday and GOT AWAY FROM the office for my lunch break……..

Don’t worry – I’m not suggesting, for one moment, that you should forget all the verbs you have learned and replace them with variations of ‘Get’! However you can get an idea of how often these phrasal verbs are used in English. Those of you who would like to know more about these interesting forms, can find information and exercises at the following web site:

http://www.ego4u.de/de/cram-up/grammar/phrasal-verbs/exercises