German Language

German for Beginners
Lesson 10

Directions: How do I get there?
Wie komme ich dorthin?

Wann? • Adverbs of Time

Direction signs In this lesson you'll learn vocabulary and grammar related to going places, asking for simple directions and receiving directions. You'll learn words and phrases that will let you talk about going places, as well as understand what someone else says when giving simple directions.

How do I get there?
Wie komme ich dorthin?
What directions is this cluster
of signs in Berlin giving us?
Foto: © Hyde Flippo

One word of caution before we begin. Asking for directions is easy. Understanding the torrent of German you may get back is another story! Most German textbooks/courses teach you how to ask the questions, but fail to deal adequately with the understanding aspect. That's why we will also teach you some coping skills in this lesson to help in such situations. One example is to ask your question in such a way that it will elicit a simple ja or nein, or a simple "left," "straight ahead" or "right" answer. And don't forget those ever reliable hand signals that work in any language!

WO vs. WOHIN
German has two question words for asking "where." One (wo?) is for asking the location of someone or something. The other (wohin?) is for asking about motion or direction ("where to").

For instance, in English you would use "where" to ask both "Where are the keys?" (location) and "Where are you going?" (motion/direction). In German these two questions require two different forms of "where":

Wo sind die Schlüssel? ("Where are the keys?")
Wohin gehen Sie? ("Where are you going?")

In English this can be compared to the difference between the location question "where's it at?" (poor English, but it gets the idea across) and the direction question "where to?" But in German you can only use wo? for "where's it at?" (location) and wohin? for "where to?" (direction). Sometimes wohin gets split in two, as in: "Wo gehen Sie hin?" But you can't use wo without hin to ask about motion or direction in German. - You must always use the correct form of "where" for location (wo?) or motion/direction (wohin?).

We'll cover this in more detail in Part 3, and test your understanding of this grammatical concept later in the exercises for this lesson.

Now let's look at some common words and expressions related to directions and places we might go to. You need to memorize this vocabulary.

DIRECTIONS - RICHTUNGEN
Notice that in some of the phrases below, the gender (der/die/das) may affect the article, as in "in die Kirche" or "an den See". Notice that der sometimes changes to den, and so on. You'll learn more about the grammar for this in a future lesson. For now, just notice what's going on related to gender!
Englisch	Deutsch
along/down Go along/down this street.	entlang Gehen Sie diese Straße entlang!
back Go back.	zurück Gehen Sie zurück!
in the direction of/towards... the train station the church the hotel	in Richtung auf... den Bahnhof die Kirche das Hotel
left - to the left	links - nach links
right - to the right	rechts - nach rechts
straight ahead Keep going straight ahead.	geradeaus (guh-RAH-duh-ouse) Gehen Sie immer geradeaus!
up to, until up to the traffic light up to the cinema	bis zum (masc./neut.) bis zur (fem.) bis zur Ampel bis zum Kino
COMPASS DIRECTIONS HIMMELSRICHTUNGEN
north - to the north north of (Leipzig)	der Nord(en) - nach Norden nördlich von (Leipzig)
south - to the south south of (Munich)	der Süd(en) - nach Süden südlich von (München)
east - to the east east of (Frankfurt)	der Ost(en) - nach Osten östlich von (Frankfurt)
west - to the west west of (Cologne)	der West(en) - nach Westen westlich von (Köln)
Note: More compass directions can be formed in German just as in English by combining more than one element. Northwest - Nordwesten, Northeast - Nordosten, Southwest - Südwesten, etc.