Ready for your next Luxembourgish Conversation Workout? Natural pronunciation takes practice, so here is 15 minutes of speaking training to help you sound more natural when you meet someone and respond to their questions!
More pronunciation practice: Basics of Luxembourgish Pronunciation
Conversation Workout #1: Greetinfs & Introduction
Conversation Workout #2: Making Plans
Conversation Workout #3: Finalising Plans
I hope that you enjoyed the previous Conversation Workouts. In case you missed them, I recommend to check them out later.
You’ve learnt in Workout #1 that it is very common in Luxembourg to move on with a conversation by talking about the family. Asking a question about the family helps to show interest in someone especially if you haven’t seen each other for a while or if you don’t see someone often.
But in this workout you will practise how to have a small talk conversation about your family with someone you’ve just met in an informal situation. Talking about family can as well be a good way to start a conversation, so it’s useful if you know what to say and have some questions to ask and some answers to possible questions.
This workout is going to follow a very similar pattern as the previous ones. You are going to practise some questions and answers. You’ll listen to me first and then you’ll repeat after me. That’s going to help you to strengthen those speaking skills and your listening skills at the same time. And you will sound much more natural when you use them.
You can start such a conversation with this general question:
Watch this week’s lesson here!
Wunns du hei zu Lëtzebuerg?
This question may sound strange to some of you, but it is not obvious whether someone lives in Luxembourg or in a neighbouring country.
- Wunns du mat denger Famill hei zu Lëtzebuerg? – Do you live with your family here in Luxembourg?
We often use the chunk hei zu Lëtzebuerg. Listen as well how the word for the country is pronounced: Lëtzebuerg.
And mat is preposition which requires us to use the dative case. Therefore you have to say mat denger Famill.
I have talked about the dative case in a previous lesson. If you want to know what this case is and why we have to use it with “mat” you may check this lesson on my blog.
Now, you can answer this question by saying:
- Jo, ech wunne mat menger Fra an der Stad. – Yes, I live with my wife in Luxembourg city.
- Jo, mäi Mann an ech wunnen zu Mamer. – Yes, my husband and I live in Mamer.
- Jo, ech wunne mat menger Famill zu Bartreng. – Yes, I live with my family.
Again with my family is mat menger Famill. Remember this useful chunk as such.
Then you can move on and talk about the children:
Hues du Kanner?
- Hues du Kanner? – Do you have children?
Let’s see how you can answer.
- Jo, ech hunn 3 Kanner, ee Meedchen an zwee Jongen. – Yes, I have 3 kids, one girl and 2 boys.
To say that you have one daughter you can either say: Ech hunn ee Meedchen or Ech hunn eng Duechter.
If you have 2 daughters you would say ech hunn zwee Meedercher or ech hunn zwou Duechteren.
Let’s repeat and look at the pronunciation: ee Meedchen / zwee Meedercher. As Meedchen is a neuter noun you have to say zwee and as Duechter is a feminine noun you have to use the feminine form of zwee which is zwou.
Let’s move on with some possible answers to the question Hues du Kanner:
- Mir hunn e Puppelchen. – We have a baby.
You can as well say e Bëbee for baby. Mir hunn e Bëbee.
- Mir hunn e Bouf a meng Fra erwaart eist zweet Kand. – We have a son and my wife’s expecting our second child.
Kand is the singular of Kanner. Learn all the details about the family members and how to say “my” in Luxembourgish with my online course Easy Luxembourgish Level 1
You can either say e Bouf or e Jong for a son. Both are correct.
Now you could add details to make your answers longer and more interesting:
- Ech hunn 3 Kanner. Eist eelst Meedchen huet 14 Joer a geet an de Lycée. Déi 2 Jonge ginn an d’Primärschoul. – I have three kids. Our eldest daughter goes to the secondary school, and the two boys go to primary school.
Use eelst Meedchen / Duechter and eelste Jong / Bouf to say eldest daughter or eldest son. And for youngest use jéngst Meedchen / Duechter and jéngste Jong / Bouf.
- Mir hunn e Puppelchen, e Jong. Hien huet elo 3 Méint. – We have a newborn son. He’s just three months old now.
Finally, let’s imagine that your children are already older, then you could answer the question Hues du Kanner? with
Meng Kanner si scho grouss. Eise Jong studéiert elo op der Uni an eis Duechter schafft schonn. – Our children are already big. Our son is already studying at the university and our daughter is already working.
Majo, mäin eelst Meedchen huet seng eege Famill. Hatt ass bestuet an huet ee Kand. An dat Jéngst ass nach op der Uni.
Use Majo, to sound more casual, more natural. You will hear many native speakers, starting a answer with Majo. And finally if you don’t have any children you will answer:
- Nee mir hu keng Kanner. – No, we don’t have any children.
- Nee, mir hunn nach keng Kanner. An du? No, we don’t have any children yet. And you?
- Nach net awer hoffentlech geschwënn. – Not yet, but hopefully soon.
Yes! Well done! Nice work for sticking with me all the way through that training.
It’s training your mouth and your memory through repetition that will help you sound more like a native speaker.
Übung – Exercise
Try to translate the following 3 sentences into Luxembourgish:
- Where do you (informal) live with your family?
- We have 2 daughters and a baby.
- I live with my husband and our 2 kids in Luxembourg city.
Learning Tip
I did not make this lesson for you to watch it once and then walk away and forget about it. This is your training okay? You need to come back and practise with me often,. It’s training your mouth and your memory through repetition.
Download the PDF so to practice what you have learnt in this lesson with more sentences to translate and get the solution!
I hope you liked it and found it useful. And …. why not sharing this lesson with your friends:-)
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“Luxembourgish Pronunciation Course“
