In today’s ‘Deutsch am Donnerstag’ we’ll look at ‘die Bank’. As you can see ‘die Bank’ can mean the bank or the bench. In plural the word changes, as more than one bench is ‘Bänke’ and more than one bank is ‘Banken’. So, how do you know which ‘Bank’ a text is about? Luckily there are usually enough other words to tell you which:
- Ich setzte mich auf die Bank – I’m sitting down on the ….. (it’s got to be bench)
- Ich sitze auf einer Bank – I’m sitting on a …. (it can’t be bank, right?)
- Ich gehe in die Bank – I’m going into the ….. (it’s got to be bank)
- Ich bin in der Bank – I’m in(side) the …. (that would be a weird bench if that was possible)
- Ich gehe zur Bank – I’m going to the …. (now here it depends on the context. Somebody could be on his way to the bank or the bench over there)
- Ich hole mein Geld von der Bank ab – I’m picking up my money from the … (hopefully it means ‘from the bank’, as it’s unlikely somebody leaves money on a bench for me to pick up 😉 )
Which leaves me with just one question: Do you know what a ‘Baumelbank’ is? If yes, have you sat on one before? If no, find the answer here “So, what exactly is a Baumelbank?”
If you’d like to learn more about German plural nouns, check out my online course German gender #2 – the plurals of German nouns (Use code BLOGPOST for 10% off)
