Our passer-by is beginning to curse his luck! No sooner has he given instructions to Ken McNaught and moved along the Messedamm to Position 2 on our diagram than he bumps into Herr Loss, who is also looking for the Hotel Ravenna (which is again marked by an "X" in our diagram).
Listen to his conversation with the passer-by by clicking either here or on the sound icon at the top of the previous paragraph. You can also click here to find the location of the Hotel Ravenna on a map of Berlin.
Glossary
Wie komme ich...?---"How do I get to...?" Literally: "How do I come to...?" As there is only one present tense in German, the word for "do" is omitted in the German construction.
... zum Hotel Ravenna---"...to the Hotel Ravenna". The word "zum" is short for "zu dem". It is only used for masculine and neuter nouns - for feminine nouns you would say "zur".
hier geradeaus---straight on here
richtig---right; correct
Nehmen Sie...---"Take...". Note again the inverted word order of the polite request.
die erste Straße rechts---the first road on the right
die zweite Straße rechts the second road on the right
nicht... sondern...---"Not ... but..." In this case, "nicht" precedes the noun to which it refers.
ganz richtig---"Quite right". The word "ganz" is quite tricky in that it can mean "quite" or very according to context.
die erste Straße links...---the first road on the left...
auf der linken Seite---"On the left-hand side". In practice this is interchangeable with "links".
