5.4 Studying the map

Ken McNaught is now positioned "Ecke Singerstraße Neue Blumenstraße", that is on the corner of Singerstraße and Neue Blumenstraße in what used to be East Berlin. He asks a passer-by wher he can find the post-office and the underground station.

 

Both of these are shown on the map below - the post-office has the yellow logo of the German post office Deutsche Post with its trademark horn, and the "U-Bahnhof" (= "underground station") is indicated by the blue letter "U".

 Glossary

hier in der Nähe---near here

hier ganz in der Nähe---very near here

das Postamt---"Post office". You will often hear the word "die Post" used for this, which also means the post office as an institution. 

etwa---approximately

zwei Minuten von hier---two minutes from here

Wo gibt es hier einen U-Bahnhof?---"wher is an underground station round here?" As "es gibt" takes the accusative case, the masculine noun "ein U-Bahnhof" becomes "einen U-Bahnhof".

circa approximately; about

sechshundert Meter---six hundred metres

ganz einfach---quite simply

die Schillingstraße entlang---"Along the Schillingstraße". The preposition "entlang" follows the noun to which it refers.

die Polizeiwache---"Police station". It is indicated on German maps by a green star on a white circular background.

an der Polizeiwache vorbei---past the police station

direkt davor directly in front of it

Welcher U-Bahnhof ist das?---"Which underground station is that?" If the noun following "which" was a feminine noun, it would be "welche" and if it was a neuter noun, it would be "welches".