Goethe A1 Speaking: Asking Questions and Making Requests (Teil 2 and 3)

Twelve of the fifteen speaking marks come from two card games you can rehearse. The question patterns, the request formulas, and the accusative rule that decides the marks.

The speaking exam is the one candidates dread, and the one that is easiest to rehearse. After the introduction, everything you have to say is generated from a single word or a single picture on a card — which means the shape of every sentence is known in advance. Only the noun changes.

Learn six or seven patterns and the exam becomes a fill-in-the-blank exercise you can do under pressure.

What Sprechen is

Sprechen is the last of the four A1 sections, and it is done in a small group with the other candidates and one or two examiners. Three parts:

So the two card games below are twelve of the fifteen marks. You address the other candidates with Sie, not du — you have just met them.

Teil 2: the question cards

The examiner puts a card in front of you. It has a Thema (topic) at the top and one word underneath. Your job is to make a question about that topic using that word, and ask it of another candidate. Then they get a card on the same topic with a different word, and ask you.

You do this twice: two questions asked, two answered.

Never answer with one word

Ja is a correct answer and a wasted mark. The examiner is listening for a sentence. Three levels of the same answer:

Machen Sie am Abend Sport?

❌ Ja.
✅ Ja, ich mache am Abend Sport.
✅✅ Ja, ich spiele abends Fußball.

The second version is free: recycle the words of the question and change the pronoun and verb ending. The third adds one detail of your own, which is what a top mark sounds like. If your mind goes blank, the second version always works — every question contains its own answer.

The eight W-Fragen

Revise these the night before. Half the cards are answered by picking the right one.

The capital letter tells you which pattern to use

This is the single most useful trick in Teil 2. Look at the first letter of the word on your card:

• Capital letter → it is a noun (Sport, Musik, Apfel, Abend). Put it into a question frame.
• Small letter → it is a verb (schwimmen, joggen, kochen). Start the question with it.

Nouns:

• Machen Sie Sport?
• Machen Sie am Abend Sport? · am Wochenende · am Montag
• Wann machen Sie Sport?

Verbs:

• Schwimmen Sie gern?
• Schwimmen Sie gern am Abend?
• Wo schwimmen Sie? · Wann schwimmen Sie?

One warning about machen: it does not go with everything. Fußball takes spielen, and Musik is more natural with hören. So: Spielen Sie Fußball?, Wann spielen Sie Fußball?, Hören Sie gern Musik? If you are unsure which verb a noun takes, fall back on a wie viel or wann question, which needs no such choice.

Question patterns by topic

Memorise the frames, then drop in whatever word the card gives you.

Freizeit und Sport

• Machen Sie [Aktivität]? · Wann machen Sie [Aktivität]?
• [Verb] Sie gern? · Wo [verb] Sie?

Essen und Trinken

• Essen Sie gern [Essen]? · Trinken Sie gern [Getränk]?
• Wann essen Sie [Essen]?
• Was essen Sie am [Tag]? — when the card gives you a time word instead of a food

Einkaufen

• Wie viel kostet [das Ding]?
• Wo kann ich [das Ding] kaufen? — the thing is accusative: Wo kann ich den Laptop kaufen?

Zeit

• Was machen Sie am [Tag]?
• Von wann bis wann [arbeiten] Sie? — for anything with a start and an end
• Wann frühstücken Sie?

Personen

• Wie heißt Ihre Mutter? / Wie heißt Ihr Vater? — Ihre for feminine, Ihr for masculine
• Wie alt ist Ihre Mutter?
• Wie heißen Ihre Freunde in der Schule? / Wie heißen Ihre Kollegen im Büro? — note in der Schule but im Büro, because die Schule is feminine and das Büro is neuter

Ort

• Wo ist Ihr Arbeitsplatz?
• Haben Sie einen Computer in der Schule?

Lieblings-

If the card says Lieblingsessen, Lieblingsbuch, Lieblingsfarbe — one frame covers all of them:

• Was ist Ihr Lieblingsbuch? · Was ist Ihr Lieblingsessen?

Teil 3: the picture cards

Same group, same rhythm, but now the card carries a picture instead of a word — an object, a place, or a prohibition sign. You make a request; the other candidate reacts. Twice each.

There are only three request shapes, and they cover almost every picture:

Use a different one each time so you are not repeating yourself, and if the candidate before you has just used the imperative, take the modal question.

The accusative rule that costs marks

The object of a request is always in the accusative, and only the masculine article changes:

So the only thing to remember is: **masculine der becomes *den***. Everything else stays as it is. If you genuinely cannot recall a noun's gender, choose one of the pictures whose article you know — or use Kann ich bitte …? and say the noun quickly.

Places and prohibition signs

Not every picture is a thing you can hand over.

• A place (a station, a hospital): Gehen Sie bitte zum Bahnhof. · Gehen Sie bitte zum Krankenhaus. · Nehmen Sie bitte ein Taxi.
• A prohibition sign (no smoking, no swimming): put the activity first and nicht at the end — Rauchen Sie hier bitte nicht. · Schwimmen Sie hier bitte nicht.

How to react

Reacting is worth as many marks as asking, and it takes one short phrase:

• Ja, gern.
• Ja, natürlich.
• Ja, hier bitte. — when you are handing something over
• Alles klar. · Okay, ich gehe. — for an instruction to go somewhere
• Entschuldigung, ich rauche hier nicht. — for a prohibition: apologise, then repeat the verb in the ich form

That last one is the only reaction that needs any thought, and it is built straight out of the request you just heard.

The three questions the examiner asks you

After the introduction, the examiner often asks a couple of personal questions. They are nearly always these three, so prepare the answers word for word:

• Wie ist Ihr Familienname? — Mein Familienname ist Karimi.
• Buchstabieren Sie bitte Ihren Familiennamen. — then spell it: K – A – R – I – M – I. Practise this out loud in German letter names, not English ones. The letters that go wrong are e, i, a, g, j, v, w and y, because several of them sound like a different English letter.
• Wie ist Ihre Telefonnummer? (or Handynummer) — Meine Handynummer ist 0176 …, read out digit by digit, slowly.

A fourth is common enough to prepare too: Was ist Ihre Muttersprache? — Meine Muttersprache ist Persisch.

How to practise this in the last week

1. Write your own cards. Twenty slips of paper: ten with a topic and a word, ten with an object drawn or named. Shuffle them. Draw one, and give yourself five seconds to produce a question or a request out loud.
2. Five seconds is the whole exercise. The exam gives you no more. Practising slowly is practising the wrong skill.
3. Answer every question twice — once by recycling the words of the question, once with a detail of your own. The first is your safety net, the second is your top mark.
4. Say it out loud. Silent practice builds a person who can write questions, not ask them.

Everything in Teil 2 and Teil 3 is a pattern with one blank in it. Fill the blank fifty times at home, and the exam is fifteen minutes of something you have already done.

For the written half of the exam, we covered the whole email task — formal and informal, with three model letters. And if you are looking past A1, here is a realistic route to B1.