After a Menschen A2.2 class, you might understand how a grammatical pattern works on paper but still need a moment to answer a similar question about your own life. Choosing one question from your current lesson and trying it aloud between classes is a way to find out which word or form you need to check next.
This guide supports the Menschen A2.2 textbook from Hueber Verlag (specifically chapters 13 to 24). Use your book's own audio and your teacher's assignments as your main resources. Three original scenes from the Menschen A2.2 companion courses provide optional extra settings for these chapter themes, completely separate from the publisher's material.
Quick answer: Choose the Lektion your class is studying. Listen to a short exchange from the book or an original companion scene, answer one question aloud using your own details, then check any phrase that made you hesitate. Bring that specific question to your next class. The three examples below show how to apply this to different chapter themes.
Start with the chapter you are using
Menschen A2.2 covers topics such as past experiences, local events, and travel. You can easily use the textbook's own audio and activities for this routine. An original companion scene is useful if you want a second, realistic situation to try the same kind of question.
This flexible between-class routine takes just a few minutes. First, select a single question or dialogue prompt from your current Lektion. Second, listen to a short passage of the publisher's audio or a matching companion scene. Third, pause the audio immediately after a question is asked and speak your own personal answer aloud. Finally, identify one phrase or grammatical agreement that made you hesitate, write it down, and bring that question to your next class.
Answering with your own details makes an uncertainty concrete. You might find you need a past form, a local preposition, or a more natural way to react. Write down the sentence you attempted and check just that part. You do not need to follow a rigid schedule. Simply use the time you have alongside your normal classwork.
Focusing your practice on your own life keeps the classroom material active. Let us look at how this routine adapts to three specific chapters, using original companion scenes to show how you can personalise your German.
How we learned German (Lektion 13)
In Lektion 13, titled Meine erste „Deutschlehrerin“, you learn to talk about your personal language-learning experiences and swap learning tips. The grammar introduces the past-tense conjunction als for one-off events in the past, which puts the conjugated verb at the end of the clause.
To practise this theme, you can use the original companion course How we learned German, which is designed to go alongside this chapter. The scene is set during a tea break at a community choir's rehearsal in Jena on a Thursday evening. Javier, a newcomer from Chile who joined the choir three weeks ago, chats with Mai, who was born in Hanoi and has lived in Jena for twenty years. They use the informal du register to swap stories about their first weeks in Germany, share tips, and tell funny anecdotes about navigating a new culture.
You can use this scene, or the publisher's audio for Lektion 13, for a specific speaking task. Listen to the characters discuss their arrival. When Mai mentions how little she understood when she first arrived, pause the audio. Instead of just listening, speak your own experience aloud. Use the conjunction als to structure your sentence. For example, say aloud how you felt when you first arrived in a German-speaking country, or when you first started learning German:
- Als ich mit Deutsch angefangen habe, war die Aussprache sehr schwer. (When I started German, the pronunciation was very difficult.)
- Als ich das erste Mal in Deutschland war, habe ich fast nichts verstanden. (When I was in Germany for the first time, I understood almost nothing.)
By speaking your own story aloud, you move past repeating memorised lines and adapt the grammatical structure of the lesson to your actual life. If you made a mistake with the verb position after als, make a note of it to check with your teacher.
A night at the museums (Lektion 19)
Lektion 19, Wohin gehen wir heute?, shifts the focus to cultural events, making suggestions, and using local prepositions to describe origins and destinations, such as woher with von and aus plus the dative.
For this chapter, the companion course A night at the museums offers a practical scenario. The setting is a phone call in Braunschweig on a Saturday evening. Robin is excited about the local museum night and wants his friend Nele to join him. Nele, however, is on the bus home from a football match that her team just lost. She is exhausted and reacts to his suggestions with hesitation and doubt. They speak informally using du.
To turn this into an active practice session, focus on the skill of reacting to a suggestion with doubts or making a counter-proposal. Listen to Robin trying to get Nele excited about the torchlight tours and concerts. Pause the audio after he makes a suggestion.
Now, practise your own response. Imagine a friend is trying to persuade you to go to an event tonight when you would much rather stay at home. State where you are coming from using the correct dative preposition, such as vom Büro (from the office) or aus der Stadt (from town), and express your hesitation. For example:
- Heute? Ich weiß nicht... Ich komme gerade aus dem Büro und bin sehr müde. (Tonight? I don't know... I am just coming from the office and am very tired.)
- Hm, vielleicht. Aber ich komme gerade vom Training, ich muss zuerst duschen. (Hm, maybe. But I am just coming from training, I have to shower first.)
This exercise forces you to use local prepositions in a real-time communicative context, helping you internalise how prepositions change depending on your starting point.
Back from a year abroad (Lektion 24)
The final chapter of the book, Lektion 24, Wie sah dein Alltag aus?, asks you to talk about working abroad, describe daily routines, and express enthusiasm or disappointment. Grammatically, this is where you consolidate the simple past tense, or Präteritum, of modal, regular, and irregular verbs.
You can explore these themes through the companion course Back from a year abroad. The scene takes place in the arrivals hall at Frankfurt Airport on a Sunday evening. Verena has just returned from a year working at her company's office in Montreal. Her school friend Patrick is there to pick her up and drive her home. As they talk, Verena describes her daily routine in Canada, discusses what disappointed her about her first flat, and shares what she missed most while she was away.
To practise this between classes, focus on describing a past routine or expressing a disappointment. Listen to Verena talk about her daily life in Montreal. Pause the audio and describe a past trip or a previous job of your own. Use the Präteritum forms of common verbs like war (was), hatte (had), ging (went), or fand (found).
If you have never lived abroad, talk about a holiday or a typical day from your childhood. The goal is to practise shifting from the conversational Perfekt tense to the narrative Präteritum when recounting a longer story:
- Mein Alltag in Spanien war sehr entspannt. Ich stand um acht Uhr auf und ging dann zur Sprachschule. (My daily routine in Spain was very relaxed. I got up at eight o'clock and then went to the language school.)
- Ich fand die Wohnung am Anfang ein bisschen kalt, aber die Kollegen waren sehr nett. (I found the flat a bit cold at the beginning, but the colleagues were very nice.)
If a past form is uncertain, check the lesson before giving your answer again. You can keep the story short and still show what happened first and what followed.
Change the question, not just the answer
After trying one answer, try asking a follow-up. You can do this with a classmate or alone by changing the question in one of the three scenes to leave room for a different reply.
For instance, in the Lektion 13 choir scene, instead of just answering how long you have lived in your city, practise asking the follow-up question. If you do not understand a detail in the audio, use it as a prompt. If Mai mentions a word you do not know, practise asking for clarification in German: Was bedeutet das? (What does that mean?).
In the Lektion 19 museum scene, if you are practising with a partner, do not just accept their suggestion. Practise throwing a counter-question back to them. If they suggest a museum, ask: Gibt es dort auch Musik? (Is there music there too?). If you miss a detail in the audio about where they are meeting, practise asking for repetition: Kannst du das bitte wiederholen? (Can you please repeat that?).
In the Lektion 24 airport scene, practise asking about disappointments or highlights. Ask a classmate: Was hat dir am besten gefallen? (What did you like best?). If you struggle to find the right Präteritum verb form while speaking alone, use a simpler, shorter answer in the Perfekt first, then check the narrative past tense in your chapter and try again.
Take one useful question back to class
The final step of this between-class routine is the most important: closing the loop with your teacher. When you practise speaking aloud at home, you will naturally run into moments of uncertainty. You might wonder if you used the correct dative ending after aus in Lektion 19, or if your verb was in the right position after als in Lektion 13.
Write down the sentence you tried to say and the point that still feels uncertain. Check your Menschen A2.2 chapter, then bring the remaining question to your teacher. You can try the corrected sentence in another short exchange after class.
The publisher's audio, textbook activities, and classroom assignments work perfectly for this practice. HearSay's original conversations are optional extra listening on related themes.
The Menschen A2.2 hub links all twelve original companion courses. Start with the lesson your class is studying.
HearSay is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hueber Verlag. Menschen A2.2 is a trademark of its owner. These are our own conversations, written around each chapter's themes.
FAQ
Which edition and chapters of Menschen A2.2 does this guide use?
This guide is based on the 1. Auflage (2013) of Menschen A2.2 published by Hueber Verlag. It specifically highlights Lektion 13, Lektion 19, and Lektion 24. If you are using a different edition, check your book's table of contents to match these specific themes.
Can I use the practice idea without HearSay?
Yes, you can. The publisher's official audio, your classroom textbook, and a practice partner are entirely sufficient to run this routine. HearSay simply offers optional, original companion conversations designed to match the themes of each chapter to give you extra variety.
What if I cannot answer without reading?
Start by checking just one unfamiliar word or phrase in your book, then try to give a much shorter spoken answer. If you are still unsure about a specific grammatical form, write it down and ask your teacher during your next class.