Role Play 2 - Anruf bei der Redaktion

Role Play Format and the Core Telephone Skeleton

The Leaving Certificate oral examination lasts approximately fifteen minutes and represents 25% of your Higher Level German grade. The role play is one of three assessed components alongside the general conversation and either your prepared project or picture sequence. At the start of the role play, the examiner gives you a cue card setting out the situation and a numbered list of tasks. Whatever language the prompts are printed in, all of the spoken German is your job — read every task before you start and keep the card in front of you.

Most of the credit comes from fulfilling every instruction on the card, while the remaining marks evaluate your vocabulary range, grammatical accuracy, and pronunciation. If you skip a task, you sacrifice those marks immediately, regardless of how fluent the rest of your conversation sounds. Treat the card as an orderly checklist.

The State Examinations Commission (SEC) sets fresh role-play situations across the syllabus, so learning a rigid script is risky. What transfers to every telephone scenario is the same reliable six-sentence skeleton:

Sechs Sätze, die immer passen

• Greeting and name: Guten Tag, hier spricht Liam Murphy. Ich rufe aus Irland an. (Good day, this is Liam Murphy speaking. I am calling from Ireland.)
• Purpose: Ich rufe an, weil ich eine Frage zu meinem Schulprojekt habe. (I am ringing because I have a question about my school project.)
• Polite request: Wäre es möglich, mit einem Journalisten zu sprechen? (Would it be possible to speak with a journalist?)
• Repair formula: Entschuldigung, ich habe Sie nicht ganz verstanden. Könnten Sie das bitte wiederholen? (Excuse me, I didn't quite understand you. Could you please repeat that?)
• Confirmation: Also, Sie schicken mir die Unterlagen per E-Mail, richtig? Vielen Dank! (So, you will send me the documents by email, right? Thank you very much!)
• Formal telephone close: Vielen Dank für Ihre Hilfe. Auf Wiederhören! (Thank you very much for your help. Goodbye!)

Formal Register, Politeness, and Telephone Etiquette

Every role play places you in a formal setting with an adult stranger. You must maintain the formal Sie register throughout the call. Addressing the examiner as du, dich, or dein sounds impolite and damages your accuracy marks. Formal Sie uses the same verb form as sie meaning 'they': Sie sind, haben Sie, können Sie.

On the telephone, Germans identify themselves with Hier spricht..., Mein Name ist..., or simply Murphy, guten Tag. Saying Ich bin Liam is not grammatically wrong, but it sounds unnatural in professional German phone calls. When concluding a call, never say Auf Wiedersehen because you cannot see the person; always use Auf Wiederhören.

Higher Level marking criteria explicitly reward a wide range of vocabulary and structures. Repeating Könnten Sie... five times in a row caps your linguistic variety. Elevate your performance by drawing from different Konjunktiv II forms:

Your Conversational Repair Toolkit and Alphabet Guide

A conversational repair means telling the other person in German that you missed something and asking them to clarify or repeat it. One bullet point on the card directs you to ask for the journalist's surname to be spelled out. Even if you catch the name immediately, you must still ask for the spelling because it is an explicit task on the card. Beyond that required task, use your repair toolkit whenever you lose the thread; asking for help in German demonstrates competence, whereas silence or slipping into English loses marks.

Your 5-Part Repair Toolkit

• Wie bitte? Könnten Sie das bitte wiederholen? (Pardon? Could you please repeat that?)
• Könnten Sie bitte etwas langsamer sprechen? (Could you speak a little more slowly, please?)
• Entschuldigung, ich habe Sie nicht ganz verstanden. (Sorry, I didn't quite understand you.)
• Was bedeutet das genau? / Wie sagt man das auf Deutsch? (What does that mean exactly? / How do you say that in German?)
• Also, wenn ich Sie richtig verstanden habe, ... (So, if I have understood you correctly, ...)

The German Alphabet: Letters Students Mishear

When the examiner spells a name, keep these vowel traps and consonant distinctions clear:

• A is pronounced ah.
• E is pronounced ay (sounding like the English letter A; this is the most common student trap).
• I is pronounced ee (sounding like the English letter E).
• Y is pronounced Ypsilon.
• J is pronounced yot (never an English 'j').
• V is pronounced fow (sounds like an English 'f').
• W is pronounced veh (sounds like an English 'v').
• C is pronounced tseh (often confused with Z = tsett and S = ess).
• Doubled consonants are frequently dictated as Doppel-n or Doppel-l.

Handling Details, Messages, and Opinions

Giving Your Own Contact Details

If the prompt requires you to supply your contact information, state and spell your surname unprompted: Mein Nachname ist Murphy — ich buchstabiere: M-U-R-P-H-Y. Phone numbers are recited in pairs using null for zero: Meine Telefonnummer ist die 087 24 91 630 — null acht sieben, zwei vier, neun eins, sechs drei null. For email addresses, use at (or Klammeraffe) for @, Punkt for dot, Bindestrich for hyphen, and Unterstrich for underscore: liam.murphy at web Punkt de — alles klein geschrieben (all in lower case).

Plan B: The Journalist Is Unavailable

If the examiner introduces an obstacle such as Frau Wöhlert ist heute nicht im Haus, do not panic. Deploy message-handling structures:

• Könnte ich bitte eine Nachricht hinterlassen? (Could I leave a message, please?)
• Könnten Sie ihr bitte ausrichten, dass ich wegen meines Schulprojekts angerufen habe? (Could you please tell her that I rang about my school project? Note that ausrichten takes the dative).
• Die Sache ist ziemlich dringend, weil ich das Projekt bald abgeben muss. (The matter is quite urgent because I have to submit the project soon).
• Wann kann ich sie am besten erreichen? (When is the best time to reach her?)

Expressing Opinions and Discussion

When the journalist asks what you think about food habits or Irish food culture, avoid one-word answers. Give an opinion paired with a reason:

• Meiner Meinung nach essen viele Jugendliche in Irland zu viel Fastfood. (In my opinion, many young people in Ireland eat too much fast food).
• Ich bin der Ansicht, dass gesunde Ernährung in der Schule wichtiger werden sollte. (I take the view that healthy eating should become more important in school).
• Einerseits sind Bio-Lebensmittel gesünder, andererseits sind sie ziemlich teuer. (On the one hand organic groceries are healthier, on the other hand they are quite expensive).

Topic Word Bank: Essen, Trinken und Medien

To achieve high marks in vocabulary range during Tasks 3, 4, and 5, use specific food culture and media terms rather than generic words:

Essential Grammar and Word Order Rules

Two grammar structures appear repeatedly in this telephone role play. Drilling them guarantees accuracy marks under pressure:

Weak Masculine Nouns (N-Nouns)

A weak masculine noun adds an -en suffix in the accusative, dative, and genitive singular. Der Journalist is a weak masculine noun. Because the preposition mit governs the dative case, you must say: Könnte ich bitte mit einem Journalisten sprechen? (or mit einer Journalistin for a female journalist).

Verb Position with Connectors and Starters

Main clauses follow the verb second rule. If you open with an adverbial phrase such as Bis jetzt or Nach meiner Recherche, the conjugated verb must immediately follow it in position two: Bis jetzt habe ich im Internet recherchiert, not Bis jetzt ich habe recherchiert.

Subordinating conjunctions like weil and dass trigger verb final after weil: the conjugated verb moves to the very end of the clause: In Irland sind deutsche Discounter sehr beliebt, weil die Lebensmittel günstig sind. Notice that verbs ending in -ieren, such as recherchieren and telefonieren, form their past participle without a ge- prefix (recherchiert, telefoniert); the borrowed verb interviewen behaves the same way (interviewt).

Zero-Article Adjective Endings

When mentioning Irish exports without an article, apply strong adjective endings: irische Butter (feminine nominative ending -e), irisches Rindfleisch (neuter nominative ending -es), and deutsches Brot (neuter nominative ending -es).

Requesting Contact Details

Never translate 'What is your email?' as Was ist Ihre E-Mail?. Use the formal interrogative phrase Wie lautet...?: Wie lautet die E-Mail-Adresse der Redaktion? (using the feminine genitive der Redaktion).

Key terms

die Redaktion

The editorial office or editorial staff of a magazine or newspaper.

Hier spricht...

The standard, idiomatic German telephone formula used to identify oneself ('This is... speaking').

Auf Wiederhören

The formal farewell formula used exclusively on the telephone instead of Auf Wiedersehen.

buchstabieren

To spell out a word or name letter by letter in spoken German.

Konjunktiv II

The subjunctive mood used in German to formulate polite requests and conditional statements (e.g. könnte, wäre, gäbe, dürfte, hätte).

weak masculine noun

A masculine noun (such as der Journalist) that adds an -en or -n ending in all cases except the nominative singular.

verb second

The fundamental word order rule in German main clauses requiring the conjugated verb to sit in the second constituent position, causing inversion when an adverbial starts the sentence.

verb final after weil

The subordinate clause rule where conjunctions like weil and dass force the finite conjugated verb to the very end of the clause.

Wie lautet...?

The formal German phrase meaning 'What is...?' used to ask for registered information like telephone numbers, names, or email addresses.

die Ernährung

Diet, nourishment, or nutrition in general, as in 'auf gesunde Ernährung achten' (to pay attention to healthy eating).