At the checkout in German

Right now: you are in the queue, and the questions are already known

ShortcutThere is no long sentence to build at the checkout. The cashier asks five questions, the order never changes, and your job is to answer each with one word: Nein, danke. · Karte. · Ja, bitte. · Ebenfalls!

When you cannot follow the cashier, it feels like your German is bad. Usually it is not that: the cashier asks the same five questions hundreds of times a day, so the words get swallowed and come out very fast. At a discount supermarket the whole exchange takes forty seconds. If you know the questions in advance, the speed stops being a problem.

• Sammeln Sie Punkte? Do you collect points? Question 1 · loyalty card · answer: Nein, danke.
• Brauchen Sie eine Tüte? Do you need a bag? Question 2 · bags cost money · answer: Nein, danke.
• Bar oder Karte? Cash or card? Question 3 · the real question · answer: Karte.
• Möchten Sie den Kassenbon? Would you like the receipt? Question 4 · often just Bon? · answer: Ja, bitte.
• Schönen Tag noch! Have a nice day! Not a question, a wish · answer: Danke, ebenfalls!

The whole conversation: five scenes, forty seconds

The conversation below uses the same sentences as the post. The cashier’s lines are plain, yours are marked. Read it aloud: at the checkout, the sentence that comes out of your mouth is the one your mouth is used to, not the one you read with your eyes.

Scene 1 · Your turn. Your things are on the belt and it is your turn.

Scene 2 · Two questions. As scanning starts, two yes-or-no questions arrive. Both close with a single word.

Scene 3 · Payment. This is the post’s main question.

Scene 4 · When it goes wrong. This is the one moment you freeze. Two different mishaps here: the card does not work, then a price turns out wrong.

Scene 5 · Leaving. The last line is a single word.

You already do this in English: nobody answers “cash or card?” with “yes”

When a cashier in London or Chicago asks “Cash or card?”, nobody says “Yes”. You say “Card” and move on. German works the same way: Bar oder Karte? is an either-or question, and the answer is the name of what you choose.

When you freeze at the checkout, your mouth reflexively says Ja, because you have trained yourself to hear every German question as yes or no. But two of the checkout questions are not yes-or-no questions. All you need is to know which is which:

Payment: hearing the price, choosing the card

Two things get lost in the payment scene: the number the cashier says and the type of your card. Neither comes from the German itself, both come from habit.

When saying a price, the cashier drops the words Euro and Cent and says the two numbers back to back. On top of that, two-digit German numbers (21–99) run in reverse order: siebenundvierzig means “seven-and-forty”, like the old-fashioned English “four-and-twenty”. Your ear waits for “forty-seven”, hears “seven” first, and the number is gone.

Once you pay by card, the conversation moves to the screen for a while. On the terminal and from the cashier you will see these four:

Bag, loyalty card, receipt: three small questions

These three are yes-or-no questions and none of them is mandatory; Nein, danke. closes all of them. But cashiers do not always ask as neatly as the post does; they often shrink the question to one word. Learn which shortcut is which question:

When it goes wrong: phrases to get out without freezing

The panic moments at the checkout are always one of a few situations: the card fails, a price is wrong, you change your mind about something, or you miss what the cashier said. Each has a ready-made sentence, and none of them needs an apology.

The worst move when you miss a sentence is a general “I don’t understand”. The cashier repeats the same sentence at the same speed and you are stuck in a loop. Say what you missed:

The part nobody tells you: the checkout’s unwritten rules

A textbook teaches you what to say at the checkout. But in Germany what draws looks at the checkout is often not what you say but what you do. Nobody says it out loud; everybody knows it.

• Pfandbon — hand over the deposit slip from the bottle-return machine while the items are still being scanned. Once payment has started, most checkouts can no longer deduct it.
• Packtisch — pack your things at the packing table behind the till, not in front of the cashier. The checkout moves fast; while you pack, the next customer’s items pile up on yours.
• It is a common courtesy to let someone with a single item go ahead of you: Gehen Sie ruhig vor.
• For alcohol and cigarettes, if you look young you will be asked for ID: Darf ich Ihren Ausweis sehen? Carry your ID or residence permit.

A last word: answering Schönen Tag noch! with only Danke. is not wrong, but it is half an answer. Danke, ebenfalls! or Danke, gleichfalls! hands the wish back; Danke, Ihnen auch! works too. One word, but it is exactly where a memoriser and a speaker part ways.

Table: the whole conversation at a glance

Look at this table once before you walk into a supermarket. The moment you recognise the left column, the panic ends, because you already know the next question.

This topic does not stick by reading; it sticks by actually saying it at a checkout once. This week:

• Read the dialogue aloud twice: once the cashier’s lines, once your own.
• Say five prices aloud: 23,47 · 4,99 · 9,90 · 1,50 · 0,85. Then ask someone to say them to you while you write the number down.
• On your next shop, say it before the question comes: Ich brauche keine Tüte, danke.
• Say Mit Karte, bitte. at the checkout once on purpose. That is how you break the Ja reflex.
• Put down the Warentrenner. Then notice that nobody is looking at you.