Guten Tag! I hope you are all well, and have had a great start to 2021. We are nearing March, which will, unbelievably, mark one year since the start of the Coronavirus Pandemie (pandemic) lockdown here in the UK. We have discussed the more serious matters regarding the pandemic throughout the year on this blog, but today’s subject, although related, will be much lighter: we’ll be talking about Zoom – more specifically, Zoom meetings in German!

A year ago hardly anyone knew what Zoom was, but thanks to the pandemic it’s become the go-to app for hosting video calls with friends, having work meetings, and even teaching and taking part in fitness classes and personal training sessions online! So as familiar as we may be with Zoom in our native languages, today we’ll take a look at Zoom in Germany, and learn the vocabulary needed to navigate Zoom meetings in German – just for fun. 🙂

Zoom Meetings In German

The Zoom invitation

Here’s what a Zoom invitation reads like in German. Can you figure out what it says? Related vocabulary is below to help you out!

Constanze lädt Sie zu einem geplanten Zoom-Meeting ein.

Thema: Donnerstagsstunde
Uhrzeit: 25. Februar 2021 07:30 PM Amsterdam, Berlin, Rom, Stockholm, Wien
Jede Woche am Donnerstag

Laden Sie die folgenden iCalendar-Dateien herunter und importieren Sie sie in Ihr Kalendersystem:

Zoom-Meeting beitreten
Meeting-ID: 12348457458
Kenncode: Ab1F5hd

*

einladen – to invite
geplant – planned/scheduled
Thema – subject
Uhrzeit – time
Jede Woche – every week
importieren – import
beitreten – join

*

Joining a Zoom meeting

So you’ve been invited to the meeting – hooray! Here are the options you will see on Zoom before joining your meeting:

An einem Meeting teilnehmen – Join a meeting

Meinen Namen für zukünftige Meetings speichern – Save my name for future meetings

Es kann keine Audioverbindung aufgebaut werden – Do not connect to audio

Mein Video ausschalten – Switch my video off

Beitreten – Join

Abbrechen – Cancel

*

Remember to connect to audio if you want to hear anything! Here are the options that will come up when you join the meeting:

Mit Computeraudio teilnehmen – Join with computer audio

Lautsprecher und Mikrofon testen – Test speaker and microphone

*

The bottom panel of a Zoom meeting

Now you’re in the meeting, and it’s thrilling. Here are all the controls on the bottom panel of the Zoom meeting, so you can mute yourself, share your screen, or leave the meeting ‘versehentlich’ (‘accidentally’):

Stummschalten – mute
Audio ein – unmute

Video beenden – stop video
Video starten – start video

Teilnehmer – participants

Chat – chat

Bildschirm freigeben – Share screen

Aufnehmen – record

Reaktionen – reactions

Verlassen – leave meeting (if you’re a participant)

Meeting beenden – end meeting (if you’re the host)

*

The chat box

Of course, you could just spend your time messaging Sandra about how boring the meeting is (being careful not to send this message to ‘Alle’…)

Von … an alle – From …. to everyone

Versenden an…  – send to….

Alle – everyone

Tippen Sie Ihre Nachricht hier – type your message here

*

Other options and controls

Other controls you will find floating around a Zoom meeting:

Mein Audio stummschalten – mute my audio

Video beenden – stop video

Pinnen – pin
Das Video anheften – pin the video

Umbenennen – rename

Ansicht – view
Sprecheransicht – speaker view
Galerieansicht – gallery view

Zu Vollbildmodus wechseln – switch to full screen view

*

I hope this has been interesting! Of course, there are many more controls on Zoom, but I hope I have included the main ones here. If you’d like to test your listening skills and go a bit more in depth, give it a go using this video:

 

Let me know if you’ve been using Zoom during the pandemic, and if so, what you’ve been using it for (bonus points if you can write this in German)!

Bis bald

Constanze