Complaining about a hotel
If you are unhappy with your hotel, you might want to complain. You will need to know some adjectives, some verbs in the perfect and imperfect tenses, and some linking words.
Hilfsvokabeln – Helpful vocabulary
- übernachten (vb, weak) – to spend the night
- leider (adv) – unfortunately
- zufrieden (adj) – happy, satisfied
- kaputt (adj) – broken
- deshalb (adv, conj) – so, therefore
- außerdem (adv) – as well, what's more
- der Käfer (m) – beetle
Question
Look at the following extract from a letter complaining about a hotel.
Ich habe vom 2. bis zum 9. Juni in Ihrem Hotel übernachtet. Leider war ich nicht damit zufrieden. Ich konnte nicht schlafen, weil die Klimaanlage kaputt war und deshalb war das Zimmer zu heiß. Außerdem war das Bett zu hart. Das Wasser war kalt und es gab auch Käfer in der Dusche.
Pick out the following forms:
- adjectives
- past tense forms (perfect and imperfect tenses)
- linking words (adverbs and conjunctions)
Don't forget that linking words may affect the word order. Look at them carefully in the text to check how they should be used.
| Adjective | Past tense | Linking word |
| zufrieden – unhappy, satisfied | ich habe ...übernachtet – I spent the night (perfect tense) | leider – unfortunately |
| kaputt – broken | ich konnte (nicht) – I could (not) (imperfect tense) | weil – because |
| heiß – hot | war – was (imperfect tense) | deshalb – therefore |
| hart – hard | außerdem – as well | |
| kalt – cold | auch – also |
| Adjective | zufrieden – unhappy, satisfied |
|---|---|
| Past tense | ich habe ...übernachtet – I spent the night (perfect tense) |
| Linking word | leider – unfortunately |
| Adjective | kaputt – broken |
|---|---|
| Past tense | ich konnte (nicht) – I could (not) (imperfect tense) |
| Linking word | weil – because |
| Adjective | heiß – hot |
|---|---|
| Past tense | war – was (imperfect tense) |
| Linking word | deshalb – therefore |
| Adjective | hart – hard |
|---|---|
| Past tense | |
| Linking word | außerdem – as well |
| Adjective | kalt – cold |
|---|---|
| Past tense | |
| Linking word | auch – also |
Translation
I stayed in your hotel from 2 - 9 June. Unfortunately, I was not happy about it. I couldn't sleep because the air-con was broken and therefore the room was too hot. What's more, the bed was too hard. The water was cold, and there were also beetles in the shower.
Did you know?
Germans, often by their own admission, are not afraid of complaining. German culture places emphasis on fairness and honesty, which means that non-Germans occasionally consider Germans to be rude, when they are merely being truthful, direct and standing up for their rights.
Germans find it perplexing that many other cultures find it embarrassing to complain and prefer to make small-talk or tell white lies to overcome awkward situations.
In fact, it's so unnatural, that there is no German word for 'small-talk'. A borrowing from English is used to explain this phenomenon – Small Talk machen. A 'white lie' in German is eine Notlüge – literally an 'emergency lie'.
