Fête de la Musique: Complimenting performer and asking for their social media

💬 gern added to a verb means "feel free to" or "happily". Swap in other actions: Du kannst gern bleiben "You're welcome to stay."

💬 Here du is treated as a thing you say, so the verb sagen goes to the end. The opposite is Sie sagen, which means "to be formal".

🇩🇪 This is how Germans offer to drop formality, and the switch should come from them, not you. Among young people and artists at a festival it often comes quickly.

💬 Germans use auf "on" for platforms just like English: auf TikTok, auf YouTube.

🇩🇪 Asking a busker for their Instagram is normal and flattering, since many promote gigs there. It's an easy way to support them without a big conversation.

💬 Germans say heißen "to be called" where English says "my name is". So Ich heiße Lena means "My name is Lena".

💬 German marks "Lena's" with just an s and no apostrophe: Lenas, Peters Auto "Peter's car".

🇩🇪 This is the polite way to ask someone to repeat themselves. A bare Was? "What?" can sound blunt with strangers.

💬 With kannst du, the second verb sagen gets pushed to the very end. Same pattern: Kannst du das schreiben? "Can you write that?"

💬 folgen takes dir, not dich, so it's "follow to you" in German. Same with helfen: Ich helfe dir "I'm helping you".

💬 German has no separate "am playing" form, so ich spiele covers both "I play" and "I'm playing". It can even mean "I'll play" when there's a time attached.

💬 um plus a number gives a clock time: um neun "at nine". Germans often use 24-hour times for events, so you'll also hear um zwanzig Uhr "at 8 pm".

💬 German puts the time before the place: "at eight" comes before "here". This is the reverse of English "here at eight".

💬 When a sentence starts with dann, the verb jumps ahead of ich: Dann komme ich, not Dann ich komme. Any opening word does this, as in Morgen komme ich "Tomorrow I'm coming".

🇩🇪 This is the casual goodbye, fine once you're on du terms. With strangers in formal settings, Auf Wiedersehen "Goodbye" is safer.

💬 noch here means "for the rest of it", so the phrase wishes someone fun for the remaining time. Same idea: Schönen Abend noch! "Enjoy the rest of your evening!"