What are the subject and predicate – and why are they important in the listening section?

🔹 Subject (Subjekt)

The subject is the person or thing that performs the action.

It answers the questions: Who? or What?

📌 Examples:

Der Arzt ruft an. → Who? → Der Arzt (the doctor is calling)
Die Fahrgäste müssen umsteigen. → Who? → Die Fahrgäste (the passengers)
Sie sollen das Medikament nehmen. → Who? → Sie (they should take the medicine)

In the exam tasks, the subject is always the main character of the situation. If you confuse who performs the action, you are very likely to choose the wrong answer.

Example: “Kinder sollen das Medikament nur nach Rücksprache mit dem Arzt nehmen.”

If you don’t notice that the subject is Kinder (children), you might mistakenly think it’s about adults.

🔹 Predicate (Prädikat)

The predicate is the action itself — what the subject does.

It answers the question: What does he/she/it do?

📌 Examples:

Der Arzt ruft an. → What does he do? → ruft an.
Die Fahrgäste müssen umsteigen. → What do they do? → müssen umsteigen.
Sie sollen das Medikament nehmen. → What do they do? → sollen nehmen.

In the listening (Hören) section, the main meaning is usually concentrated in the predicate — it shows what must be done, where to go, what to take, or what to use. Everything else is just background information.

🧠 Why it’s important to mark the subject and predicate before listening

Before the audio starts, you have 30–60 seconds. This is your golden time to understand:

✅ Who is acting? → Subject
✅ What are they doing? → Predicate

📖 Example:

“Was müssen die Fahrgäste tun?”

Mark:
→ die Fahrgäste — subject (who?)
→ müssen tun — predicate (what to do?)

During listening, you will automatically focus on the words Fahrgäste or their synonyms (Reisende, Passagiere), and on action verbs like umsteigen, benutzen, verlassen, warten, weiterfahren…

💡 This way, you won’t get lost in long texts and will quickly find the core meaning — who does what.

🎧 How this helps in the Hören exam

Imagine you hear:

“Dieser Zug endet hier. Die Fahrgäste werden gebeten, den Zug zu verlassen und die bereitstehenden Busse zu benutzen.”

If you marked beforehand that the question is: “Was müssen die Fahrgäste tun?”, your brain will immediately find the relevant information:

Subject → Fahrgäste
Predicate → den Zug verlassen, Busse benutzen

That’s the correct answer! Everything else (“wegen Bauarbeiten”, “wir bitten um Verständnis”) is just noise.

✍️ Example: two different approaches

Without preparation:

The student listens to everything and tries to understand every word — and loses the main idea.

With preparation:

The student knows that the question refers to Fahrgäste and the action tun. They focus only on these signals, hear the verb benutzen, and choose the correct answer.

💬 Another example: the “Medikament” topic

Question: “Wie sollen Erwachsene Medinox nehmen?”

Mark:
→ Erwachsene — subject (who?)
→ nehmen sollen — predicate (what to do?)

During listening, ignore everything about children and focus on the key fragment:

“Erwachsene nehmen mittags und abends 10 Tropfen mit einem Glas Wasser.”

There’s your answer!

💡 Conclusion

🎯 Subject — who performs the action.
🎯 Predicate — what they do.

If you identify these two elements before listening, your brain works like a filter: it doesn’t search for every word but focuses on the meaningful parts of the sentence.

That’s the secret to confident listening comprehension in the B1 exam!