4. Sounds like German

4.  Sounds Like German (See Quiztests 106-107)

To an English speaker who wrestles with indifferent spellings and their pronunciations (cf ough) German is a dream language. Certainly the sounds of the German alphabet are quite different to English but once learnt, they are very regular and new words can be pronounced with confidence.

The German alphabet is much the same as English although the pronunciation of the 26 letters is a little different. It is hard to show pronunciations in writing but the respective letters appear below with an attempt at writing each as we might say them in English.

a = ah,  b = bay (almost bee but not quite),  c = tsay,  d = day ( as for bay),  e = ay,  f = eff,  g = gay, h = ha,  i = ee,  j = yot,  k = car,  l = ell,  m = em,  n = en,  o = oh,  p = pay,  q = kooh,  r = air, s = ess,
t = tay,  u = ooh,  v = fow,  w = vay,  x = iks,  y = oopsilon,  z = tset.

Vowel combinations, called diphthongs, have their own separate pronunciations as well: au = ow as in Sau ( zow = sow),  ei = eye as in nein (nine = no),  ie = ee  as in sie ( zee = she) and eu =oy as in Heu ( hoy = hay).

The 'ch' sound is interesting. Used with 'i'  and 'e'  the resultant sound is soft enough although unusual for the English speaker. The sound is almost that of a cat's hiss when it is annoyed. Words like ich (I) and Recht (right) are pleasant enough on the ear. With  'a' ,  'o'  and  'u'  the sound is a bit harsh and maybe helps to promote the idea that German can sound rather 'gutteral'. Macht (power / might),  Loch (hole), and suchen (seek / search) are all very 'throaty'. My favourite phrase in German is wirklich glücklich (really lucky / happy) as it sounds quite gentle on the tongue.

Then we have what is called an Umlaut in German. Over the vowels  a, o and u, you sometimes see two small dots or small strokes. The sound is changed to the following : ä = air as in Städte (cities), 
ö = murder as in Mörder (murderer),  and ü = due as in kühl (cool).

Certain letters , although looking the same as their English counterparts, are pronounced differently especially at the end of a word. They are: 'b' - pronounced p at the end of a word ( gib = give but pronounced gip),  'd'  is  pronounced t at the end of the word ( Bad = bath but pronounced bart), 'g'  is usually pronounced 'ch' as we saw previously (Honig = honey pronounced  hoh nich), 'j'  is always pronounced y (ja = yes pronounced ya),  'v' is always pronounced  f (von = of / from pronounced fon), 'w'  is always said v (wenn = when pronounced ven). Sometimes you will also see a letter looking like a capital 'b'. This is actually used sometimes to replace 'ss' (but not always) and is frequently seen on roadsigns with Schloß (pronounced shloss NOT shlob!). A mate once told me he thought a Schloß had indicated the most frequently used name for towns in Germany until someone put him straight.

OK, enough for today .... I will give you plenty of examples of how to pronounce a heap of words in the next post.

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