# live (German pronunciation)



## Martoo

Hi everyone, I wanna know how do you pronunce the "live" adverb in German, which means "direct/on real time".
I think that as a foreign word, it must be pronounced like the english adverb [laıv] isn't it? I'm really confused 

Thank you people!


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## marcogaiotto

Yes, I do really thinks so...


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## Hutschi

It is [_la͜if], also in Duden.
Note the hardening of the end consonant._


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## Martoo

Hutschi said:


> It is [_la͜if], also in Duden.
> Note the hardening of the end consonant._



Like "life" => "leben"? Can you tell me why? I imagine the pronunciation *f* by the german pronunciation of *v*; maybe...


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## Frank78

Martoo said:


> Like "life" => "leben"? Can you tell me why? I imagine the pronunciation *f* by the german pronunciation of *v*; maybe...



Because there is no /z/, /v/, /b/, /d/, /g/ at the end of German syllables.

We have to train hard to pronounce them properly when learning a foreign language.

Most other people pronounce the word as if it were German.


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## Kajjo

Martoo said:


> it must be pronounced like the english adverb [laıv]


Unfortunately, not. It is pronounced like the English noun "life", i.e. [laɪf].


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## elroy

Hutschi said:


> Note the hardening of the end consonant.


 It's called "devoicing," not "hardening," in English. 


Frank78 said:


> Most other people pronounce the word as if it were German.


 As in [li:fə]??  And who are "most other people"?  Most non-native speakers of German?


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## Kajjo

elroy said:


> It's called "devoicing," not "hardening," in English.


The same in German. Only in some strong dialectal regions people speak about hard and soft consonants. This is a nonsense concept.

Auch im Deutschen heißt es _stimmhaft _und _stimmlos_. Ich erinnere nur an die Diskussion über das Youtube-Video der österreichischem Sprecherin...


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## Kajjo

elroy said:


> As in [li:fə]??


No, of course not. I never heard that. Thes simply speak it as German "leif".


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## elroy

Kajjo said:


> Only in some strong dialectal regions people speak about hard and soft consonants.


 But the official, standard linguistic term for "final-obstruent devoicing" _is_ "Auslautverhärtung", which, I suspect, is why Hutschi said "hardening".


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## Frank78

Kajjo said:


> Only in some strong dialectal regions people speak about hard and soft consonants.



The concept of hard and soft consonants exists in a lot of languages (including English, Russian, Czech), althought mostly as layman's term.


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## Martoo

You were very helpful guys. 

Finally anyone knows where could I get a list about these "especials" words or where to find them?

Thanks to all of you!


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## Frank78

Martoo said:


> Finally anyone knows where could I get a list about these "especials" words or where to find them?



Which special words do you mean?

It's not something special but normal German phonology. Have a look:

"rei*b*en" (rub) /b/ as the B is NOT the final sound but "rie*b*" (rubbed) /p/ the B is spoken /p/ as it is the final sound.

Here's the wikipedia article on final obstruent devoicing.


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## Hutschi

elroy said:


> It's called "devoicing," not "hardening," in English.
> ...


Thank you. I tried to use the German word because usually it is not just devoicing, but in case of "life" it is. Other consonants are additionally aspirated, so the sound "harder". So I missed the word "devoicing" by "Um die Ecke denken".

In German alls consoants at the end of words are usually devoiced. "B" and "d" are additionally aspirated.
"R" is an exception, it is not just devoiced but vokalized.

I was not aware of the fact that "life" and "live" (in the given sense, not as verb) are spoken differently, and I'm quite sure that many German speak it just using the German consonant system.

I do not know how native bilingual speaker speak it.

There is a small difference between the contrast
hard - soft
and
devoiced - voiced.

I did not know that this difference is not used in English grammar words.


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## elroy

Frank78 said:


> Most other people pronounce the word as if it were German.


 I'm still not sure what this is in reference to.  Frank, can you explain?


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## Martoo

Frank78 said:


> Which special words do you mean?
> 
> It's not something special but normal German phonology.



I mean words that have a foreign pronunciation. When I looked the German "live" word by the first time, I thought that its pronunciation was [li:fə] according to the German rules that I'm learning.


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## Kajjo

Martoo said:


> When I looked the German "live" word by the first time, I thought that its pronunciation was [li:fə]


Sure, you have to realise that it is an English word used in German. Otherwise you would pronounce it German-style.

It is sometimes difficult to know for a learner, which words got adopted by German (and are pronounced more or less German) and which remain English-style (and are pronounce more or less English). It's not easy. You need to listen a lot to radio and TV to get used to such words.

_Computer, Baby > adopted, but mixed pronunciation_


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## Frank78

elroy said:


> I'm still not sure what this is in reference to.  Frank, can you explain?



I mean by applying German pronunciation rules, i.e. final obstruent devoicing.



Martoo said:


> I mean words that have a foreign pronunciation. When I looked the German "live" word by the first time, I thought that its pronunciation was [li:fə] according to the German rules that I'm learning.



I wouldn't bother too much about these foreign words. You can use the original pronunciation, too. I bet those who speak German only wouldn't even hear the difference between a /v/ and an /f/ as final sound because we are not used to distinguish both.



Hutschi said:


> I did not know that this difference is not used in English grammar words.



Hard and soft ARE used in English but not to mean voiced or unvoiced.

But I have read about the "hard C" as in cat and "soft C" as in cemetary.


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## Hutschi

Indeed it is Not fully


Frank78 said:


> ...
> 
> 
> Hard and soft ARE used in English but not to mean voiced or unvoiced.
> 
> But I have read about the "hard C" as in cat and "soft C" as in cemetary.



I did not know this. So they are false friends.
Thank you very much.


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## Hutschi

Kajjo said:


> ...
> 
> _Computer, Baby > adopted, but mixed pronunciation_


And adapted mixed spelling "Babys" in plural.


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## berndf

Kajjo said:


> The same in German. Only in some strong dialectal regions people speak about hard and soft consonants. This is a nonsense concept.


Not really. In German phonology, it is quite normal to speak of fortis-lenis pairs. Since German has no voiced stops, it is particularly appropriate for that class of consonants.

When discussing German as a whole, and not just a narrow range of registers, is particularly useful as it expresses a phonemic distinction that is realized differently in different regions.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> I'm still not sure what this is in reference to.  Frank, can you explain?


According to German phonological rules. [laıv] is not pronouncable in German and will therfore not occur when used as a loan word within a German sentence.

As a consequence of the phonemic merger of voiced and unvoiced obstruents at the end of a syllable, a German would perceive he's doing something wrong when devoicing final obstruents. Without special training a German would perceive [laıf] and [laıv] as phonetically indistinguishable.


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## sound shift

German speakers can of course pronounce "live" as they wish. So can the speakers of Dutch, in which devoicing of voiced consonants in final position also occurs. I only mention that because I've seen signs saying "Life Music" in the Netherlands, a mistake that is surely the result of spelling as one speaks and, as such, something for German speakers to try to avoid.


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## berndf

sound shift said:


> , a mistake that is surely the result of spelling as one speaks and, as such, something for German speakers to try to avoid.


Not only that. Unless they know English very, very well, they are usually unaware that live (verb), live (adjective) and life (noun) are three different words. As they hear only two of them as different, they often only know about the verb and the noun.


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