# English accent in German



## jacob001

I'm just wondering what kind of pronunciation errors are made by native British English speakers when they speak German, just so that I can try to elimate those errors from my own pronunciation. 

Thanks!


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## Kuestenwache

1. Lern the sounds that do not exist in the English language "ch" as well in "ich" as in "ach", "ü", "ä" and "ö" 
2. lern the rules for stressing syllables they are slightly different in German than in English
3. The German "r" is pronounced rather dry and rolled uvularly


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## Whodunit

The diphthongs *au*, *äu*/*eu*, and *ei *seem to be a pain for some speakers of English. They are different from the ones in English (*ou*, *oy*, *i*/*y*).


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## jacob001

Thanks *whodunit *and *Kuestenwache*! I think that I can make those sounds that you mention quite well; I don't think any of them are that difficult - but I know that I still have an English accent. What about intonation? Is that usually an obvious marker of a non-native speaker?


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## Kuestenwache

Actually yes. That's what I meant with stressing rules. Even if the pronounciation is improved the intonation can still be a problem. Your accent might sound slightly like a Dutch or Scandinavian accent. You always have to lern how to accentuate a word when practising vocabularies.
A good way to get a good pronounciation is to listen to the mistakes foreign speakers make in you language, if you pronounce German as if you are speaking with a German accent this might help you develope a feeling for the language, you will notice that you will use the correct intonation and pronounciation intuitionally.


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## Hutschi

Remap some letters to other sounds.
An important difference between English and German is the "W"-sound. It is one of the letters many English speaker speak in an English way when speaking German. The "W"-sound like in "Wolke" can also be written "V" as in "Vase". 

In the vowel system we have short and long vowels. They are never tensed (gespannt), may be with some exceptions in foreign words and in regional usage.


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## ausland

What I've been told is that native English speakers often mispronounce the "z" in a word like "zu" as in, "zoo" instead of "tsoo."


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## sokol

jacob001 said:


> Thanks *whodunit *and *Kuestenwache*! I think that I can make those sounds that you mention quite well; I don't think any of them are that difficult - but I know that I still have an English accent. What about intonation? Is that usually an obvious marker of a non-native speaker?



With your (I suppose) British English accent it should be easier for you to acquire an accent close to a native speaker's accent - it is much more difficult for speakers of rhotic accents like most American English speakers.

Basically the most serious problem for you should be _not to diphtongise_ vowels as you do in your native language. It is very difficult for English native speakers to not diphtongise a long vowel as in "Feder" /fe:də/; usually this comes out as /fei̯də/. Similar problems occur with long /o:/ while you should have no problems with /i: u:/, and you should not try to pronounce long /a:/ as a back vowel /ɑ:/ as many Brits do (well, in some German accents this also is similar to /ɑ:/).*)
(With your (supposedly) non-rhotic accent you may replace your shwa for English /-er/ endings for the same German /-er/ endings - you're lucky there.)
*) An afterthought: Irish accents tend to do less diphtongisation, at least some Irish accents - at least Steven Roche, part-time co-moderator for cycling races on a satellite TV channel. Roche's /go/ is close to German /o:/ in "Boot", and I think his /e/ in /well/ indeed is a long one - /e:/ and rather close to German /e:/ in "Feder".

Further you will have to learn that even thogh German is written rather like it is spoken there still are some exceptions, and some rules to follow for pronunciation.

Intonation however is much more difficult. If you really aim for that much perfection you should choose a particular accent and acquire it through hearing: satellite TV and internet sources will make this possible.
(And if you want to acquire a kind of standard German that should be considered "neutral" in Germany you shouldn't of course choose for example an Austrian accent - my native one ;-) - which would be quite distinct.)


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## Sepia

A good help sometimes is taking a look at the dialects of your own language. Some of these "typical German" phonems actually are present - or something very close to them - in the English language, although not in standard English. It is often easier to figure out how to pronounce them on the basis of your own language.


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## jacob001

sokol said:


> With your (I suppose) British English accent it should be easier for you to acquire an accent close to a native speaker's accent - it is much more difficult for speakers of rhotic accents like most American English speakers.



Just a quick question about your 'r':
When you don't pronounce it, do you replace it with another sound? In English, we either replace it with a schwa (so, for example, 'tire' sounds like /taɪə/) or make the preceding vowel a long one (so, for example, 'hard' becomes /hɑːd/).

Thank you!


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## Hutschi

It depends on the word and a little bit on the region.

But if you use a "schwa" for end syllables, it is very near. I listened to the endings William Hartnell used for the r in "Doctor" and he almost exactly pronounced it with the same kind of "a-schwa" as in German. 
A variant often used is a kind of weak "e"+"schwa" slightly diphtongized. (I do not know how to write this.) 

"Meister" could be spoken like "Meista". 

In words with a long vowel like in "Bart" there is a kind of gliding between two a-sounds, but in some regions, the "r" is spoken and you here a difference to "Bad" in both cases. This is hard to describe in written form.


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## Hutschi

PS: I found http://german.about.com/library/anfang/blabc_audio1.htm

They give a lot of examples.


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## sokol

jacob001 said:


> Just a quick question about your 'r':
> When you don't pronounce it, do you replace it with another sound? In English, we either replace it with a schwa (so, for example, 'tire' sounds like /taɪə/) or make the preceding vowel a long one (so, for example, 'hard' becomes /hɑːd/).
> 
> Thank you!



As Hutschi already has explained, this indeed is so in German: you may replace the ending /-er/ with a schwa, and in cases when /r/ in cosed syllables is not pronounced (like in English 'hard') the vowel is lengthened - exactly as in British English pronunciation (the sounds are not exactly identical but rather close: the /a/ in German 'Bart' that Hutschi has mentioned is - usually - not IPA /ɑː/ but IPA /aː/, and the ending of 'Meister' is an "/a/-schwa" that is IPA /ɐ/).

I'd suggest that you begin with substituting the BE pronunciations for /-er/ and /r/ when not pronounced, and if you want to perfect your accent you already have a rather good starting point.
(As already mentioned BE speakers have quite an advantage here in contrast to speakers of rhotic accents.)


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## englishman

sokol said:


> (As already mentioned BE speakers have quite an advantage here in contrast to speakers of rhotic accents.)



One minor off-topic point: there are, in fact, rhotic accents in BE, notably in the west of England.


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## ausland

Quite true -- and let's not forget the Scottish and the Irish and practically anyone else that talks like a pirate.


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## Hutschi

There are a lot of accents in Germany, too.

In some areas, the "r" is spoken as a rolled "r" even at the end of a word - at least in some words.


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## sokol

englishman said:


> One minor off-topic point: there are, in fact, rhotic accents in BE, notably in the west of England.



Well, I did know that traditionally there were - I wasn't sure if they still are alive and well  which now is confirmed by you.
All BE speakers I have met so far personally didn't have a rhotic accent (but then most were from the east and south-east of England).

Irish however is non-rhotic as far as I know - at least the already mentioned Steven Roche hasn't a rhotic accent; and as far as Scottish is concerned they still do roll the 'r' in many positions, don't they? In this case Scots would probably come over as speaking a regional accent if they were to use the same pronunciation of 'r' in German.


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## ausland

On the contrary...Irish is perhaps the most rhotic of all.


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## panjandrum

ausland said:


> On the contrary...Irish is perhaps the most rhotic of all.


I don't know about that, but I don't know of any natural Irish accent, north or south, that is non-rhotic.



sokol said:


> [...] Steven Roche hasn't a rhotic accent;
> [...]


I don't agree.
I've just listened to Steven Roche and there is no doubt that his accent is rhotic.  It is a deceptively soft accent, which may lead the listener to believe it is non-rhotic.


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## Wynn Mathieson

You can hear Stephen Roche -- and his rhotic accent -- at a certain well-known video site (search for Roche - Delgado La Plagne 87).

Listen to his pronunciations of

tired
four times
kilometres
recovered
slower

etc.


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## sokol

panjandrum said:


> (...) I don't agree.
> I've just listened to Steven Roche and there is no doubt that his accent is rhotic.  It is a deceptively soft accent, which may lead the listener to believe it is non-rhotic.



Well, then I will have to try and listen harder ... I certainly won't doubt the word of a native speaker. 

Wynn, I've done my hearing exercise now and of course you are perfectly right, Steven Roche's accent certainly is rhotic. But he _indeed _has a deceptively soft, 'not-very-rhotic'-sounding accent as written by Panjandrum.


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## ausland

I would add that most Irish speak with a very rhotic accent as do most Americans.


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## Wynn Mathieson

To be fair to *sokol*, I wouldn't agree, *ausland*, that Hiberno-English is "very" rhotic -- inasmuch as you don't get the "r-anihilating-all-the-adjacent-vowels" phenomenon that occurs in the speech of some AmE speakers (prominent among the George Bush Jnr): e.g. "trrrrzsm" for "terrorism". 

In BrE such strong rhotacism is more characteristic of Somerset English: to hear that, go to the same video site and search for "Exclusive Interview with Phil Harding" (who really does "talk like a pirate"!)...


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## Blümchen

Back to German pronunciation. You know that you can pronounce German right if you can pronounce the German word "Steichholzschächtelchen" without problems and mistakes. I tried it, even non-Germans speaking very good German didn't manage it.

I heard an Australian sent in this word for the most beautiful German word, because he said it's the most difficult word in German.


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## Wynn Mathieson

Blümchen said:


> You know that you can pronounce German right if you can pronounce the German word "Steichholzschächtelchen" without problems and mistakes.


Not too easy to spell either, by the look of it.

Shouldn't that be St*r*eichholzschächtelchen? 

Wynn


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## Blümchen

Yes, thank you. I payed so much attention to the english spelling I didn't look carefully at the only German word.


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## ausland

Perhaps it will never come up since I don't smoke.  This would mean that my German is nearly perfect so long as I never need to strike a match!


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## vatreno

Kuestenwache said:


> 1. Lern the sounds that do not exist in the English language "ch" as well in "ich" as in "ach", "ü", "ä" and "ö"
> 2. lern the rules for stressing syllables they are slightly different in German than in English
> 3. The German "r" is pronounced rather dry and rolled uvularly



Are there any sites or anything that demonstrate these sounds

Kind of basic question about pronunciation:
Pronunciation of Ich, are i's pronounced ee or hard? and ch almost like k?


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## Kuestenwache

i is pronounced almost like the first i in "inside" and "ch" has two possible pronounciations of which non sounds like k. This is actually the most frequently made mistake by a native English speaker.


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## avok

jacob001 said:


> I'm just wondering what kind of pronunciation errors are made by native British English speakers when they speak German, just so that I can try to elimate those errors from my own pronunciation.
> 
> Thanks!


 

Native English speakers must find it harder to pronounce German "ö" "ü". So you'd better practice them.


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## PMCB

To add something general, and somewhat different, to the excellent and plentiful advice already given, I would strongly suggest viewing (and listening closely to) as many German-language films as you can.  In addition to giving you the pleasure of watching a movie, this will accustom your ear to what German should sound like, so that you can begin to apply that to your own pronunciation in a more automatic way.


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