Question about native German speakers

[QuoVadisNation]

The 'th' sound isn't really all that difficult. All you need to accomplish is press the tip of your tongue under your two front teeth and slide it away back into your mouth while saying 'Da'. (no, I'm not joking)

But yeah, I'm not going to argue that convention sometimes makes it difficult to grasp new syllables. I still have significant difficulty saying the words "important", or "water" correctly.

 

[BirraImperial]

"Th" is actually the only thing in English I'm still trying to master after all these years. German is actually easier to pronounce for me, maybe because of my native Spanish skills.

 

[Lotus49]

"Th" is actually the only thing in English I'm still trying to master after all these years. German is actually easier to pronounce for me, maybe because of my native Spanish skills.

There's different 'th' sounds. Which is more difficult; the more gay-sounding 'th' sound as in 'theory', 'math' or the more cool sounding 'th' as in 'the', or 'weather' - which has a kind of a buzzing sound to it...

As a side note, I always thought the 's' sound was the most unpleasant sound in a language. I remember as a youth in church (large cathedral) everyone would be praying in unison from a book, sort of whispering, and everytime they got to an 's' sound, it sounded like a whole bunch of snakes were hissing.

Ironically the 's' sound was the only one I had to go to speech class for, in the 3rd grade (around age 7 or 8). I was putting my tongue between my front teeth, instead of behind them. But, they fixed me right up. While I was there, btw, there was this girl that couldn't correctly say 'r' to save her life. Like 'reach for the remote' would be... 'weech fow the wemote'.

I couldn't understand why she couldn't say 'r'. With me, they told me "you're WRONG! say 's' like THISSSSSSSsssss" I said, "OK, fine - I'll say it your way. Whatever." There was no 'difficulty'. I just didn't know better. I just didn't like talking like a snake. Didn't seem natural. But the POINT is, that once I was told what to say, I COULD easily do it.

 

[Syntherio]

Type a sentence in German, and I'll upload a .wav file. I bet I could pass.

I would like to test it
"Günther Reinhold wurde rigoros abserviert und unter Schmährufen aus dem großen Saal gejagt, obwohl er seine Unschuld mehrmals beteuerte."

...
I must confess, that I am one of those stupid germans, who still has a problem with the "th" - 11 years after my first english sentence

 

[Grisu]

maybe you're just bragging, or maybe you're just naturally gifted with emulating sounds. The fact is, most people aren't. Many german speakers will never be able to pronounce the the th correctly, some will (it never gave me much trouble, except if followed with a r, that always felt unnatural to me).

Likewise many english speakers will never be able to pronounce german correctly (I'm thinking of the ü, for example, or the r). or what about the ch sound in swiss-german (similar to the j in spanish). I've never met a american/brit who could pronounce that correctly.

it's just hard for many people to pronounce sounds that don't exist in their first language. The later they learn the second language the harder it becomes. Many german youths today will be able to pronounce the 'th' because they learned it as kids, while their parents won't be able to do the same.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

An American complaining about accents. It took me several minutes to stop laughing.

 

[Adebisi]

The lisp-sound "th" is very odd and not found in most languages. When speaking English I sometimes pronounce it and sometimes not. It's an ugly, weird sound anyway.

 

[Hawe Hawe]

It is true I a also have difficulties with the "th". Maybe germans are to cautious with putting their tongue betwen the teeth. You could easily bite and harm yourself or spit your conversation partner in the face by accident.

 

[scherbchen]

(since day 1 in Deutsch Klasse)

see? that is about as anglicised and un-german as you can get (almost everybody would say Deutschunterricht).

But speaking as a German who studies English and Spanish I am sometimes surprised as well by the lack of language skills in my peers. Maybe one in a hundred is at the level where you can hardly tell that they are speaking a second or third language (that is from my Pov, probably less from a native speaker's perspective).

Having said that, here are some simple German words which usually are a nightmare for foreigners to pronounce: zwölf, pfütze, kirche, pferd

 

[Marla_Singer]

Type a sentence in German, and I'll upload a .wav file. I bet I could pass. But more to the POINT... I can certainly annunciate everything correctly (since day 1 in Deutsch Klasse), although after all these years I probably won't know what I'm saying.

Well let's try firstly with the word "gymnasium" (high school). About 90% of native English speakers would pronounce it as "goomnasium".

I don't speak Swedish, but if I did you can bet I'd do so impecably.

Well, in Europe I wouldn't say that English speakers have the reputation to be especially gifted in emulating foreign accents. Actually, those I would consider as the best to reproduce foreign accents would probably be the native Russian speakers. Actually, I've witnessed many Russians who were really impressive in their way to speak foreign languages with minimal accents.

Now, quit trying to turn the tables. I told you in the OP that could do better than those whom I accuse of not trying hard enough to make noises with their mouths correctly. I am German-blooded, and it baffles me that my relatives from das alte Land can't pronounce 'w', 'wh', 'th' sounds in English. I still am baffled, and it would seem that I'm just going to have to remain so.

As I've told you Lotus, this isn't a matter of genes. A Chinese guy who's been raised in a Chinese environment will talk in English with a strong Chinese accent. His Chinese brother who's been raised in an American environment will talk in English with no accent at all. And what is true for the Chinese people will be for the Poles, the Senegalese people, the Afghans, the Peruvians, the Polynesians, the Germans or the Inuits.

Similarly, an American guy having been raised in an American environment will pronounce the French word "rue" (street) as "wooo". On the other side, his brother being raised in a French environment will pronounce it without an ounce of foreign accent.

Actually, I find rather weird you hadn't noticed that by yourself.

 

[RedRalph]

I can speak a small amount of German, with a pretty good accent, but it would take years to learn the intircacies of it. Lots of english speakers cant get the German pronounciation of "z" (sort of 'ts', but not quite) or a "U" with an umlaut over it (kind of oooewwww).

Put it this way, the vast majority of Germans English is better then other English speakers (Irish, Aussies, Yanks, Brits etc) German

 

[holy king]

There's different 'th' sounds. Which is more difficult; the more gay-sounding 'th' sound as in 'theory', 'math' or the more cool sounding 'th' as in 'the', or 'weather'

the first one, never met anyone who had problems with "weather".
and i guess the problem is just that people dont try to learn to pronounciate "th" and just comfortably say "I sink" instead of "I think"

 

[Masquerouge]

Marla, the only thing blowing my mind at the moment is WHY do some people put a space between the final letter of a sentence and the punctuation mark?!

Well that's because the French rules for typography require a space before and after every punctuation mark that is made of two parts, like ?, !, ;, : and so on...

I'm not kidding, by the way.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Well that's because the French rules for typography require a space before and after every punctuation mark that is made of two parts, like ?, !, ;, : and so on...

I'm not kidding, by the way.

Indeed. I'm aware it's not the case in English, and generally I try to not do it. Unfortunately, this kind of things tend to come automatically without thinking, and it's true that too often I put space before exclamation and question marks without even realizing.

 

[Bill3000]

Well let's try firstly with the word "gymnasium" (high school). About 90% of native English speakers would pronounce it as "goomnasium".

Huh? It's been always "jim-nasium" to me and everyone who I've heard pronounce it; though I'm an American, a New Yorker in particular.

 

[Thorbal]

Huh? It's been always "jim-nasium" to me and everyone who I've heard pronounce it; though I'm an American, a New Yorker in particular.

Quite good, but you´d have to say it like this: gümnasium . The y is pronounced like an Ü in this case.

 

[Swedishguy]

I am almost 100% sure that the OP would have trouble pronouncing the swedish "yes".

 

[Bill3000]

I am almost 100% sure that the OP would have trouble pronouncing the swedish "yes".

No, it's very easy to speak swedish. BORK BORK BORK BORK

 

[Lotus49]

Thread Dead.

 

[Thorbal]

Hey Lotus, I know I´m not directly adressed, but perhaps I might comment .

I must say that I´m positively impressed! Considering the lack of practice you mentioned, I think your German is indeed quite good ( in fact, better then most ) , especially the ch/umlauts are good. But ( although I think you did not claim to be ) , it is quite obvious you are not a native speaker ( especially the "a"s and "r"s sound very american ) . Nevertheless *I* think you are doing very well !

If you want me to comment more specifically, just ask.