{"id":10099,"date":"2018-08-08T14:08:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T14:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=10099"},"modified":"2018-08-08T14:08:02","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T14:08:02","slug":"tricky-german-pronunciation-part-1-with-audio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/tricky-german-pronunciation-part-1-with-audio\/","title":{"rendered":"Tricky German Pronunciation Part 1 (With Audio)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag! This is part 1 of a requested post. Following my posts \u2018German Words You Don\u2019t Want To Mix Up\u2019<\/strong> parts 1 and 2, a lot of people were interested in a post with audio clips of words and sounds that look similar, but are very different. Sometimes in German, when we mispronounce a word, we end up unintentionally saying a completely different world altogether \u2013 and some of those mix-ups can be quite funny and\/or embarrassing! This first post will focus on words using the Umlaut, while the second will focus on other aspects of pronunciation. I will use the examples given in my posts German Words You Don’t Want To Mix Up<\/a> and German Words You Definitely Don’t Want To Mix Up!<\/a>, along with a few others, so you can hear how the similar words sound, and how to pronounce them yourselves.<\/p>\n

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Image via Pixabay.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Umlaut<\/b><\/h3>\n

Words are commonly mispronounced when Umlauts are involved, mainly because language learners are unsure of how to pronounce the Umlaut. What they don\u2019t realise is that a lot of words change their meanings when the Umlaut is either removed or added.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s an Umlaut?<\/h3>\n

Umlauts are the two dots that appear over the letters a, o, and u in German. These characters \u2013 \u00e4, \u00f6, \u00fc<\/strong> \u2013 are letters in their own right, pronounced differently to the regular a, o and u. <\/span>There are already some great posts about the Umlaut on this blog, so if you\u2019d like an introduction to it first,<\/strong> please read this post<\/a> and this one.<\/a> But<\/span> i<\/span>f you\u2019<\/span>re cool with the <\/span>Umlaut<\/span> and <\/span>want to get straight into pronunciation, read on!<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is the first example from my previous post. It shows how adding, or removing, an Umlaut can change a word completely. <\/span><\/p>\n

Schwul <\/span>(gay) <\/span>vs. Schw\u00fcl <\/span>(humid)<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Listen to the difference:<\/span><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/08\/SCHWUL.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"\"

Image via Pixabay.<\/p><\/div>\n

Umlauts are also often used to make a word plural. Getting the pronunciation right here, therefore, is important for communicating whether there is one or more of something.<\/span><\/p>\n

der Vogel (bird) \u2013 dieV\u00f6gel (birds)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

der Apfel (apple) \u2013 die \u00c4pfel (apples)<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Listen to the difference:<\/span><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/08\/APFEL.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

*<\/p>\n

Umlaut + another vowel<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

The character \u00e4 sometimes preceeds the letter u in German. The resulting sound is similar to the \u2018eu\u2019 in \u2018Freude\u2019 or \u2018neu\u2019 (or the English \u2018oi\u2019 in \u2018noise\u2019). Again, this is often used when making words with the combination \u2018au\u2019 plural. Here are some examples:<\/span><\/p>\n

die Maus (mouse) \u2013 die M\u00e4use (mice)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

das Haus (house) \u2013 die H\u00e4user (houses)<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Listen to the difference:<\/span><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/08\/MOUSE-HOUSE.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

*<\/p>\n

I hope this has been helpful, but I also hope that you can also see the funny side to it! Mistakes are a natural part of language learning, so if you ever do muddle any of these words up I hope it will not put you off trying again. In part 2, I will cover the German \u2018ch\u2019 sound, amongst others. Are there any letter combinations you are struggling to pronounce? If you find this type of post useful, let me know and leave any suggestions you might have for similar, future posts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bis bald!<\/span><\/p>\n

Constanze<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! This is part 1 of a requested post. Following my posts \u2018German Words You Don\u2019t Want To Mix Up\u2019 parts 1 and 2, a lot of people were interested in a post with audio clips of words and sounds that look similar, but are very different. Sometimes in German, when we mispronounce a…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":10112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[191027,53,95131,457016,376023,376071,2267,192206,551768,2538],"class_list":["post-10099","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-confusion","tag-conversation","tag-german-language","tag-german-vocabulary","tag-language","tag-language-listening","tag-listening","tag-pronounciation","tag-pronunciation","tag-speaking"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10099"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10113,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10099\/revisions\/10113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}