Anglophone Pronunciation of Foreign Languages - German

German

There are several German vowels that create problems for English speakers:

  • One of the most difficult is German /eː/ as it is further forward in the mouth than in varieties of Standard English so that speakers may pronounce German Geht as if it were English gate.
  • Similarly, /a/ is very similar to the accent of northern and central England. Hall (2003) suggests that the vowel in Southern British English hut is closest.
  • Most English speakers also have difficulty with the two sounds represented by ch in German, usually replacing them both with. /k/; they also have difficulty with the guttural r of most German dialects.
See also: German phonology

Read more about this topic:  Anglophone Pronunciation Of Foreign Languages

Famous quotes containing the word german:

    The German language “speaks Being,” while all the others merely “speak of Being.”
    Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)

    I don’t want to shoot any Englishmen. I never saw one ‘til I came up here. But I suppose most of them never saw a German ‘til they came up here.
    Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)

    A German immersed in any civilization different from his own loses a weight equivalent in volume to the amount of intelligence he displaces.
    José Bergamín (1895–1983)