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.
Read more about this topic: Anglophone Pronunciation Of Foreign Languages
Famous quotes containing the word german:
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“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.”
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“A German immersed in any civilization different from his own loses a weight equivalent in volume to the amount of intelligence he displaces.”
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