German
- Ich ("I") → ch/(sch) Ich weiss. ("I know") → Schweiss (would translate, literally, to "sweat". A common source of some well known jokes)
- Du ("you", singular) → de/d - Weisst Du ("you know") → Weisste
- Wir ("we") → mer - Können wir ... ("can we") => Kö(n)mmer ..., Kennen wir! ("we know") → Ke(n)mmer!
- Das ("this/the") → (d)s - Das Pferd dort ("The horse over there") → 's Pferd dort'
- es ("it") → s - Es regnet ("It's raining") → s regnet
- Ist ("is") → is/s - ist das möglich ("is this possible") → isses möglich
- denn ("then, actually, anyway") → (d)n - Was ist denn los? ("What's up") → Wasn los?
A wide range of possible pronunciations can be found in the negatory 'nicht ("not") depending on the dialect region.
- Nicht ("not") → nich (mostly in Northern Germany)/nit (Cologne region)/net (southern hessian)/et (swabian)/ni (saxonian) - Können wir nicht einfach... ("Can't we simply ...") → Kömmer nich einfach...
See also Synalepha
Read more about this topic: Relaxed Pronunciation
Famous quotes containing the word german:
“The Germans—once they were called the nation of thinkers: do they still think at all? Nowadays the Germans are bored with intellect, the Germans distrust intellect, politics devours all seriousness for really intellectual things—Deutschland, Deutschland Über alles was, I fear, the end of German philosophy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The German language “speaks Being,” while all the others merely “speak of Being.””
—Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)