German Pronunciation

[Filidh]

Here's a quick pronunciation guide for German. There are exceptions to the rules given here, however they are very occasional exceptions and most often occur with foreign words used in German. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the standard pronunciation stands.

The alphabet is: a (ah), b (bay), c (tsay), d (day), e (ay), f (eff), g (gay), h (hah), i (ee), j (yot), k (kah), l (ell), m (em), n (en), o (oh), p (pay), q (koo), r (ehrr), s (ess), ss or β (ess-tset), t (tay), u (oo), v (fow), w (vay), x (iks), y (oopsilon), z (tset), ä ('e' as in next), ö (mixture of 'oh' and 'uh'), ü (deep, guttural 'uh')

The 'c' is almost always found with another letter added on, such as 'ch' or 'ck'. The 'ch' and 'ck' is as English 'k', sometimes. A lone 'c' will always be a foreign word rather than German. However, a majority of the time, especially when not at the beginning of the word, 'ch' is as the 'h' part of the English word 'huge'. A slightly less harsh version of the Scottish 'ch' in 'loch'.

The 'v' and the 'f' are both pronounced as the English 'f'. German 'Volk' and English 'Folk' are pronounced the same. The 'v' is occasionally pronounced as the English 'v', however this is always in obviously foreign words such as 'vibrations' and 'video'.

The 'g' is almost always hard, as English 'going' and never as English 'gym'. Sometimes, it's a breathy 'ghya' sound, such as 'eigentlich' being as 'eighyentlich', rather than the hard 'g'.

The combination 'ei' is always as English 'eye', and 'ie' is always as English 'ee'. Also, 'au' is as English 'ow', and 'eu' is as English 'oi'

If you can't type the umlauts, it's acceptable to write ü as ue, and so on.

The 'e' is never silent like it is in English. At the end of a word, it's like the English 'uh' or 'ah'.

The 's' is often as English 'z', but sometimes as English 'sh' or just plain 'ss'. Depends on the word.

The 'β' is always as the English 's' sound, like in English 'see'. It's acceptable to write it as 'ss', but the 'β' looks cooler, so in the interests of coolness you should stick with that.

The 'z' is always as English 'ts'. German 'zeit' is 'tseit'.

The 'x' is always as English 'ks', but it's a letter that's not often used.

The 'j' and 'y' are always as English 'y', so German 'junge' is 'yunge'. 'Y' in German is very rare and mostly appears in foreign words.

The 'w' is always as English 'v', so German 'widerstand' is 'vidershtand'.

The 'r' is slightly more guttural than in English, said from closer to the back of the throat. In speeches, some songs, and to sound badass, you can roll it, but in standard pronunciation it's not rolled.

The 'q' is almost always found with a 'u' after it, like in English. When it is, it's pronounced like 'kv' or 'kw', depending on preference and dialect. German 'quelle' would be 'kvella' or 'kwella'.

The 'kn' is like 'kuhn', so German 'knecht' is like 'kuhnecht'

It's basic but it should suffice. Sometime here I'll upload sounds.

[Gideon300]

Here's a quick pronunciation guide for German.
If you can't type the umlauts, it's acceptable to write ü as ue, and so on. ...

The 'β' is always as the English 's' sound, like in English 'see'. It's acceptable to write it as 'ss', but the 'β' looks cooler, so in the interests of coolness you should stick with that. ...
.

Had never noticed this thread before.

I truncated your post to this only to relate that on Windows keyboard, you can make the following umlaut vowels and the Eszett (ß) by holding down the Alt key and using the number keypad (after making sure "num lock" is on) and then typing the following -

Alt + 132 for ä
Alt + 148 for ö
Alt + 129 for ü
Alt + 225 for ß

Capitals -
Alt + 153 for Ö
Alt + 154 for Ü

Great site to bookmark if studying German - http://www.dict.cc

I have registered at the Deutsche Welle site for their free online German courses and am going to have a go at improving my Deutsch in the coming year using that resource -

http://www.dw.de/learn-german/s-2469

A lot of the videos and pictures end up featuring non-Whites and other things I could do without, but there are a lot of great learning tools there such as the slowly read daily news, or Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten - http://www.dw.de/31122013-langsam-gespr ... a-17334311 -that are helpful in learning to understand spoken German once you are at least at am intermediate level at least. There are a lot of downloadable .mp3 files there and putting those in a portable .mp3 player and listening while you work or exercise is a good way to learn on the go. Listening to German songs is another great way to increase your understanding of Deutsch as well. I have dozens of German military songs from the Reich I often play and have the lyrics for, for example. I never tire of classics like Horst Wessel Lied/Die Fahne Hoch! or Panzerlied.

A site with a lot of downloads of Wehrmacht, SS, and other Reich military music - http://www.soldatenlieder.com/ Only have your speakers turned down or muted before loading the page because it has audio of combat sounds and short flash video that comes on every time. Another great resource, linked to from the Christogenea Mein Kampf Project site - http://nseuropa.com/marschmusik/index.htm

Many will tell you it's not possible to learn a foreign language without visiting or living in a nation where the language is spoken, but if you stay at it with these type progressive online courses and tests you can become pretty proficient. There are an increasing number of sites as well where you can partner with someone who is a native speaker of the language you're wanting to learn and who is wanting to learn English and help one another. I can't recommend any at present as I've not tried that yet.

Can't hurt to have at least a basic ability in a second language such as German, especially in the US as the Mestizo population swells. Could come in handy as a secret code of sorts in certain contingencies.

[Staropramen]

Can't hurt to have at least a basic ability in a second language such as German, especially in the US as the Mestizo population swells. Could come in handy as a secret code of sorts in certain contingencies.

My wife and I use Czech in this manner sometimes.

[Filidh]

here's a good forum to practice your german at: https://nationale-revolution.net

also, here's a copy of "hammer's german grammar and usage", a good german grammar book.
https://anonfiles.com/file/ab9b30911c76 ... e93107f562

also, for other texts in german and other languages, checkout: http://uz-translations.net

some good youtube channels in german are:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DeutschenVaterland
http://www.youtube.com/user/Antiengel1488

[wmfinck]

wow, I can't even pronounce English yet.

[Gideon300]

wow, I can't even pronounce English yet.

Snicker. Not true but funny. I've heard you enough to say you're anything but self-aggrandizing, that's for sure. Not even "charmingly boastful" as Rush Limbaugh says about himself and his "documented to be almost always right, 99.7% of the time," half joking, half boasting catch phrase.

Speaking of hard to pronounce, which German certainly is in a lot of instances (the number twelve or "zwölf" is a common word that people learning German struggle with for example, as phonetically it's something like "tsvooelf"), this is the German version of the Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers tongue twister, at least as I remember it, as I'm not finding it anywhere on the net, though I thought I'd be able to -

Peter Pfeifer gepflückt ein Pfund von pökel Pfeffern.

Wie viele Pfeffern hat Peter Pfeifer gepflückt?

They had us memorize and repeat that when I took German in high school, mostly to practice the German pf consonant blend.

Here's a comical, intentionally over the top and packed with stereotypes take on how German sounds compared to other European/Romantic languages -

[Filidh]

http://germangrammarpod.blogspot.com/
just found this blog, pretty good stuff it seems.

[ElleJay]

This is GREAT information. How much I would enjoy learning German ... someday ... but my backlog of someday is quite deep. I loved the YouTube comparing German with other languages. That was funny ... my kind of simple humor.

Thanks for all of the work you all have done ... if I ever find that someday, this will be my jumping off point.

Elle