German Language Stack Exchange
German Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [pronunciation]

Aussprache - Questions on how to correctly speak a word.

Pronunciation of German words and sounds and its connections to orthography, etymology or meaning.

Aussprache von deutschen Wörtern und Lauten. Zusammenhänge zwischen Aussprache und Rechtschreibung, Etymologie oder Bedeutung.

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W → V, V → F. Why do German speakers wrongly transpose rather than shift when speaking English?

If German "W" is pronounced like an English "V" and German "V" is pronounced like an English "F" i.e. W → V V → F Why is it that I continually hear German speakers pronounce their (English) V's as (English) W's when speaking English?…
adolf garlic
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How is “ch” pronounced correctly?

I've become interested in learning German again. When I looked up some basic lessons to get myself started, I found this on about.com. If you click on any of those words, you can hear the word said by a German-speaker, to improve your pronunciation.…
Hassan
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Aussprache von »Libyen«

Warum wird von vielen Menschen das Wort »Libyen« ausgesprochen, als würde man es »Lybien« oder »Lübien« schreiben? Wikipedia und Wiktionary sind sich einig: Für den Namen des nordafrikanischen Staates Libyen gibt es drei verschiedene…
Hubert Schölnast
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How should one pronounce "Denglisch" words when one is a native English speaker?

I'm not sure if this question is completely on-topic since I think it's largely a cultural question rather than being strictly about German language, but I noticed a pronunciation tag so I thought it would be worth asking... I spent the first 12…
user5887
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Milch? Milsh? Why the pronunciation difference?

I'm working my way through the Pimsleur German series, and I've noticed that one of the speakers has what seems to me a strange pronunciation of the word Milch. He pronounces the ch like the sh sound in wish (in English), that is, the IPA sound ʃ. …
Kyralessa
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Is there a practical difference between "e" and "ä"?

The graphemes and <ä> share only the phoneme /ε/. In practice, do people make and notice the difference of the rest of the phonemes? Which problems, if any, would not bothering to make such difference lead to?
c.p.
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Why are “vier” and the beginning of “vierzehn” not pronounced the same?

Why is vier in the beginning of vierzehn [ˈfɪrʦeːn] not pronounced the same as the standalone vier [fiːɐ]?
B Faley
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18
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Where do you place the stress in the word?

Every dictionary I have seen says stress an in angeblich. Yet often, I hear angeblich. Does it matter? Are there rules? Or is it dialect? Similarly, ausführlich or ausführlich? One dictionary says the latter is used in Austria, yet I usually hear…
Nigel Lavender
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Do you always pronounce ST as SHT?

If you have a word like 'Strasse' and it forms part of a street name for example, then I would assume that you still pronounce the word as though it were by itself. But are there examples of when you wouldn't pronounce ST as SHT?
adolf garlic
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How to pronounce the German R?

I've tried many methods on the Internet but I still can't vibrate my tongue at all. I've tried gargling, biting a stick, etc. But weeks and months passed, none of them worked! I know German people don't actually do the uvular trilled R during normal…
Libécht Wang
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Is Liszt really pronounced like the English word "list"?

I would think Franz Liszt's surname would be pronounced "least" or "leasht," but according to this, it is pronounced "list." Is that true? If so, why?
B. Clay Shannon-B. Crow Raven
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Is Kilometer ever pronounced as 'kaa em' in German?

I am Dutch and I would like to understand if a German native speaker would understand if I pronounce the 'km' abbreviation of the word 'Kilometer' as 'kaa em'.
Fraspi
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When is "sch" spoken like "sh" and when like "s" "ch"?

Regarding the words like Hose, Dose, Rose the pronunciation of the diminutive (Höschen, Döschen, Röschen) is with an explicit "s" phoneme. Opposite to the usual "sch" pronunciation. Is this a rule? (applies to all diminutives created from s) Or are…
PsiX
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How do you pronounce the "g" in "Heiligtum"?

In the Ode to Joy lyrics, the phrase "Himmlische, dein Heiligtum" appears early on. When I listen to the musical setting, in Beethoven's 9th, it is hard for me to discern from the voice of the tenor whether the "g" gets devoiced into a "k". This…
ktm5124
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Pronunciation of "gucken"

I've heard the g in gucken pronounced more like a k, but in the Duden dictionary I see no indication that it's pronounced that way. Do most Germans actually pronounce the word with a k, or is it just for some parts of the country?
Mika H.
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