Talk:German/Grammar/Alphabet and Pronunciation

How to Play Audios
The Sample audio, what program to i need to listin to it? Andrewcool
 * Good question. I'll need to research that.  It just plays "automatically" when I click on it, so I think any PC media player ? - marsh

When i open it, it doesn't open automatic. It wants me to choose the program to open it but so far i have not found one that works.
 * Yes, Windows does give me that "choice" too. My computer has AudioCentral by Roxio and that plays the file just fine, but I seem to recall that the default Windows media player also worked ok. - marsh 17:47, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well we can covert the .ogg and make them into .wav for people who are having problems with this. -Andrewcool
 * Sounds good to me. I've got to admit, I know nothing about sound files - marsh 03:53, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well wiki only wants .ogg so that means we will need somebody else to host it.--Andrewcool 23:54, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Foobar works well. google it. -thisdude415


 * Get the OGG codec. Google that.

The Description Of Sounds
The long and short 'a' sounds are not very different. For example, I would say the 'a' in father and the 'o' in pot are about the same, only the first (father) is strung out a bit more (ahhhh vs ah). When I try this in German I see about the same difference: haben = ahhhh, acht = ah. In English, these would both be short vowel sounds. Am I missing something, or is that all there is to it? Is there a better way to differentiate the long and short 'a' in German? Is it really correct to call these long and short vowel sounds? -- Marsh 18:30, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Hey Marsh! I'd say, you got it completely right. But there is a third sound in German sometimes discriped as an "a"-sound. It's the sound of "-er" at the ending of a word (e.g. Keller = Basement). This sound is somewhere between kell-ea and Kell-a. Think of how it's pronounced in rap slang (kill-a) or of the way Bob Marley pronounced Rast-a. -- Guido


 * Hi, I've to say, taht is not right. It's maybe a bit slang, but someone speaking real good german would say kell-er and not kella. I do it myself, but I know that's because of my accent. -louisana

The Ö-Laut
Hey to all out there. What do you think: does the short Ö (as in 'Köln') sound like the 'ear' in a (British pronounced) "heard". To me it does.


 * British "ear" in "heard" is IMHO more similar to a long Ö (as in 'hören'); but in general, "heard" should be mentioned as a guideline for pronouncing 'ö'. The existing explanation is good however (I was not aware that the 'Ö' from my native country's name had anything to do with whistling or the sound in 'late', but following those instructions works!).

Examples not useful
is to my mind a bit poor. I know, English textbooks for German explain sounds that way. And they will not break a habit. Result: an unacceptable pronunciation. Let us see how the German "e" is explained: as in lay with no movement. What movement? Movement of the tongue. Okay. But is there any English speaking person aware of that movement? The result would be better if a sound like in "get" is made long. And that would exactly be what it is: a German e.


 * I think that means no movement in the sound (not physical movement), although obviously to move or alter a sound there must be some subtle movement of the speech apparatus. Making the "e" in "get" long would sound like "e" in "week". A "long" e in English is not a long "e" in German or even close. Coming from the English speaking perspective, the explanations are pefectly sensible. - marsh

I fully agree that the German e is, in fact, the same sound as the e in "get" made long; just keep your mouth and tongue in the same position and keep the air going. The "e" in "week" has nothing to do with the "e" in "get", that's just an artifact of English orthography. The description based on "lay" might be good because it explicitly warns about the most common pronounciation mistake that English speaking people make; on the other hand, it is far less useful to people who already speak other languages besides English.


 * I disagree, that the German long "e" is the "e" in "get" made long, and I am myself a German native speaker. Actually, the "e" sound in "get" ([ɛ] in IPA) pronounced as long vowel [ɛː] is closer to the German long "ä" than to the long "e" ([eː]). Unfortunately, also many German native speakers don't use or know the [ɛː] sound and pronounce the long "ä" just like the long German "e", especially in the north of Germany. --Tobulax 07:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Austrian Pronunciation
There are two important differences in how German is pronounced in Austria from what is described here. I'm not talking about dialects, just the most important basic differences, analogous to the differences in British and American English. For one, the "s" in Austrian is not pronounced as a 'z' at the start of a word, e.g. in "Sonne". AFAICT, it may only be pronounced 'z' when it is between two vowels, e.g. "Rose". Also, "ig" as in richtig is NOT pronounced as an ich-sound, but rather as "i"+"g". Would it be more appropriate to mention these differences in the text where the letters are described (as is already done to describe the absence of "ß" in Switzerland), or should a separate short section outlining the differences be added at the end, in order to keep things simpler for people who just want to learn the "dominant" form of German?
 * I agree it is a good idea to bring up these differences and I would think that mentioning it where specifically appropriate (as with the Swiss example) would be best - marsh 04:37, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Done. WolfgangThaller 03:56, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation of German alphabet
The one thing that is always ailing me is that almost all german textbooks present the sound of german alphabets by means of using similiar english words, like "bay", "ah". Many of those descriptions are pretty vague actually like "Slightly more dental" for L and some are absent like Ü. I suggest presenting those alphabets with IPA which is more convenient for linguistically more advanced users.


 * Not to mention that this pronunciation system is just plain wrong in many cases. I'd be willing to help IPA it. - 71.136.181.45 08:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The German Alphabet - oggfile
I think the ogg-file is not that good. I would speak it again, if you need it. Just contact me on meta. I also could speak more, if you want to. m:User:Louisana
 * If you can create a better one, by all means please do. I have not the technical skills to create sound files - marsh 05:05, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. For further request please use my meta talk page! Also spoke something here m:User:Louisana

Syllable stress: It's not that easy!
It's not generally correct that always the first syllable is stressed. For words with prefix or suffix syllables, it becomes more complex. A a native German, I never learnt formal rules for that, but in most cases the first syllable of the stem of the word (without pre- and suffixes) is stressed, but there are lots of exceptions. Those who know German, confer Wortakzent, with the example of umfahren (to knock over) vs. umfahren (to drive round). --Langec 20:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

First alphabet audio file appears to be bogus
After the table showing the alphabet there are two audio files which are fine.

But in the title for the table, where you see "German Dialogue • Alphabet • audio", the audio link is to a file "German Dialogue - The alphabet.ogg".

This file was uploaded in November 2006 by Paulaburesh who is no longer a registered user.

The history page for this file is.

This file is not an OGG file (I've looked at the binary data and it does not start with the sequence "OggS" as it should).

I suggest it be deleted.

Pronunciation of the alphabet in the German language
I have noticed some weird ideas on the pronunciation of the alphabet in the German language. The letter b is never pronounced as a 'p' unless one hails from "Payern" (= Bayern/Bavaria). The letter g is not really pronounced as a 'k' at the end of a word, but like in English as a hard 'g', or softened to a German 'ch' like in Bach or ich. One should always be aware -especially as a non-German- that the German pronunciation has a tremendous variation dependent on the region; Austrian or Swiss German is certainly not the standard. PS I myself am a 'Grenzer' from the Netherlands with a severe German accent, which I was born with.

More sound examples please
A lot of discussion could be made moot if the page would include sound examples of individual words to illustrate how it is really pronounced. This prevent a lot of confusion. E.g. the page says that short i is pronounced as the i in English pit. To my ears -Dutch ones- that is not really true. German mit and English Mitt are not the same. Sound files please.

Jcwf (discuss • contribs) 17:56, 19 May 2015 (UTC)