Lesson 1 - The Sounds of German

Lesson 1 – The Sounds of German

Reading assignment: Page 5

Before we can do much else we need to learn how to pronounce German words. Unlike English the rules for pronunciation in German are consistent. In English »I will read a book«, and »I read the book«, we have two different ways to pronounce read. However in German if you know the rules you can pronounce any word.

Voiced and voiceless consonants: Try saying d t d t and pay attention to how you make those sounds. What is the difference between between d and t? T and D are the same sound except that D is voiced and T is voiceless. D is just a T with the vocal cords added in. Try saying the d t d t with your ears plugged. The same relationship exists with B and P, and G and K. Why am I telling you this? Because, in German d, b, and g are voiceless when they are at the end of a syllable. So tag in German is pronounced tak. Also in German the v is generally not voiced and so it sounds like an f.

Unique German sounds: English has most of the sounds that are in German. There are a few exceptions. Ö in German is pronounced by making your lips round like you are going to say O in open but then try and make a short e sound. Ü is pronounced by making the lips like you are going to say oo in boot and then trying to say i. There are two r sounds ... r like in gargling and r up front. Ch in the back a o u au and ch up front e i ö ä ü ei eu n r l .

Nouns are always capitalized and have gender. We will talk about this more in lesson x. However as you start to learn vocabulary it is very important to learn the gender of nouns. When ever a now is defined we will always give the gender. Make sure to learn the gender with the now. Learn that owl is die Eule. If you don’t learn the gender now you will have to go back and do it later.

As you study this table carefully pronounce the example words. Pay attention to the definitions, most of these words will be found in the reading for this lesson.

Letter-form	German name	Sound	Examples
a	ah	a in father	ganz und gar – completely
ä		a in dare	wäre – were hätte – had
au		ou in thou, couch	die Augen – the eyes darauf – that, on it
äu		oi in oil	säuberlich – neat and tidy
ai		i in mine	trainierte - trained
b	bay	big hop	gab es – there was
c	tsay	k	used in foriegn words
ch		sh loch	sich – himself, oneself, herself, itself nützlich – useful die Nachbarn – neighbors
ck		k	verstricken – to use recken – to stretch aufdecken – to uncover
d	day	dad cat	diese - this denken – to think und – and blond – blond
e	ay		wenn – when der Junge – the boy
eu		oi	neun – nine
ei		mine	sein – to be kleinen – small keine, keinen– none
f	eff		fast – almost einfach - just (simply)
g	gay	g k	das Geheimnis – the secret die Geschichte – story bullig – brawny, beefy
h	hah		hatten – had der Hals – the neck
i	ee		dritte – third
j	yot	y in yes	jemand Jahren
k	kah	k	kriegst – get
l	el	l as in Lochhart	lang – long
m	em	m as in Muggel	mich – me
n	en	n	die Pfanne – pan
o	oh		doch
ö			blöde - stupid
p	pay	p	passiert
q	koo		Quidditch
r	ereh		er - he
s	ess	z, s	die Sache – thing
sch		sh	der Tisch - table
sp		shp	Schulkost
st		sht	Hältst
ß	ess-tset	s	weiß – to know a fact
t	tay	t	der Schnauzbart – moustache
u	oo		du - you
ü			das Frühstück - breakfast
v	fow	f, v	verfetteten – to fatten up
w	way	v as in Voldamort	widersprechen - contradict
x	ix		forgien words
y	upsilon		Harry - Only used in forgien words
z	tset	ts	das Zimmer - room

Exercise: Read the first page of the Harry Potter book out loud. Try and use the correct pronunciation. It may be difficult to pronounce because the muscles are not use to speaking German. By reading out loud you will develop your German speaking muscles and it will get easier. It isn‘t important to understand what you are reading at this point, however you may be able to get a general idea of what is going on by just having looked at the example words above. Also all of the German words in the book are defined in the dictionary. If you want to go the extra mile you can reread the page, looking up the words as you go along. Reading the same thing multiple times will help you internalize the German words.