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What English sounds do Germans struggle with?
Just as English speakers struggle to learn how to pronounce the throaty German ‘r’ sound, German native speakers find the English ‘r’ challenging. It is a soft ‘r’ sound which doesn’t exist in German, so words such as ‘Rural’ with two ‘r’ sounds close together are particularly difficult to pronounce.
What words are hard for Germans to say?
Take the challenge and have a go at some of these hard to pronounce German words.
- Streichholzschächtelchen. Pronounced (Schtraeyechholtsschaicktelchen)
- Brötchen. Pronounced (Broetchen)
- Eichhörnchen. Pronounced (Eyechhoernchen)
- Fünfhundertfünfundfünfzig.
- Frucht.
- Regisseur.
- Schlittschuhlaufen.
- Röntgen.
Why is German pronunciation so hard?
Because there are few pronunciation rules In German the only sounds that change are certain diphthongs (such eu= oi and ei=ai) and the v which is read as f. For the rest, pretty much all the words are pronounced as they are written.
Does English sound Germanic?
Yes, English sounds germanic to me. All germanic languages have different soundings when you know them. But they also have sort of same “feel”, in rythm and musicality that it is easy to recognise, like slavic languages do together.
Does German have aspirated consonants?
Various German consonants occur in pairs at the same place of articulation and in the same manner of articulation, namely the pairs /p–b/, /t–d/, /k–ɡ/, /s–z/, /ʃ–ʒ/. The fortis stops /p, t, k/ are aspirated in many varieties.
Why do some German words sound different in different languages?
1. /e/ and /æ/. Some German speakers of English confuse the sounds /e/ and /æ/ which can cause words like ‘pet’ and ‘pat’ and ‘met’ and ‘mat’ to sound almost the same. The confusion is caused by not opening one’s jaw wide enough and failing to move the tongue to a lower front position:
How do you pronounce short vowels in German?
Short vowels: A stressed vowel followed by two consonants is usually pronounced short (Bett, hacken, kann, selber), but long vowels in a root form remain long even if inflected to be followed by two consonants (groß – größte or leben – gelebt). The vowel preceding CK is always short (Bock, locken, Lücke, trocken).
Why can’t English speakers pronounce the letter w like German speakers do?
German speakers of English often use their German w sound whenever they see the letter w in English texts. As an example they may pronounce the English word “was” in the exact same way as the German “was”. And here’s the problem. The English letter w isn’t at all pronounced that way.
Is German pronunciation difficult to learn?
When you first start learning about German pronunciation, it can be intimidating. The sounds are tricky. And words that have the same meaning and spelling as English can sound entirely different. While German is definitely very different from English, it’s not that much harder.