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Is there a sound in the German language that is similarly difficult for English speakers as th is for German speakers?

Phira
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    "ü" and "ö" are very difficult to pronounce, at least for me. –  May 25 '11 at 18:29
  • related: http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/167/schibboleths-fur-verschiedene-norddeutsche-regionen – Jan May 25 '11 at 18:33
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    @Explorer “ö” is almost exactly the same sound that you get when pronouncing “further” with a British accent (i.e. with a silent “r”). The only difference is that in German the sound is usually closed. Not many people seem to know this. – Konrad Rudolph May 25 '11 at 19:53
  • @Konrad Rudolph: Really? that's "ä" or "ö"? I pronounce "further" something like "ä". So I should improve my English before learning German! –  May 25 '11 at 20:22
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    @Explorer You had me momentarily surprised, but then I saw in your profile that you come from Norway. And indeed, my experience with Norwegians is that they would pronounce it more like “ä”. For the “ö” pronunciation, listen e.g. here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/further – Konrad Rudolph May 25 '11 at 21:16
  • @Konrad Rudolph: Gee, sorry for coming from Norway! and thank you.;) –  May 25 '11 at 21:25
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    @Explorer: hint for pronouncing "ü" - Say the i: sound and round your lips while doing so. Say "fiehl" with rounded lips and it will sound like "fühl". Similarly for "ö" - say the e: sound with rounded lips. – teylyn May 26 '11 at 04:06
  • @Explorer “Gee, sorry for coming from Norway” – I’m in a good mood today, I forgive you. ;-) – Konrad Rudolph May 26 '11 at 06:53
  • @Explorer: for pronouncing the "ü", just say a Norwegian "u". – geodude Apr 19 '14 at 18:58
  • Is th in English that hart? There’s plenty of easy words, like *these* and *those. Try competing with a German poem on »Zwanzig Eichhörnchen auf’m Streichholzschächtelchen«*. – dakab Dec 31 '15 at 00:53
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about the English language. – user unknown Dec 31 '15 at 02:42
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    Funny enough: German people can't pronounce squirrel, and everyone else in the world can't pronounce Eichhörnchen. – Federico Poloni Jan 06 '16 at 19:01
  • Some people seem to have issues pronouncing the sch in Fleisch correctly (like fish in english). They prefer Fleich instead. – eckes Jul 07 '18 at 20:34

7 Answers7

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The ulvular trill of the German r is tricky for us. I can do it after a vowel but not very well at the start of a word.

The ch in ich takes a while to master, but mostly because beginners tend to assimilate it with English sh, not because it's terribly hard. The ch in nach is easier.

ü also takes a while to get to grips with.

I consider none of the other vowels (and diphthongs) difficult to articulate for an English speaker, but for a beginner it's natural to substitute them with a similar but different sound that's more familiar. In the same way, a English speaker with a non-rhotic accent may have a tendency to pronounce word-final -er as a schwa as in those varieties of English.

misterben
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  • Indeed. I'll point out that with reading, all of the umlaut vowels cause problems. English doesn't have any diacritic marks, and so some people seem almost incapable of figuring out how to look for the umlaut when they're reading and just guess. – kitukwfyer May 25 '11 at 17:03
  • For the TeXnichians reading this: the ch in nach is spoken like the X in TeX. – FUZxxl May 25 '11 at 17:11
  • @FUZxxl: That's because it's in the end of the word, right? Like "B" pronounced "P" in that position? – Alenanno May 25 '11 at 18:24
  • @FUZxxl wow, really? I didn't know TeX was supposed to be pronounced like that! I always thought it was pronounced "tek". – fzwo May 25 '11 at 18:26
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    Like "g" in "fertig". –  May 25 '11 at 18:34
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    @fzwo: TeX stand for the greek letters tau-epsilon-chi and is thus pronounced [tɛχ] (although in Germany many peoply pronounce it [tɛç]). – FUZxxl May 25 '11 at 18:42
  • ...Not to horrify anyone, but I have to say, I assumed it was pronounced the same way as latex. Non-computer person here...XD – kitukwfyer May 25 '11 at 19:42
  • @kitukwfyer: Exactly, I thought the same way. Latex. more non-computer person here! –  May 25 '11 at 20:19
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    @FUZxxl: No, TeX is supposed (by Knuth) to be pronounced with a "ch" as in nach, but I don't know any German who does this. They all say it with a "ch" as in ich or frech. – Hendrik Vogt Jun 06 '11 at 17:04
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    @Alenanno: No, the pronunciation of "ch" depends on the vowel preceding it. – Hendrik Vogt Jun 06 '11 at 17:07
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    @Hendrik Isn't this exactly what I said? – FUZxxl Jun 06 '11 at 17:16
  • @FUZxxl: Ah, I didn't see your 2nd comment. Still, my reply to your 1st comment would be "By whom??". – Hendrik Vogt Jun 06 '11 at 17:33
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Try to speak the German word for "matchbox"

Streichholzschachtel [ˈʃtʀaɪ̯ç.hɔlʦˌʃaχ.tl̩]

and then you know, which consonants are difficult to pronounce.

FUZxxl
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5

Most native English speakers have difficulties with the sound ch, pronounced like the guttural ch in Scottish "loch."

Also, the correct pronunciation of the different forms of r is a problem for many people from English speaking countries.

splattne
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My father (American) always had huge differences with the German R. He tended to form it from the tip of the tongue (rolling). I guess the difficult part was realizing how similar the German and English versions are.

Sean Patrick Floyd
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As a Brazilian, my native language is Brazilian Portuguese. I found it much, much easier to learn the German phonemes than the English ones, both to understand and to pronunce them.

However, there are some phonemes that are a bit tricky in German. The umlauted vowels are a bit of a challenge. However the ch is way harder. I can say I did not "get it" yet.

The r (uvular trill) is somewhat hard, too, but not impossible.

brandizzi
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It's not simply a matter of the isolated sounds; their "phonetic context" also matters. I have no problem with the sound at the end of ich, dreißig, fertig, etc. but I can't say Eichhörnchen at normal speed.

kjo
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Try ,,tzsch''. I've seen in it only in names and even native speakers argue about how one should pronounce this. In upper saxon it is pronounced like ,,tsch'' (without the z).

sl0815
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    Isn’t the “z” in “tzsch” always silent? – Konrad Rudolph May 25 '11 at 19:55
  • Tja, I guess that tells you how close to speaking Saxon we are here in Berlin :-) – Sean Patrick Floyd May 25 '11 at 20:27
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    @Konrad: Yes, I agree for single words, but I guess "Blitzschlag" is not easy. – Phira May 28 '11 at 20:58
  • @Phira: Given that the tzsch in that example spans a word boundary (within the compound), I don't think it's a good example. Otherwise, you could argue that English has the exact same thing, e.g. in a sentence like "Vince should leave." The ce sh would form the same combination of sounds, but there's no issue about that because the ts sound and the sh sound belong two different words and syllables. – O. R. Mapper Mar 21 '15 at 22:24