Ich is pronounced with the German ch sound, but still differently from the way you'd pronounce auch, as an example. Ich is softer than auch. It is said often like isch (and similarly, euch>>eusch, dich>>disch, etc.) however. That is simply a dialect, though it's a bit more widespread. And I believe they say ik or ike or something up in Berlin. But that's just a local dialect.

Quote Originally Posted by Chibi
Despite the fact that the letter 'i' is pronounced 'ee' in the alphabet, I've noticed that in many (and maybe as far as most) cases, it's pronounced 'ih' when in a word. Unless in a diphthong, obviously.
Generally, if there are two consonants after the i, it's said as in English "if," unless of course there's an h immediately after the i, because the h makes it a strong "ee" sound.

Quote Originally Posted by Тостер
The only exception which comes to my mind is the German word "Familie" (meaning "family") which is pronounced "fah-mih-lee-uh" instead of "fah-mih-lee."
Other examples are Asien and Italien. Ah-see-ehn/ee-tal-ee-ehn.

Joel, I think your ich is a bit too heavy; Тостер, I think yours sounds a bit too much like a dialect -- i.e., isch -- but I'm not totally sure because the sound file is pretty low-volume -- but your auch is fine I think.

My file includes how I speak German -- I said a sentence too.. to give it some context:

[quote]Ich.. ch.. auch.. ch.. Ich glaube, ich war der Einzige, der nicht gef