Thread: German pronounciation

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.

What's funny is that every German-speaking person I've met since living in Austria insists that the "i" always sounds like "ee" and never like "ih," then in 75% of the words they say it sounds like an "ih." An important point: never say "peetsa" for "pizza." It sounds more like "peach pits hh" minus the peach. But "ist" always sounds like "eest." bbl want to finish blabbing but have to go

Bloody Austrians! XP

Heh, just kidding. I love Austria, especaily Wien. I just find it hard to decifer their accent sometimes, but that's true with Bavarians, too.

Yeah, I guess Austrians are like the Puerto Ricans of German. The other day I saw Haider on tv and he was like, "Na jo, don't be so stupit, Maria. Jou know I cut jou if jou go near my baby daddy again. I ain't playin'."

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.

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.

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