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Pronunciation and spelling of German and French words
This is a re-post of the recordings I made for this thread about poleaxe combat. Christopher VaughnStrever asked me to record several German and French words.

This list includes two more words I just recorded. The German "Krieg", after a question from Christopher and the French "Queue". After Vincent Le Chevalier explained what it was, I knew how to pronounce it.

German:


French:


Christopher also has a few questions/remarks about spelling German. Here they are reposted, with my answers. That should help people on US keyboards spell German without the international characters available.

Quote:
Blo(is) The "is" part is a letter I cannot type it actually looks more like a "j" connected with an arch to a capital "B" the word means "an opening" I do see this letter a few times and if you could sound that particular letter after or before the word, that would help me to say a few other words


See this Wikipedia article. It's called an Eszett (sz) and it is used in written language to replace the double s (not sz oddly enough). If you can't write it, use a double s instead. Pronounce it as a sharp s.

Quote:

Dobringer (there are actually two dots above the "o")
Fuhlen (there are actually two dots above the "u")
Lucke (there are actually two dots above the "u")


The two dots is called an umlaut. See this article which also tells you how to pronounce it. Basically it shifts the sound of the letter that it is over. If you cannot write it, write the letter it is over followed by an e. So: Doebringer, Fuehlen, Luecke.

Feel free to ask me to record any other words!


Last edited by Sander Marechal on Wed 20 Jan, 2010 1:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
I know I have said thank you so many times already, but this seperate thread I had intened to start up, though was lacking time. So I believe another thank you is in order...

Thank you Mr. Sander Marechal, this information and sound bites is/are so worthwhile to so many people
I have a question(and i hope its not too off topic). I have heard ich pronounced two different ways and am curious as to whether or not the are just different pronunciations.


In school I was taught to pronounce the ch similar to the way the H in Hugh is pronounced in Enlish.(which is like how your pronounced it in Liechtenauer)

I have also heard it prounonced as "ish" but since I have not come into contact with any native German speakers(other than my teachers who pronounce it like your pronunciation of Liechtenauer) I have begun to wonder if it is an Americanized version of the German word.

Thanks in advance for the help.
In some German dialects the ch can be pronounced like "ish" in some words, but it is not the pronounciation as it is usual. You should pronounce it more like your "Hugh".
Thanks for clearing that up:)
Felix R. wrote:
In some German dialects the ch can be pronounced like "ish" in some words, but it is not the pronounciation as it is usual. You should pronounce it more like your "Hugh".


I'm not sure actually. If I hear how the British pronounce Hugh Grant's name then I think it is too soft. I don't know how you Germans pronounce Hugh Grant though. Perhaps a bit harsher? I agree the "ish" sound is usually not correct. I think actually that both the "Hugh" sound and the "ish" sound originate too far in the front of the mouth.

@Tim: Try to pronounce the letter K in the english/american way, or the G in the word "good". Take notice of where the back of your tongue touches your palate. That's the place where the hard G or CH sound comes from. Instead of touching your palate with your tongue and closing off the air stream to create a K sound or the start of the G in "good", leave a small gap. The hissing sound the air makes when it's passing that gap should resemble the hard German G.
Thats about how I've been pronouncing it. I've been taking german classes for about 5 years now but none of my teachers have been very good(or the students didnt let the teacher teach). It's a shame, now that I've started practicing the German longsword system I really wish I had put more effort into learning it while I had the chance.

Thanks for explaining that. It's a much better explanation than the H in Hugh!
Sander Marechal wrote:
Felix R. wrote:
In some German dialects the ch can be pronounced like "ish" in some words, but it is not the pronounciation as it is usual. You should pronounce it more like your "Hugh".


I'm not sure actually. If I hear how the British pronounce Hugh Grant's name then I think it is too soft. I don't know how you Germans pronounce Hugh Grant though. Perhaps a bit harsher? I agree the "ish" sound is usually not correct. I think actually that both the "Hugh" sound and the "ish" sound originate too far in the front of the mouth.

@Tim: Try to pronounce the letter K in the english/american way, or the G in the word "good". Take notice of where the back of your tongue touches your palate. That's the place where the hard G or CH sound comes from. Instead of touching your palate with your tongue and closing off the air stream to create a K sound or the start of the G in "good", leave a small gap. The hissing sound the air makes when it's passing that gap should resemble the hard German G.


Yes, the Hugh is too soft, especially as most Germans pronounce it more like "U". But maybe it can give those native english speakers an idea of the direction to go. Maybe we can find a better word as an example of proper ch pronounciation. But with your mp3, they can get a goood idea. The Dutch is not too far in this from the German, at least close enough for the oversea guys to get an idea of the sound.
Felix R. wrote:
Maybe we can find a better word as an example of proper ch pronounciation.


I've been racking my brain for that but I don't know any. The sound is really non-existant in English. Perhaps there's a loaner word that has the sound? Or a famous sound-bite from some movie or song? I looked up J.F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" but his pronunciation isn't that good either :D
This topic has been promoted into a Spotlight Topic.
Sander Marechal wrote:
Felix R. wrote:
In some German dialects the ch can be pronounced like "ish" in some words, but it is not the pronounciation as it is usual. You should pronounce it more like your "Hugh".


I'm not sure actually. If I hear how the British pronounce Hugh Grant's name then I think it is too soft. I don't know how you Germans pronounce Hugh Grant though. Perhaps a bit harsher? I agree the "ish" sound is usually not correct. I think actually that both the "Hugh" sound and the "ish" sound originate too far in the front of the mouth.

@Tim: Try to pronounce the letter K in the english/american way, or the G in the word "good". Take notice of where the back of your tongue touches your palate. That's the place where the hard G or CH sound comes from. Instead of touching your palate with your tongue and closing off the air stream to create a K sound or the start of the G in "good", leave a small gap. The hissing sound the air makes when it's passing that gap should resemble the hard German G.


A lot of English speakers may also know that sound as the last sound in the Scottish word "loch," meaning "lake." I guess you could think of it as a hiss that comes from the _back_ of the mouth.
Ok then, to complicate things further, while the ch in loch is formed in the back of the mouth, the ch in Liechtenauer would be formed more in the front half of the mouth by a v-shaped tongue touching the palate close to the teeth along neary all of the molars.
In review I fully agree Felix. A little more to the front does sound a lot more "German". I blame my Dutch accent. In Dutch, most of the hard G's come from the back of the throat. We only do the similar "sj" sound more to the front (a different sound, but in Dutch we can write both sounds as "ch". How it sounds depends on where in the word the "ch" is).
Sander,

I want to thank you again for making these files available. They are of great use to me.

Would it be possible to add a few? Such as the meisterhau and the rest of of the hauptstucke?
Michael Edelson wrote:
Would it be possible to add a few? Such as the meisterhau and the rest of of the hauptstucke?


Of course, no problem. If you PM me a list of words (or post them in this thread) I will record and add them.
Sander Marechal wrote:
Michael Edelson wrote:
Would it be possible to add a few? Such as the meisterhau and the rest of of the hauptstucke?


Of course, no problem. If you PM me a list of words (or post them in this thread) I will record and add them.


Great, thanks! Please forgive repeates with what's already there:


Vier Leger
Drei Wunder

Zornhau
Krumphau
Zerchhau
Schielhau
Scheitelhau
Unterhau
Mittlehau
Unterschnitte
Oberschnitte

Vom Tag
Pflug
Ochs
Alber
Langenort
Schranckhut
Nebenhut
Kron
Wechselhut

Uberlauffen
Duplieren
Mutieren
Winden
Sprechfenster

Hauptstucke
Stucke
Halbschwert
Harnisfechten


This is much appreciated.
Here are the recordings you requested. I have also added them to the master list in the first post.

Thank you very much!

I can't tell you how valuable these are.
Hi there,

just activated my account and so this is my first post ;)

I`m from germany and if you have any question about the language, you can just ask me.
My girlfriend studies Anglistik (history of english language) and I study Germanistik (history of german language).

primary I would just advise you, to watch some german news (Nachrichten) on youtube. there you get a feeling for correct "Hochdeutsch" (that means the main german language without dialects). :idea:
We have 5 very different kinds of spoken german over here from north to south... Plattdeutsch, Hochdeutsch, Sächsisch, Badisch, Bayrisch... I even don`t understand the other 4 (sometimes) :lol:

so far...

Chris :)
In regards to the ish vs ick pronunciation in German, it's a regionalism. Here in the Rhienland the locals pronounce almost all of the hard ch words as a soft ch. Ich sounds like Ish. They do the same with hard ig sounds as well. You can tell American servicemen who were stationed here versus in Bavaria by the way the pronounce Ich and ig, if they picked up their German from friends rather than from classes.
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