Learn how to pronounce common German diphthongs
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| Judith: Hallo, [Ich heiße Judith]. |
| Chuck: Hi, I am Chuck. |
| Judith: [Sie hören Germanpod101.com]! |
| Chuck: You are listening to germanpod101.com this is accent improvement series, lesson 5. Hello and welcome to the accent improvement series at germanpod101.com where we study modern German in a fun and educational format. |
| Judith: So brush up on the German that you started learning long ago or start learning today. |
| Chuck: Thanks for being here for this lesson. So Judith, what are we looking at in this lesson? |
| Judith: Today we are going to study common diphthongs, vowel combinations. |
| Chuck: Attention listeners! Comment, comment and comment some more. |
| Judith: It’s easy. |
| Chuck: And asking questions really helps improve progress. |
| Judith: So of all those diphthongs, in German, there are three common diphthongs represented by five different spellings. |
| Chuck: Unlike the umlaut that we did last time, these vowel combinations are not really new songs. You recognize them from English. |
| Judith: However to speak accent free German, you will have to pronounce them a little bit differently than you used to. |
| Chuck: So pay close attention when we compare them directly to the English equivalents. |
| Judith: And after the lesson, use the line by line dialogue tool to listen to the distinctions over and over. |
| Chuck: Judith, could you please give us an example sentence with all the different diphthongs that we will talk about today. |
| Judith: Sure. [Kommt deine abergläubische Freundin aus Bahrain heute auch]? |
| Chuck: This means, is your superstitious friend from Bahrain coming also today. Say this sentence again but slowly please. |
| Judith: [Kommt deine abergläubische Freundin aus Bahrain heute auch]? The first sound is [ei]. |
| Chuck: It’s most commonly spelled ei in German but ai also exists. There is no difference in pronunciation between the two but the sound is a tiny bit different from the English equivalent. |
| Judith: Compare |
| Chuck: [my] |
| Judith: And [mai]. For example or… |
| Chuck: [mein] |
| Judith: And mine. |
| Chuck: Note that the diphthongs are fixed in length. So you don’t have to worry about long and short sounds. |
| Judith: The next sound is [au]. |
| Chuck: This can only be spelled au in German. Again you may think you know the sound for English but there is a slight difference of pronunciation. |
| Judith: Compare: |
| Chuck: [how]. |
| Judith: and [hau]. |
| Chuck: Beat |
| Judith: Or |
| Chuck: House |
| Judith: And [Haus]. |
| Chuck: These kinds of differences are part of what creates the German accent in English or the English accent in German. So be careful if you want to sound natural. |
| Judith: The third and last common diphthong sound is [eu]. |
| Chuck: This one is typically spelled eu but may also be spelled a with an umlaut u. Especially in the plural of words with au. For example |
| Judith: [Häuser]. |
| Chuck: Houses. In this case, the English and German pronunciation appear to be identical. This one should be easy for you. |
| Judith: The most common word in German with this sound is [heute]. |
| Chuck: Now, let’s hear the example sentence again. |
| Judith: [Kommt deine abergläubische Freundin aus Bahrain heute auch]? |
| Chuck: Judith, could you go through the diphthong sounds in that phrase and remind us what they are? |
| Judith: Sure. So the first diphthong sounds is [deine]. It is spelled ei and the I sound and then [abergläubische] in this case it is the [eu] sound but it’s spelled with a with an umlaut and [u] then [Freundin] same sound, but spelled eu [aus] au, [Bahrain] ai for the I sound and [heute] eu and [auch] au. |
| Chuck: Now please go to the learning center at germanpod101.com and practice this sentence until you sound just like a native. |
| Judith: For best results, use the voice recording tool. |
| Chuck: Yes the voice recording tool in the premium learning center. |
| Judith: Record your voice with a click of a button |
| Chuck: And play it back just as easily. |
| Judith: So you record your voice and then you listen to it. |
| Chuck: Compare it to native speakers. |
| Judith: And adjust your pronunciation. |
| Chuck: This will help you improve your pronunciation fast. |
| Judith: Alright, that’s it for today. Next time, we are moving on to consonants. |
| Chuck: So be sure to tune again then. See you then. |
| Judith: [Bis dann]! |
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