When speaking with a native German, the last thing you want to happen is for them to squint their eyes, cup a hand around their ear and reply with:
"Sorry, I couldn't understand you. Could you repeat that?"
Your self-confidence will shatter and the last thing you'd want to do after that is study vocabulary and grammar. But what if you got nodded heads and responses to what you said instead? That's where sounding like a german comes into play. Here are some tips on how to sound more german.
1. Ditch the English "translations"
We've all seen them in dictionaries before. Take this sentence in German:
Der Tee ist gut
And under it in English:
Dare Tay ist goot.
Now, if you are served a nice cup of tea in a cafe in Berlin, and you tell the waiter "Dare Tay ist goot", you are sure to get a funny look from them. Try your best to ignore these translations.
2. Listen to german words/phrases and repeat them until they sound good to you
Don't doubt yourself on this one. If you think you sound wrong, you sound wrong. If you think you sound right, you sound right. There 2 ways I can think of which you can practice this. If you are reading a german story/article, you can highlight a sentence, put it into google translate, and hear the pronunciation in german. This isn't the best method since it is a robot speaking back to you instead of a live person, but 9/10 the pronunciation is very good. Another method you can use is by watching a german video with captions. That way you can read the german and hear how it's actually spoken at the same time. If you are a beginner you can type into YouTube: German a1 videos and you should get good results. One of my favorite videos is "Nico's Weg" by DW German - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-eDoThe6qo&t=2812s
3. Get your mouth moving
When speaking English your mouth and tongue move a certain way. When learning to speak German you will have to learn how to move your mouth and tongue in a foreign way. A great app that helps you learn how to do this is the Fluent Forever app. It has short, easy to understand videos that explain just how to move your mouth. The best thing is, it is on both the Apple store and the Google play store. You can start with a 2-week free trial and if you enjoy the app you can pay for a monthly, bi-yearly, yearly, or 2-year subscription.
4. Tips while reading.
There are a few pronunciation tips you can use when reading a word in german and wondering how it's pronounced:
V - Is pronounced like an English F, has the same sound as the English word "Father". Example words: der Vater, die Vögel
Z - Sounds like a ball slowly losing air. Example Words: der Zoo, die Zeit
S- (beginning of the word) - Pronounced like an English "Z". Example words: Seit, Setzen
Sch-(beginning of the word) - Is pronounced like "Shhhhh", like you're shushing someone in a library. Example words: Schlafen, die Schlange
-ig (ending) - Sounds like the German word "Ich". Example words: der Honig, Abwendig
ß - is pronounced like an English "S". Example words: die Straße, der Fuß
-e (ending) - In german if there is an "-e" at the end it is pronounced. It sounds like an "eh" sound. Example words: die Katze, die Garage
ch in a word after the vowels i,e, ü, or eu - It is very soft. It sounds like a creepy way of saying "he" in English. Example words: Echt, das Buch
ch in a word after the vowels a,o, u - Very pronounced. Has that throaty sound which German is known for. Example Words: Acht, das Näschen
I hope you found this blog post helpful. If not, please let me know in the comment sections. Till next time :)
photo credit - https://unsplash.com/@priscilladupreez
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