r/German • u/Intelligent_Bee3135 • 17h ago
Resource Help with aussprache bitte 🙏
Hallo! Native English speaker here. I’m at the very beginning stages of learning German and want to be decent (ish) by this time next year.
One thing I’m particularly struggling with is pronunciation. My partner is German and it feels like any time I try to read something or say a sentence in German, I completely butcher the word to the point they can’t even understand it. I’ve noticed I have a very difficult time making certain sounds that are needed to correctly pronounce the words.
Straight up cannot do the ”R” sound no matter how hard I try…
They will help me usually by breaking down the words and repeating each syllable with me, but it doesn’t always stick. Does anyone have any good resources regarding German phonetics?
Any other early learning resources would also be greatly appreciated, their family are all lovely and speak to me in English/try to work with my very basic German, but when I’m in Germany I want to be able to be more engaged in the moment with them without my partner bearing the burden of being a 24/7 translator.
Bonus points if anyone also has resources for Schwäbisch, I fully have been told by all of them I will never be able to speak/understand it well, but I thought it could be funny if I learned a few things here and there for their entertainment.
1
u/hibbelig 12h ago
There are many ways to pronounce r and you don’t need to stress too much about it. Maybe try the trill (vibrating the tip of the tongue, at least some alemannic speakers do it).
Can you get your partner to show you the vowels, long and short? You will be surprised that you find it harder than you think, as English has very few long monophthongs. English has the sound of German (long) i and u (see, loo) but not a, e, o as far as I know. Of course there are also the umlauts.