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| 8 German Words You'll Struggle To Pronounce | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 16 2016, 05:50 AM (120 Views) | |
| Klaus | Jul 16 2016, 05:50 AM Post #1 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-to-pronounce-these-tricky-german-words-perfectly I found that interesting because I'd never have guessed that these words are particularly tricky to pronounce. In general, I don't understand why people find compound nouns so scary. In other languages, you'd use a space in between and we do not, but that's hardly a significant difference. We Germans, on the other hand, struggle with much simpler things in foreign languages, such as the English "th", or saying "Barcelona". |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| Red Rice | Jul 16 2016, 05:57 AM Post #2 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I struggle with not punching non-Catalans in the face who insist on pronouncing "Barcelona" with a "th" sound. |
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Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool. I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss! - Cecil Lewis | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Jul 16 2016, 05:58 AM Post #3 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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We do compound nouns, too, Klaus, we just think we don't. Dry-cleaning, firefly, toothpaste, blackboard, etc. We compound other parts of speech, too: output, overthrow, fuckup, etc. |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| LWpianistin | Jul 16 2016, 06:14 AM Post #4 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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That kind of thing was the hardest for me to learn, but I think I do well enough with pronouncing umlauts. The compound nouns are straightforward if you know the individual words or grouping of letters (like -chen) and how to pronounce them. Just put them together as one word. I always like trying to pronounce big numbers in German.
Edited by LWpianistin, Jul 16 2016, 06:16 AM.
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| And how are you today? | |
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| Klaus | Jul 16 2016, 06:29 AM Post #5 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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One problem with compound nouns is that they are sometimes ambiguous, e.g. Baumast could be parsed as Baum-ast or Bau-mast (in other words, German, like most languages, is not prefix free). But these ambiguities are rather rare. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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