More useful for learning German pronunciation - Duden or IPA?

[daegga]

IPA needs to be in narrow transcription to be useful, too broad (= almost phonologic) transcriptions aren't much better than just plain text. Duden-Aussprachewörterbuch would be a bad example for German. Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch (Krech et al) is somewhat better.

[Speakeasy]

I kind of agree and kind of disagree...

I respect your opinion. Still, that's what accounts for Horse Races: differences of opinion, that is.

EDITED:
Tinkering with the text.

[tarvos]

I'm with Speakeasy. IPA would be fine as a mere description, how German can be pronounced (and not necessarily how it should be). It's a bit like a transcription of a piece where the musician has taken a lot of liberties with the melody, rhythm, intonation and what not. No beginner can learn from that. If the learner knows the basics, Duden is enough.

There's also the fact that German pronunciation can vary dramatically from region to region (and that's not counting dialect).

[AML]

There's also the fact that German pronunciation can vary dramatically from region to region (and that's not counting dialect).

True, but I don't think we should get too hung up on that. The goal is to guide the leaner toward a correct, fairly "neutral", non-embarrassing pronunciation/accent. For example, if I were making a guide for English pronunciation, I would create it for General American English pronunciation. Maybe not a single person speaks exactly like that (though I guess I'm quite close), but it's certainly a good pronunciation for an English leaner to aim for. The learner can pick up other accents/dialects on their own if they are so inclined.

With regards to my original post, perhaps the question should be rephrased to ask: Between Duden and IPA, which do you think will best guide a German leaner towards having an acceptable accent?

[Speakeasy]

... perhaps the question should be rephrased to ask: Between Duden and IPA, which do you think will best guide a German leaner towards having an acceptable accent?

Answer: audio recordings of native speakers, accompanied by transcripts and other appropriate support. I'm being quite serious here.

It seems to me that, from an academic perspective, linguists want IPA to be relevant. The fact is, it simply isn't, at least not in the context of the current discussion. Not only do English-language publishers of self-instruction German language courses not use IPA, but even the large German-language publishers of materials destined for the classroom not use it. They simply provide the German language in its written form (most often in German only; that is, devoid of instructions in any language other than German) and supplement it with appropriate audio recordings.

Yes, it would be "nice" if IPA were relevant in the "real world", but it simply isn't!

[tarvos]

There's also the fact that German pronunciation can vary dramatically from region to region (and that's not counting dialect).

True, but I don't think we should get too hung up on that. The goal is to guide the leaner toward a correct, fairly "neutral", non-embarrassing pronunciation/accent. For example, if I were making a guide for English pronunciation, I would create it for General American English pronunciation. Maybe not a single person speaks exactly like that (though I guess I'm quite close), but it's certainly a good pronunciation for an English leaner to aim for. The learner can pick up other accents/dialects on their own if they are so inclined.

With regards to my original post, perhaps the question should be rephrased to ask: Between Duden and IPA, which do you think will best guide a German leaner towards having an acceptable accent?

The problem is that no one speaks like a textbook and I'd like to bet my bottom dollar that most Germans you meet will have at least some traits that makes their speech non-standard.

[Josquin]

I wouldn't overestimate the role of dialects or regionalisms for German. It's true no German speaks like a textbook, but there's a pretty clear notion of what's Hochdeutsch and what's dialect. In most of Northern Germany, young and educated people will speak a variety of German that comes pretty close to what's Hochdeutsch supposed to be. The same goes for speech on the media.

In Southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, things may be different, but I'd advise no learner to learn regional German unless they intend to live in that region for a longer time. Regionalisms (especially from other regions than your own) are pretty much frowned upon by educated speakers of Hochdeutsch. I moved from Nordrhein-Westfalen to Baden-Württemberg more than ten years ago and I still speak no word of Swabian, although I learned to understand it quite well. I'd never give up my Hochdeutsch only to sound more authentic. The opposite would be true. I'd sound ridiculous.

In my opinion, IPA is a useful tool to learn the pronunciation of a language. I had to learn IPA in school when I started learning English. Without it, I would have been lost and would never have known the correct pronunciation of countless words. Only last week, I had an argument with a friend about how to pronunce "catholic". I insisted it was pronounced ['kæθlɪk] while he thought it was pronounced [kə'θɒlɪk]. A look into the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) solved the problem - in my favour, of course.

And I disagree that the transcription needs to be narrow. If you have an idea of how a language sounds, a broad transcription in IPA is more than sufficient to give you a correct idea of how something is supposed to be pronounced. On the other hand, German orthography is so regular you'll hardly need the IPA once you know how to pronounce the different sounds.