Learning German pronunciation

[tallyho]

I am interested in learning German, but I've always thought the pronunciation was very difficult. So, I've been putting off learning the language until I have the opportunity to live in Germany because I don't want to learn the pronunciation entirely wrong.

But does this actually make sense? Would it be better for me to get a headstart on the language before going there? What do you think? Thanks.

[Axon]

Welcome to the forum!

I see that you already speak Japanese to a high level, and although Japanese and German don't share many pronunciation features, the fact that you have already learned to pronounce Japanese means that pronouncing German will be easier for you than it would be for people who only speak English.

I believe that studying German only when you move to Germany risks having the absolute opposite effect from what you desire, though. You will be forced to interact with Germans from day one, and the stress of that situation means that you're more likely to settle for effective communication than accurate pronunciation. People are likely to prefer using English with you from the start, and that might be demotivating and cause you to think of German as much more difficult than it really is.

I've personally found that I get the most benefit from an immersion experience in a different country when I already have a good grasp of the language. I was already fluent in German the last time I went to Germany, and it was a great challenge for me to speak no English at all, just reading newspapers, going to events, and following museum tours all in German. When you start out, you're limited in what you can handle, and so where you're physically located during that time doesn't matter as much. So conversely, when I spent nearly a month in Poland in 2015, I found myself alone in my room studying or aimlessly wandering the streets more often than not since I had only a minimal level of Polish.

As for accuracy of pronunciation, it's a skill that can be trained like any other. Listening to German without putting any pressure on yourself to speak or understand perfectly is going to give you a big advantage when you start trying to pronounce it, because you'll have a clear mental picture of what German is supposed to sound like. This forum has a lot of great discussion about pronunciation techniques. I'm personally a fan of getting an overview of all of the sounds in German and making sure you can say them accurately one by one. Then work your way up from individual words to short sentences and phrases, simply by using the age-old method of repeating after a recording lots and lots of times. As long as you give yourself plenty of time to hear the language and take off all the pressure of trying to pronounce it perfectly the first time, you'll improve rapidly and have a great accent in a matter of months!

[Cavesa]

Welcome to the forum.

Axon is totally right. People idealise learning in the country far too much. If you postpone learning until you can go to the country, you will either not learn the language (because the opportunity may not even appear), or you'll become an English speaking expat that won't learn the language even in twenty years (extremely common, because you're likely to get a job in English and never find time and the will to learn), or you'll pay tons of money for classes teaching stuff you can learn faster and better on your own. The basics of the pronunciation are among those things (I tried an in country German class and trust me that my pronunciation after a few weeks of self teaching was better than that of majority of my classmates, who had been learning in country. Both due to teachers not correcting them enough, and because of the exposure of the students to each other).

Most serious courses teach the pronunciation at the beginning, with examples and an audio recording. You don't need much more to get started right. The beginning of the very old FSI course is ideal for the pronunciation drills, but I wouldn't recommend the rest. After that, you can practice with all the exercises and repeating after all the audio in your courses. Later on, tons of input will help. If you decide to get a teacher, remember that by far not all of them are good. And when it comes to pronunciation, many are damaging their students with good intentions (they are far too lenient, trying to encourage you).

I agree with Axon that it is the best to learn the basics alone, and then profit much more from any opportunity to go to the country. As someone just moving to another country and with experience with two previous longer stays, I'd recommend getting to B2 before going. That means not a small "headstart" it means learning the language to a solid level before going.

The German pronunciation is also not that hard. Sure, it takes time and efforts to be really good at it. But you can profit immediately from its regularity (it is a thousand times easier than the English pronunciation, as the spoken and written word is closely tied together), from nothing extremely new and exotic (like tones) appearing in German, and the tons of resources.

[tallyho]

Thanks for the replies guys! You two are completely right. Axon, I currently live in Japan and I've actually experienced exactly what you mentioned, with people starting learning the language in-country and developing pretty bad pronunciation. I suppose I just didn't get German pronunciation immediately, and I got the idea that it was more difficult than it is. Got a lot of practice ahead of me I guess!

I'll look into these FSI courses! Seems like there are a lot of materials on this forum. Happy to have stumbled across it. And Cavesa, you make some good points too. Language learning isn't something that I should rely on a class or on others to teachers to me too much. I've definitely got to start it out on my own. Thanks again!

[EmGeeFab]

I developed a really good accent in German through singing lessons.

My voice teacher wouldn't let me sing unless I could use pure vowels instead of diphthongs. I spent about 15 minutes per week for a long time (5 months?) just saying the vowels, followed by her telling me I was once again using a diphthong. It took me long time to learn to hear the difference, but eventually I got it. When I speak German, people know I'm not from their region, but generally think I'm from Denmark.

Of course, you still have the R sound (you've got to get it from your nose to your throat), but every single word has a vowel, so getting them clear will help you make a lot of headway.

Emily

[Cavesa]

I developed a really good accent in German through singing lessons.

My voice teacher wouldn't let me sing unless I could use pure vowels instead of diphthongs. I spent about 15 minutes per week for a long time (5 months?) just saying the vowels, followed by her telling me I was once again using a diphthong. It took me long time to learn to hear the difference, but eventually I got it. When I speak German, people know I'm not from their region, but generally think I'm from Denmark.

Of course, you still have the R sound (you've got to get it from your nose to your throat), but every single word has a vowel, so getting them clear will help you make a lot of headway.

Emily

For me, the German singing problem weren't the vowels, those were quite ok. But the consonants. In German, they are much more important than in Italian or Czech, a bit different, and somehow weren't easy for me at all.

[mentecuerpo]

I believe that studying German only when you move to Germany risks having the absolute opposite effect from what you desire, though. You will be forced to interact with Germans from day one, and the stress of that situation means that you're more likely to settle for effective communication than accurate pronunciation. People are likely to prefer using English with you from the start, and that might be demotivating and cause you to think of German as much more difficult than it really is.

As for accuracy of pronunciation, it's a skill that can be trained like any other. Listening to German without putting any pressure on yourself to speak or understand perfectly is going to give you a big advantage when you start trying to pronounce it, because you'll have a clear mental picture of what German is supposed to sound like. This forum has a lot of great discussion about pronunciation techniques. I'm personally a fan of getting an overview of all of the sounds in German and making sure you can say them accurately one by one. Then work your way up from individual words to short sentences and phrases, simply by using the age-old method of repeating after a recording lots and lots of times. As long as you give yourself plenty of time to hear the language and take off all the pressure of trying to pronounce it perfectly the first time, you'll improve rapidly and have a great accent in a matter of months!

Thank you for the language tips.

Can you or anyone else, point us to a site or recordings where we can find the overview of the German sounds so that we can try learning them slowly, one by one? There is so much info when I google it.

The exercise I am doing is listening to a phrase very carefully using the computer software WorkAudioBook, then after I believe that I got the sounds right, I record my voice on a little digital recorder. After I have recorded approximately one minute of audio (this will probably take me 10 minutes of carefully listen to the input to produce 1 minute of recorded output). I tried to record the audio only after I think I got it. Then I take my audio recording and compare it with the original. I noticed that I make numerous mistakes but also some right sounds too.

I think the important thing is that I am noticing the sounds by carefully listen and try to mimic the sounds. I am not focused on the meanings of the words. It is just a listening pronunciation exercise.

I am learning new words with its meaning by following the Pimsleur Method slowly. It gives me the pronunciation guidance and I can practice the pronunciation when promted to repeat after the speaker.

I will really appreciate pointing me to the recommended German sounds.

Thank you everyone for your contributions to this post.

[Brun Ugle]

In addition to the advice already given, I’d recommend Gabriel Wyner’s German Pronunciation Trainer Anki deck. I found it very helpful for learning good German pronunciation. I went through it slowly and for every unfamiliar new sound or minimal pair, I would check the German phonology page and the individual IPA pages on Wikipedia to find out the correct mouth position and I’d practice the sound over and over. In the case of minimal pairs, I’d practice switching between them over and over. Of course, some sounds aren’t that difficult and don’t require that much practice, but for the hard ones, I made sure to put in enough work to get a reasonably accurate pronunciation.

[mentecuerpo]

In addition to the advice already given, I’d recommend Gabriel Wyner’s German Pronunciation Trainer Anki deck. I found it very helpful for learning good German pronunciation. I went through it slowly and for every unfamiliar new sound or minimal pair, I would check the German phonology page and the individual IPA pages on Wikipedia to find out the correct mouth position and I’d practice the sound over and over. In the case of minimal pairs, I’d practice switching between them over and over. Of course, some sounds aren’t that difficult and don’t require that much practice, but for the hard ones, I made sure to put in enough work to get a reasonably accurate pronunciation.

Thanks:
https://blog.fluent-forever.com/german-resources/