h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

H: is always pronounced when on its own.

Together with "C" you can produce several different sounds, which is also a question of dialect. The sounds range from "sh" to "k" - generally, a slight clearing of the throat, accompanied by a "k" sound should do.

Try these: "Chemie" (means "chemistry". Some Germans pronounce it as if it was French - "shermee" - others will say "kemmy" )
The suffix "chen" is a diminuitive, can be attached to almost anything. This too, depending on dialect, and on which sound it follows, will be pronounced in any way from "sh" to "k".

Advanced stuff: When forming the diminuitive, the final vowel often has to be changed with an umlaut.

eg:

Der Apparat (A gadget, or very often a telephone - "Herr Schmidt am Apparat"- "Mr Schmidt speaking") becomes Das Apparätchen.

After a vowel - for example, a short vowel such as in the word "der Bach" (the stream), or after a long vowel or a vowel elongated by an "r" - die Lerche (the lark ... type of bird) there is no way around the guttural "ch" sound that seems to cause so much trouble.

Try putting your throat muscles into a position to say "k". Now open them a little, and blow some air through. It should sound like a recorder does when you take the top off and hold the hole closed and blow through to unbung it. Practise with these short words:

Mach ein Loch in das Buch - das macht Krach. (Make a hole in the book - it makes a noise)

If you see the combination "SCH" - this is simply "SH". In any dialect.

In conjunction with the letter T, the TH is always pronounced like a "T".

Advanced stuff: The "H" has been dropped in a few words (you may find "Thal" for "valley" in older works - this was reformed at the beginning of the 20th Century.) Where it is still to be found seems to be in words of Greek origin - Theater (theatre), Pathologie (pathology), Bibliothek (Library). Always pronounced "T", though.


Next letter:

J: is pronounced like a "Y" - so to yodel is "jodeln", but it sounds exactly like in English. Hardly surprising, the word was obviously lifted directly from the German. "Jolle" is a dinghy, "Jubeln" is to shout with joy.


K:
L:
M:
N: all these are spoken as in English.

When "M" and "N" are together - as in "Hymne" (hymn), BOTH letters are pronounced. (Hermner)

P: is pronounced as in English

Q is always found with a "U" as in English (OK Scrabble players, I know there are some words without a "U", but aren't they mainly Arab?) This combination is pronounced "KV". The Swedes actually write it like that, but in German you have to know.

So we have examples like:

"bequem" - (comfortable, or in certain contexts, lazy) pronounced berkvaym.
"die Querele" - (Quarrel) - pronounced Kverayler

There may be a few exceptions when using French words, such as "quiche", which is pronounced as the French (Keesh). And it drives me mad if anyone pronounces my Christian name (Jacqueline) like that (Jack ver leen).

Well - have fun with those exercises - especially if you are at work. You might need a Kleenex for your monitor at first!

Hi TC!

You are doing a good job with your german lessons. I like especially the how-to-pronounce-sections, like that "berkvaym" for example.

I always explained to English-speaking people to pronounce the hard "ch" (like in "Bach") like Ernie (Sesamestreet) laughing.

Best wishes!

HP
»--.

I hope other people are reading this! Thanks for the tip.

A note to Americans, or Scots, or anyone with a dialect other than Southern English - the pronunciation guide may be a little different for you. If it doesn't make sense, please say so.

OK, here's my first silly question:

Why did you form a diminutive in the example using 'Der Apparat'?

My idea of a diminutive is 'little some-noun-here' --I'm expecting I've just got the whole thing wrong. But I was thinking along the lines of Das Madchen being a diminutive (and thinking that perhaps Madchen would be considered to be a 'little woman' although obviously the word Frau isn't part of it).

I'm not really sure if I'm making sense?

, or

Hi,
Here's my silly question:
Do the northerners have the harsher/shorter vowels & harder consonants than the southern jesses? (As it seems to me in English & French.)
And, while I'm at it, are the big city folk less tolerant of grievous linguistic harm than small town or country folk; or can that be laid at the north/south door.
Not that I'm biased, you understand.
Nor do I expect to live long enough to acquire a proficiency which will reflect a difference.

Yes, you are right, SMB, das Mädchen (or on your keyboard use an 'e'-suffix: das Maedchen) is a diminuitive, it's from 'die Maid' (an old word for 'younger woman' which has fallen out of use), so Maedchen is 'a very young woman'.
Other examples:
die Tür (or Tuer, =the door) -> das Türchen

das Glas (=glass, of wine or so) -> das Gläschen (n.b.: das Gläs-chen): laß uns ein Gläschen nehmen = let's have a little glass of something (BTW: actually not really meant to be a little one )

der Hund (the dog) -> das Hündchen

There is no such thing as a silly question! Silly answers perhaps...

Plaguesville, on a rough estimate I would agree with you in that the northern regions use harder pronunciation. Especially around Hamburg, and all along the western coastline (Friesland, Schleswig-Holstein), the consonants are very clearly pronounced.

I don't want to disturb TC in the alphabetic flow, but just one peculiarity: up in the north the 'sp' is always pronounced as an 's', then a 'p': Ein S-tudent mit s-pitzen S-tulpens-tiefeln s-tolpert über einen s-pitzen S-tein.
Everywhere else this would read: Ein Shtudent mit shpitzen...
(roughly = a student with pointed boots topples over a pointed stone)

As to your last question: I don't think there's any rule, it may depend on whom you encounter, everywhere your attempts will be appreciated, and chances are that the german in question will try to train her/his english on you!

I'm still not clear on why you form the diminutive for the words. Eg, das Tuerchen (I WANT an umlaat key!! ) is presumably not 'the little door'?

, or

erm, I'm not a good teacher then, forgetting to explain things and meanings -- I'm going to improve, and thanks for the feedback!

'Die Tür' was a bad example, as the word contains a Umlaut in the first place. This Umlaut is /being kept/ on conversion to a diminuitive. So 'das Türchen / das Tuerchen' IS 'a little door', and you /are/ right in assuming there!

Well, SMB... These words are - as is often so in language lessons, to stop people from falling asleep - arbitrary words with their diminuitive forms.

You can do this with nearly all words, and in all cases it simply means "a smaller one of -..." An exception is "Mädchen" which is not a small maid, but a girl.

There can, in fact, be a need to form the diminuitive of anything. During Advent the Germans all have their Advent Calendars - usually in the form of a medium to large piece of cardboard with lots of little doors in it - each one to be opened each day of Advent. These would be called "Türchen" - because they are small.

Using the diminuitive in other cases could be a sign of affectedness.

It could also convey a patronising attitude of the speaker to the person addressed or being spoken about.

It will often be used for children's things, especially baby's things. There is no other word for example for babies' bootees (the knitted kind) than "Schühchen". To say "Kleine Schuhe" would mean small shoes. (of leather). The baby's feet can be referred to as "kleine Füsse" or "Füßchen" - it doesn't matter. (explanations as to use of "ß" and "SS" at a later date)

But generally, it can be applied to anything and will not have these undertones. If a tree (der Baum) is small, it will be more accurately described as "das Bäumchen".

German is not as rigid a language as people imagine, and sometimes a little imagination can make it just as poetic or colourful as English, French or .. I dunno, Arab or something else which is supposed to be very expressive.

*******

Grammatical note: you will no doubt have observed that, whatever the gender of the basic word, the diminuitive is always neuter -
die Tür, das Türchen. This also applies to the other diminuitive form "lein" - which can be applied just as liberally.

**************

So, to sum up the answer to your question . It is simple, Das Türchen means "the little door". And as to "why" you should want to form a diminuitive - I retaliate with: why not?

Oh, as to the Umlaut keys, I'm a little hampered here, as I've got only this Cherry Ergo-Keyboard without a numerical keypad, but divided halfway between G and H. On a normal IBM/Windows keyboard you /can/ enter Umlauts and graphical symbols and whatnot by:
pressing Alt (keep it down), then typing 0-x-x-x on the Num-Pad (!), then releasing Alt. The x-x-x sequence is the Ascii representation of the character you'd like to see, but it depends on your 'national settings in Windows.

The Umlauts used to be somewhere around 0-0-9-0, but I fail to be able to check that

Hope that didn't sound too condescending.

As to Plaguesville's question re: standard of use of language towns vs. country, I think I can safely say that the standard of education is high all over, and people from the provinces have a better standing than in the UK.

To quote an example from real life - my husband is a teacher at a Gymnasium (Grammar School) in a very provincial town. In these places, the children are better behaved and more willing to learn than their peers in the towns, where most of the teachers' time seems to be taken up coping with disciplinary problems. So on that level, the provinces may even have the edge over the "townies".

double simul-posting here, hehe!

Really, I'm not trying to be argumentative. I THOUGHT when you said diminutive, you meant a 'little something' but I wasn't sure, and wanted to check. So I apologise if I sounded rude, it was not intentional. I'm trying to make sure I understand is all.

, or

I don't actually see where anybody was rude here! We're amateurs after all, and yes, diminuitive /is/ the "thingy"-form of a "thing" -- can't see where you seem to be seeing a problem, tststst

good heavens - SMB - we're glad someone's reading all this. Please take our word for it that it is true and we are trying to be as un-bookish as possible. Is there too much information in each forum? I would be happy to reduce it.

If you don't trust my German, ask Bossel. He will tell you if I can speak German or not. He's German, though, so he has the last word.

Gröss Gott, Herr B,
(Sorry if that's flawed - it's something from my distant youth.)
On my unsophisticated UK keyboard:
ü ALT385
ä ALT388
ë ALT393
ï ALT395 (this isn't German, surely)
Ä ALT398
ö ALT404
Ö ALT409
Ü ALT410
As for Capital A & E - dunno
and I despair of double s.

Oh dear, I do trust you, honest. It's so hard to get exactly what I mean across. I was just trying to work things out in my own head is all.

, or

Sorry. I knew what you meant.

No harm done. Really glad to have you on board.

Took me a while to dig out a 'full' keyboard from the cellar, sorry!

SMB, you already listed Ä as ALT398 !
On this machine the Umlauts as well as the Alphabet show up several times in going through ALT sequences:

ä ALT388 or ALT132 or ALT900
ö ALT404 or ALT148 or ALT916
ü ALT385 or ALT129

Ä ALT398 or ALT142 or ALT910
Ö ALT409 or ALT153 or ALT921
Ü ALT410 or ALT154 or ALT922

ë ALT393 or ALT137 or ALT905 (extreeeemly rare [1])
ï ALT395 or ALT139 or ALT907 ( same )

Windows ME Notepad makes the double s identical to the greek beta at ALT225

[1] The ï or ë are used in very rare cases to indicate *non-umlauting* a sequence of vowels.
so, "deutsch" is pronounced like 'doitsch', whereas "dëutsch" would (if it were a real example) indicate 'de-utsch'. Erm, and I fail to remember an example for ï Could only be some borrowed words from Greek or so.