German proununciation

Agimcomas · Post by **Agimcomas** » 15 Jul 2005 16:41

Hi everybody.
I have a doubt about the german pronounciation of the word "riechst" as in "Du riechst so gut". Is it "riech/st", "riext" or...what?
Thank you.

svernoux · Post by **svernoux** » 15 Jul 2005 17:39

It is pronounced like it is written.
So "r" as always in German,
"ie" = long i
"ch" = like "ch" in "Mädchen" or "dich"
"s" = s
"t" = t

Alles klar ?

tom · Post by **tom** » 15 Jul 2005 19:36

you can find a voice creator (and listen to your word) on this website :
http://www.humour1.com/humour/include.p ... eadid=3244

There, click on the link beginning with "http://www.oddcast.com/sitepal" (about ten centimetres under the beginning of the window), and you will get to this tool. Just choose your language, put your text (or just a word) in the right field, and the woman on the screen will pronounce it.

Agimcomas · Post by **Agimcomas** » 17 Jul 2005 06:02

Ja, svernux, alles klar. Danke sehr.

Tom, thanks for he link, but I tried it and it doesn't really work that well.

Agimcomas · Post by **Agimcomas** » 17 Jul 2005 06:08

Actually, I tried changing the voice of the character, and it does work pretty well.

Riechst sounds more like "riekst" though...?

svernoux · Post by **svernoux** » 17 Jul 2005 13:41

Agimcomas wrote:Actually, I tried changing the voice of the character, and it does work pretty well.

Riechst sounds more like "riekst" though...?

I don't know how this programm works, but it seems that the various characters pronounce the same words in various ways.
I've tried all for the word "riechst" and the only one who pronouces it normally is Reiner. The other ones are either unclear either, as you said, like "riekst". This is not correct, at least not in Hochdeutsch. Maybe some dialekts pronounce it as "riekst", but I personally have never heard such a pronounciation...

svernoux · Post by **svernoux** » 17 Jul 2005 13:49

I've tried this programm with all languages I know. French, Italian and English seem quite OK, but there are many mistakes in German. Sometimes, the characters don't even pronounce the right word !!! Be careful with this tool.

tom · Post by **tom** » 17 Jul 2005 20:32

OK, thanks for the tip. Actually, I never had tried it in german, just knowing that it worked well in english and french.

Agimcomas, to answer your last question : the english sound which is most close to this german "ch" is between "h" and "sh" (try a "sh" with very much wind).

Hope this helps,
Tom.

ElieDeLeuze · Post by **ElieDeLeuze** » 19 Jul 2005 23:14

svernoux wrote: Maybe some dialekts pronounce it as "riekst", but I personally have never heard such a pronounciation...

Not dialect at all. Maybe when pronouncing a ich-laut after a long /i:/, some people would tend to close the opening too much because of the very closed articulation of /i:/, so the ich-laut almost closes itself, and you would hear nearly /i:k/.... And nobody is supposed to do that.

Low German would have a /k/ in this word, dutch "ruiken", around Hamburg "rüken". But i doubt very much that low-german can have any influence on High-german, it's rather the other way around, really.

Swissgerman has rüeche, (perhaps riäche in Basel), with a very strong ach-laut, so there is no way you hear /riekst/ there either.

The form */rieken/ would sound more like a low-rhenan dialect, but there, the ich-laut usualy turn into plain /sh/ when they speak high-german, and like any low-german area, the real dialect has almost disappeared, so influence from their original dialect is very improbable.