How to pronounce (and or distinguish) these words, I cannot imitate them perfectly.
- Restaurant
- rund/und
- Fahrt(how to say r here)
- Würdig(ü,wü)
- siehen-sehen
- klingt(gt)
- Tour´`/Toll
Questions(Mainly related to pronounciation) of 2.1
WeizuoT
November 5, 2020
Julia-Rocket-German-Tutor
November 11, 2020
Hallo WeizuoT!
Thank you for your question.
The good thing about German pronunciation is that German words are almost always pronounced the way they are written (with a very few exceptions).
Let's have a look at the words in your list:
Restaurant
Suchen Sie das Restaurant?
Are you looking for the restaurant?
This word is actually French but Germans use the same pronunciation. A good way to practice your pronunciation is to break a word into syllables, such as “Rest - tau - rant”.
It sounds a bit like “ress-toh-ron” with rolled Rs (more of this in the next paragraph).
Rund/und
Rund
Around
und
and
The only difference here is the rolled R at the start of the word rund.
You create the rolled R by raising the back of your tongue so that your throat is nearly closed and then pushing air through. It's similar to the sound of gargling. (Note that this is different from the vocalic R which sounds almost like an "A" and is normally used in words that end in -er.)
The word und, on the other hand, sounds more like "oo-nd".
Fahrt
Gute Fahrt!
Have a good trip!
This is exactly pronounced like the English word “fart” - with a slightly different meaning of course!
Würdig
Würdig
Worthy
The W is pronounced like “V” in English and Ü is a so called umlaut and is pronounced like “uh” in this case.
A similar example would be the word “wütend” which means “angry”.
Ich bin wütend
I'm angry
Sehen
sehen
to see
The word “siehen” actually doesn't exist in German but you probably mean the conjugated forms of sehen as in “du siehst” - “you see” and “er/sie/es sieht - ”he/she/it sees".
Man sieht alle Sehenswürdigkeiten.
You will see all (the) sights.
Many English speakers have difficulty distinguishing the German E and I(E) sound. You can think of E being more of an “ay” sound whereas I has a higher pitch and sounds more like the English “E” which sounds like “eeh”. Another way of looking at it is that the throat tends to be slightly more relaxed when saying E compared to saying I.
A couple of similar words you could practise are “leben” - “to live” and “lieben” - “to love”.
Leben
life
lieben
to love
Klingt
Das klingt gut.
That sounds good.
The NG in klingt is pronounced similar to the word “singer” in English, you then add a T as in the English word“hat”.
A similar word to practice is “(er) singt” - “(he) sings”.
Er singt sehr gut.
He sings very well.
Tour/toll
Wie lange ist die Tour?
How long is the tour?
toll
awesome
Here, the OU in Tour sounds like the German letter U pronounced like “oo” whereas the O in toll sounds like “oh”.
I hope this has been helpful! It might also be useful to revisit lesson 1.5 ‘Alphabet & Pronunciation’ and 1.6 'Letter Combinations' as they have a whole lot of information on pronunciation.
Last but not least, it definitely takes practice to master German pronunciation but you will also find that as your listening skills and understanding of German words improve, you will become more confident in pronouncing these words!
Viele Grüße,
Julia