There is a good rule of thumb. V is pronounced like f if the word is of Germanic origin (If there is an English cognate, it begins with F): Vogel, Vater (father), all words with the prefix ver- or vor- (vergeben, verlassen, verraten, vernünftig, verarmt, verboten, Vorrat, vorzüglich, Vorbote...), words like brav, with a v at the end can change in pronunciation if the v isn’t at the end after conjugation: brave, braves, braven. Then the sound changes to the “English” v. In words with foreign roots v is pronounced like the English v, (the English cognates use a v, too): Vase, Venus (Latin), Vandalismus (Latin), vaginal (Latin), Velour (French), Ventil (Latin), Ventilator (Latin), Vene (Latin, vein in English), ... What’s interesting is that in Old High German the v was written as f, like in fihu (Vieh in High German), folch (Volk in High German). In later Middle High German words were written in both versions: vrouwe (Frau in High German, woman in English), vriunt (Freund in High German, friend in English), vuoz (Fuß in High German, foot in English) Historically, the v comes from the Latin semivowel u sound, which changed during the centuries to a fricative (more like an f sound). V was used for both the semivowel and the v sound in Latin script. When the the first written Germanic texsts appeared (that had a v sound, too) the use of v for writing this sound (also used to write u), was deemed inappropriate. So, uu was used to write the v sound instead, which later changed to the letter W. And until today the letter w is called double-u in English. Basically, the use of F or V in German has historical reasons for the most part, but that’s valid in every other language as well. English is a lot worse in that respect, because it’s one of the least phonetically written languages, and has a lot more spelling variants for the same sound, like the many ways to write the ee-sound: bereave, receive, believe, beef...
Auslautverhärtung (which I learned from this video) is the type of German word that makes me chuckle with pleasure. In English this concept about German pronunciation is called "terminal devoicing." To the uninitiated, these words sound like a euphemism for murder! In contrast the German word is like a great pun in English: very close to "out-sound-ver-hardening."
yeah i noticed the german kids i live with have a hard time saying "with", they usually say "mit" or "mith" i try to teach them to pronounce the W like this: ok, first say "weeeeeee!" (for some reason when they make that noise they can magically pronounce the english W with no problems) next say "wi" now say "with". i think it's slowly working =)
When I taught English speaking one of my Asian students couldn't pronounce R's. We had a pamphlet that showed a cutaway of the tongue positions and mouth positions and sent the students home with that overnight and the next day they seemed to be able to do it okay. Years ago, I remember my older brother telling me that he learned to make one of those loud whistles with two fingers in his mouth because Life Magazine had cutaway views of mouth and tongue positions. Hearing the language is always the best but sometimes a little picture can be very helpful.
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So the sound that corresponds to "vague" means both scales and ambiguity? That's pretty funny. I'm not sure if the word irony applies, but funny coincidence certainly does.
"Mir ist" literally means "to me it is". So it's used in sentences like "mir ist klar" which make sense, and sentences like "mir ist kalt" which you need to learn.
What is your intention of learning german?^^ I hope you know that Adolf isn't very popular in Germany. His Symbols are banned as well as national socialistic agitation is chargeable. I guess you just want to provoke people ;-)
The only diference between the W and the F is the vibration of the throat. They are two expressions of the same sound, one being tonic and the other being toneless, or unaccented, so to speak (I don't know the technical therminology in English).
+Conrado Segal The English term you're looking for is "voicing". A sound can be either voiced (the vocal cords vibrate), or unvoiced (most consonants, no vocal cord vibration). Hope this helps!
As I was listening to a German song by Christina Stürmer I realized that she said "Vampir" and if I'm not mistaken this is another word in which the v is pronounced like the English v!
A bit off topic but in the same vein (Joke intended!) One of the coolest things I experienced when I first started learning German was finally understanding why my German grand parents and great grand parents pronounced "sink" like "zink" ....
Deutsch für Euch Indeed it is. All that time growing up I thought it was because they were very simple people with basic education. My great grandfather and grandfather were both handy men and left school at about 12 to work. My grandmothers were, like most women of their time, hausfrauen. (Correct?)
When speaking English in my class nearly everybody did not say "think" they said "sink" e.g. "I sink it's a good idea" I still know we spend nearly one lesson with learning pronouncing the english "đ" and "þ" sounds
Soll das heißen, dass es Wörter wie Fogel, For, Folk usw. geben muss, wenn es schon Vogel, vor, Volk usw. gibt? Das würde Sinn machen, wenn man "V" da hinstellt, wo man Homophone unterscheiden will.
Mit der Vorsilbe "ver-" deckt man schon einiges ab, ich würde noch "vor-" vorschlagen (vorbei, vorüber, voran...), ansonsten gibt es ja nur noch ein paar deutsche Wörter, die man lernen kann wie Vater, Vogel, vier, viel, Volk, voll, von, .. Veilchen, Vers, Vieh...viel mehr fällt mir nicht ein
i guess u mean the word "Jawoll", well this also is a german word that is more dialect based (dont know where exactly it comes from from but i would guess bavaria), and it means like a "yes" but in an encouring/confirming way! Like an agreement when u did something good, or something that u expected to happen really happend this way!
Was! Poor phenology scientists cant catch a break. :3 Such great information. I have a question, wonderful Beanied Katja. What German poetry do you think makes the German language sound the most beautiful? It would help me in the learning of German to read some of these works and try to translate them.
From more recent poetry, you might try Eva Strittmatter, f.e. "Mark" and "Lupinen". Imo, Rainer Maria Rilke and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (19th/early 20th century) wrote a beautiful German, but might be harder to translate - look for "Der Panther" and "Der römische Brunnen", possibly their most famous poems.
Eine Frage bitte: In welcher Stadt kommst du aus? Es tut mir leid wenn mein deutsch ist nicht so gut. Ich bin Amerikaner aber ich probiere haha ich finde Ihrer Akzent ganz toll.
Hi I'm from Singapore and be moving to Neustadt in Hannover. Do you know any good language school that I can learn the German language there? Thank u! Btw your video helps a lot ad well
Ich meine, das hätte ich in der Aussprache-Episode erwähnt, wobei ich mir da nicht mehr ganz sicher bin... das kennt man ja aber als Englischmuttersprachler auch :)
Unterschätze manche Leute nicht. Schau dich doch mal hier um, wie viele Leute das englische V oder TH nicht gebacken bekommen, obwohl es bekannt ist, wie's funktioniert :)
Das TH (sowie das W) ist was anderes, das ist nicht Teil unserer Lauttabelle. Aber ja, verstehe was du meinst. Müsste mal kucken, wie und wo ich das einbauen könnte.
Good question. Alternatively, "Bis nächstes Mal" would work, as well. That's for all of these time-related expressions. "the next time" can involve picturing said next meeting, which arguably makes it not entirely time-based anymore. So we're using the next time as some kind of abstract place in the future, instead of just a point of time. For that to work, we need "bis zu" - and "bis zu" triggers Dativ.
Das V hat sich wahrschlich einfach nur grafisch bis heute gehalten. Ursprünglich ist es regional in Deutschland häufiger verwendet worden als das F, was besser aussah wurde verwendet, was schneller ging.. wie auch immer. Darüber lassen sich auch manche nicht ganz logische heutige Einsätze des V erklären. Und dann wurde das V ja auch noch gerne wie ein U in der Schrift verwendet. Aber das war es dann auch. Unbedingt notwendig ist es nicht. Auch wenn es je nach Sprachraum schon eine leichte Unterscheidung in der Aussprache von V und F gibt. Das V ist oft etwas.. flüssiger. Glück für Alle, dass wir den deutschen S-Wahnsinn aufgegeben oder wenigstens reduziert haben.. ;)
no its either pronounced like a "V" (for example "Vaine") or a "F" - but i would say in 80% of the cases we say it like a "F"...cant explain it as well, but this belongs to the weird parts of the german language. but hey even english has exceptions.
Hi I'm from Singapore and be moving to Neustadt in Hannover. Do you know any good language school that I can learn the German language there? Thank u! Btw your video helps a lot ad well
