Hallo, ich bin Johannes and this lesson is about Aussprache, pronunciation. I will teach you the most common, most often used pronunciation rules for certain letter combinations in German. It will be very easy to follow all the words that I use as examples. They are A1.
And if you want to practice a bit more, be a bit more active, I will read each example twice. So you can pause the video, pronounce the word by yourself and then press play again for the second time that I read the word. So now let's start with the first combination.
Die erste Kombination. I und E. This one is pretty easy. You just need to pronounce the first letter here, I, a bit longer.
I, I. For example, lieben, lieben. oder sie sie beer beer this one is actually almost similar to english okay we can also make it the other way around e and e this one is pronounced i i and this word already has meaning it means egg another example an anderes heißen heißen ich heiße johannes ich heiße johannes oder klein klein which means small eis eis a und u is pronounced au au for example bauen bauen oder laut Laut. Auto. Auto. The next combination, there are actually two different combinations of letters, but the pronunciation is exactly the same.
E and U or Ä und U, also A umlaut U, is pronounced OI. OI. For example, teuer. Teuer. So this car is...
expensive. Oder heute, heute, which means today. Bäume, Bäume, the plural form of trees.
Okay, if you have a vowel, also a, e, i, o, u, or a vowel mutation, ein Umlaut, e, ö, ü, combined with h, that's pretty easy. You just need to pronounce them. vowel or the vowel mutation slightly longer.
For example, fahren, fahren, okay? sehr, sehr, oder stuhl, stuhl, okay? aa, ee, oo, this is called doppelvokale, doppelvokale. This is actually pronounced the same way like the one we had before.
You just need to make the sound a bit longer. Ein bisschen länger. Beispiel. Haare. Haare.
Oder? Leer. Leer. This means empty. Boot.
Boot. Okay. If you have an N, MM and so on. This is called doppelkonsonanten. And this is pronounced exactly the other way around than the two we had before.
You need to make the sound shorter, faster. example kommen Ich komme aus Deutschland. oder offen which means open. Wasser.
Wasser. Okay. SCH is pronounced Schreiben. Schreiben.
Oder Schön. Schön. Das Foto ist schön. Deutsch. Deutsch.
That's the language that you learn. Okay, the next combination is a bit difficult. CH It's difficult because there are different ways to pronounce it depending on which letters are before CH. At first A, O, U. Those three combined with CH. This is pronounced a sound like somewhere here.
It's produced somewhere here. Machen. Machen.
Or hoch. hoch buch buch The other way you have to pronounce it is when you have a consonant, ein Konsonant, oder e i ä ö ü combined with ch. Then you need to pronounce it like ch ch. This sound is produced more like in your mouth somewhere here. ich ich Oder rechnen, rechnen, which means to calculate.
Bücher, Bücher. And now you might think, how should I memorize all those combinations? It's too difficult.
I give you this tip here. We go back to the first combination. That's the only thing you need to memorize. A-O-O in combination with C-H. That's pronounced ch.
Everything else you pronounce. And this one is pronounced like as if there were two K. Zwei K. Just a bit harder and faster than ein K.
Backen. Backen. Oder dreckig.
Dreckig. Oder Drucker. Drucker.
Okay. S und P. Whenever you have a S and P at the beginning of a word, then this combination is pronounced S-C-H.
P. zum Beispiel sprechen sprechen ich spreche deutsch ich spreche deutsch oder spanien spanien Beispiel Beispiel And here you might be a bit confused because I just told you it needs to be at the beginning of the word to be pronounced S-C-H-P. This can be explained like this. Whenever you have a word and you separate it, divide it, write in front the S and you check whether or not the word with the S-P at the beginning has a meaning and can stand alone. Like this one here.
Spiel. Spiel. Then you know. This word needs also be pronounced S-C-H-P. Okay?
S-T kind of works the same like S-P. You have to pronounce it S-C-H-T. Sht.
For example, studieren. Oder Straße. Aufstehen.
Aufstehen. This S-C-H-T sound is whenever you have a word that starts with those letters and if you divide it right before the S and you have a word that has a meaning by itself, then you also have to pronounce it S-C-H-T. Stehen means to stand.
Aufstehen, stand up or get up. Not when S-T. is at the end of your word.
Then you have to pronounce it like st. st. For example, Obst. Obst. Oder fast. Fast. And here be careful, this is a false friend.
It doesn't have the same meaning like in English. In German fast means almost. Okay. Kosten. Kosten.
Here you can check the rule that you just learned. Divide this word before the s. And you will have stn.
Stn. This word doesn't have any meaning, so you cannot pronounce it s-c-h-t. Here you just need to say kosten.
Kosten. Okay. E am Wortende is pronounced like ə.
ə. Frage. Question. Quiet. Quiet.
Lampe. Lampe. Here we also have regional differences. You might hear German mother tongues, Switzerland mother tongues say something like Frage. Frage.
It's also correct. It's just a regional difference. I-R. Am Wortende.
A lot of students find this word ending difficult. But I think it's not. Just listen.
Besser. besser it sounds a bit like a besser and that's how you can pronounce it easy super super or fata fata the next combination ig gives you a choice here you can choose between two different ways of pronunciation zwei verschiedene aussprachen die erste ik ik die zweite Ich, ich, like what you just learned. I and CH. I make an example. Hier ist ein Beispiel.
Vierzig, vierzig, vierzig, vierzig. Oder richtig, richtig, richtig, richtig. König, König. Both is totally fine but I still recommend as a beginner start with ik.
Alright? The next combination is t-i-o-n and this combination is pronounced zion. You will find this combination only in the middle and at the end of a word.
For example, funktionieren. Funktionieren. Oder. Station. Station.
Position. Position. Okay? I have one more combination before we start with the bonus tips. P F. A lot of students consider this one hard.
And that's because they try to separate those two letters. You cannot separate them. The sound you have to make is.
You hardly can hear the P here. It's really soft. Zum Beispiel pflegen pflegen oder pferd pferd pfund pfund It's also possible to have this combination in the middle of a word. Zum Beispiel Apfel Apfel Okay, now you know The most important rules, so let's go a bit more into detail. Hier sind die Bonus-Tipps.
Tipp Nummer 1. CH followed by S. Zum Beispiel. Wachsen. Wachsen. You have to pronounce this like K und S.
Wachsen. Wachsen. Oder. Sex. Sex.
I know what it sounds like, but I'm pronouncing the number here. Okay, whenever you have a word starting with ch, try to find another word with the same meaning because ch at the beginning of a word has a lot of different pronunciations and there are not really rules that can help you. So just try to follow my pronunciation and memorize it somehow.
ch can be pronounced like sch. For example, chemie, chemie, oder. Sheena. Sheena. Chef.
Chef. Chef doesn't mean cook. Chef means boss.
But there are also words that are pronounced a different way. For example, those here. They are pronounced T-S-C-H. Kind of similar to the way you would start this word or you would pronounce this word at the beginning in English. Checken.
Checken. In English. to check so kind of similar.
oder chatten chatten to chat but here be careful when germans use this word we don't mean to have a conversation by speaking talking to someone also not on the phone it means to type for example using whatsapp or something like this okay so we're in fatigue for heute but if you like online learning, learning with videos. Then you should check out our new website. There we have a brand new A1.1 level course that follows a book that we produced.
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