Dear Gabriel, my name is Kay and I am a nativ german teacher. I am teaching actually refugees from Siria. So I was looking for good videos about german pronounciation. And for me its very funny to find out, that your videos, altough you are not a nativ speaker are better, more practical then most of the german videos. And your way of didactic presentation is absolutely great. Chapeau and my compliments for you! Just in one point I want to correct you: Since many years in german linguistic sciences there was talked about "long" and "short" vowels like for example the "o" in" O"fen (oven) and k"o"mmen (to come), but the categorys SHORT and LONG are categorys of time, but in fact there is nearly no diffence in the duration of pronounciation. The main difference between both "o" you find in the way of how you built the "o" in your mouth. If yo say "Ofen" you built the o between the middle end the front of your mouth and you put your lips your lips together like you wanna kiss somebody. Because of that, newer language scientists call that kind of "o" closed vowel (geschlossener Vokal) in opposite to an opend vowel (offener Vokal), like you use the "o" in "kommen" (to come). To built that "o" you have to open your mouth and you built the "o" in the back of the mouth. So the main difference between both "o" is in sound quality and the way you built the o in your mouth and not in the duration. By my experiences to put the focus on that difference makes more sence for the students. But this is just a small correction. General I feel very enthousiastic about your videos and I will send your youtube link of them to all of my refugee friends. Enjoy your weekend and lots of chears, Kay from Ostseebad Rerik in Germany
Exactly what I thought! The difference between short O and long O are the same as in Portuguese Ó vs Ô. And short E vs long E correspond to É vs Ê in Portuguese, or È vs É in French. It really confused me to hear people referring to it as long vs short when they are different sounds (more opened vs more closed) and NOT the same sound with different duration
@@desanipt are you guys referring to the : placed after vowels to designate a long vowel sound? That's different entirely from open vs closed vowels, and does actually designate a vowel that's said for a longer period of time. Look at the English word "seat" /siːt/. It uses the extended /i/. In fact, English doesn't have the standard length of this sound anywhere. Now look at the French word "fils" /fis/ or the Spanish word "y" /i/. French and Spanish only have the standard /i/. They are the exact same sound, produced in the exact same way, just said for different lengths of time thus giving an auditory illusion of being different sounds. And this does make a difference with perfecting pronunciation, so the nuance shouldn't be overlooked :).
@@ElaB-x7z What I mean is that they frame it as if the diference between, for example, Beet and Bett was down to the length of the vowel sound. And it is not (just) that. The position of the mouth/tongue also changes
I'm German and although this was not the reason you made this video, I find it very helpful for learning the IPA and English pronunciation. Also, your German pronunciation is spot on!
Okay, first of all, wow! You nailed the pronounciation better than most Germans do. Respect! Also, wow! As a native German, we never learned about the "rounded vowels" the way you explained them. Actually, we first learn to pronounce them correctly (which is near impossible as almost all local dialects change the way they sound), then we learn how to write them (as in "ä" or "ae"), and then we try to figure out why it's "ae", by quickly voicing out "a" and "e" in a weird diphthong, until we think "close enough". Now you're telling me "ö" has nothing to do with "o"? Mind blown. I have to admit I didn't really accept that part, as in "it didn't click with me", but the way you described the phonetic basics around it it all seems to make sense. Thank you for this great video!
you are a legend my friend, even German language teachers doesn't know about this stuff. I wanted to make my German accent better and you helped me a lot... Arabic have only 3-6 vowels that make the German vowels a bit hard for us. Thanks a lot!!
This is the best explanation I’ve seen so far with the the details of the placements of the tongue and the images that really help to wrap your brain around the minor differences in the sounds. Awesome video
Very nice. My mother tongue is not English, so I ignored a lot of the tips for English speakers. and just listened to how I'm supposed to pronounce the vowels etc. Great video!
I wish there were an explanation like this one but for all the languages! Bravo!! Since I started studying it for English pronunciation (given that there isn't a better way to learn the pronunciation of a non phonetic language) I love the IPA system... This comparison was so helpful!
In Portuguese we have the sound"[ɐ"] and I can say that is practically the same as "ʌ" even though they have different symbols in the IPA. looking forward to learning German
[ʌ] is only used for English out of tradition, because it was pronounced with a different vowel in the standard British pronunciation about 100 years ago when the IPA was first used for English. Because the symbol was standardized in English dictionaries, it would have been too much of a hassle to change it to the unfamiliar [ɐ] (which, granted, is used for Portuguese and German), although [ɐ] is the best symbol for how it’s pronounced nowadays in both RP and General American. In Northern England you might get something like [ʊ], in Australia it might be [a], and in the American South you’ll hear [ɜ] or even [ə], but the one sound it probably isn’t is [ʌ], unless you’re from the American Midwest. The symbol [ʌ] is also used for Danish and Korean phonemes. That's closer, but still a little inaccurate: Danish [ʌ] is a little lower in the mouth than usual, and the lips are slightly rounded, but not so much that you get [ɔ] or [ɒ]. The Korean one varies a lot between dialects, but in Seoul it’s a slightly rounded vowel between [ʌ] and [ɔ].
Outstanding job You covered everything 🎉 Phonetics How to create vowels with mouth diagrams Similarly and differences with English Meaning and Picture of the words It is a well formatted and articulated Video Thanks for your thoughts, time and efforts; it definitely goes a long way 🙏🏼❤️
I wish you knew how helpful this series of video were for me as for the complete beginner today. I hope ill come back again and again sooner in order to settle confidence of proper pronounce, in order to have the video as a constant guide, without doubts useful
As a german when you said the difference between "e" and "i" or "o" and "u" is really tiny I was like "huh?". To me the difference is big and obvious but that goes to show how it matters if you are familiar with those sounds to recognize them. On the other hand many of us german speakers don't realize there is difference between the rhotic r and the english "w" sound. Or that you can end a word on a d without turning it into a t which for english speakers sounds obvious. It's amazing how we humans can make distinctions between two sounds made by moviing the tongue a tiny bit intuitively just by being exposed to those sounds enough.
Thank you very much for your knowledge. All the possible vowel sounds in Germanic languages (English included) come as a big challenge for me being native in Russian and Spanish, but your video made with dedication has helped make it easier!
/ʌ/ isn't a thing in US English like this. Geoff Lindsey has a good video on the subject. USAns instead have stressed schwa. For instance, both vowels in "above" are schwa, while in southern British English, only the unstressed vowel is a schwa.
I saw in another video that german has 16-20 vowels...now as a German, I thought we had 8 + a few compound vocals and rather drastic regional differences. It never crossed my mind that the written u for example technically represents more than one vowel!
The biggest problem for me is the tongue. You say it's here and there in mouth and I go...«what??». I can't understand how do you know where the tongue is, if I don't feel it touching any side of my mouth I don't feel it at all...
Your videos are amazing! But I think the english [u:] sounds more like an [ʉ:]. Of course depending on dialects it can also sounds like [u:]. Also the british english [e] don't sounds like the [ɛ] in German or General American. It's more an [e̞] Like the Japanese or Spanish one.
I couldn't understand why you have to make the comparison between Eng Sound and Ger Sound, is getting much harder to distinguish and remember all of them, weird.
omg.. incredible. I thought German was strictly phonetic. But after seeing this... I'm a bit baffled! like how can you tell that there are two different sounds of ö? I'm a beginner German learner btw, so I obviously had no clue. I think I can tell Bühne and Stück are different ü, but ölfarbe and öffnung, I just can't tell them apart at all, I mean the way you pronounce it sounds the same to my ear. And I would have pronounced them the same. Maybe I'm just not trained well enough to notice the difference. What also baffles me is "Unke" and "book". They sound so different to me but somehow they're both "ʊ"! For example: unter, unglaublich, etc. (ʊ) to me just sounds like "um" in Portuguese and even "un" in Spanish (denoted with "u" in IPA) , so again, I'm wrong thinking they have the same pronunciation! But at any rate in my mind these should all be completely different from "book". Confused...
Difference between I and E, good god. I've been trying for months, like after about 20 minutes of hearing it I could HEAR there was a difference... But I just CANNOT for the life of me get it like wtffff. It's a struggle fr when you german girlfriends name is Lea💀
ä ist eine kurze e wie "kennen" order ist eine verlangerte kurze e wie "Bär". Ich war ein bisschen entäuscht dass diese specielle "äh" fehlt. Was doch komisch ist, dass viele nur einfach "Behr" sagen statt "Bähr".
How do I contact you or send you a message, Gabriel, if I (Nikoemon) would like to ask you if you are interested in making or discovering a better solution to the IPA set of phonics, something more ROMAJI or ROMAN character friendly. I believe this possible but would like your input and don't know how to contact you or where to set up a safe (and disposable) contact address. Gabriel, if you would be possibly interested in talking about these vowels briefly, could you say something positive here for me to see your interest or not? Thank you ( ^.^ )(^.^ )/
Hi Nikoemon, thanks for your interest! Could you please contact our helpdesk at help@fluent-forever.com? We'll make sure your message gets to the right department. Thanks!
Dear Gabriel, my name is Kay and I am a nativ german teacher. I am teaching actually refugees from Siria. So I was looking for good videos about german pronounciation. And for me its very funny to find out, that your videos, altough you are not a nativ speaker are better, more practical then most of the german videos. And your way of didactic presentation is absolutely great. Chapeau and my compliments for you! Just in one point I want to correct you: Since many years in german linguistic sciences there was talked about "long" and "short" vowels like for example the "o" in" O"fen (oven) and k"o"mmen (to come), but the categorys SHORT and LONG are categorys of time, but in fact there is nearly no diffence in the duration of pronounciation. The main difference between both "o" you find in the way of how you built the "o" in your mouth. If yo say "Ofen" you built the o between the middle end the front of your mouth and you put your lips your lips together like you wanna kiss somebody. Because of that, newer language scientists call that kind of "o" closed vowel (geschlossener Vokal) in opposite to an opend vowel (offener Vokal), like you use the "o" in "kommen" (to come). To built that "o" you have to open your mouth and you built the "o" in the back of the mouth. So the main difference between both "o" is in sound quality and the way you built the o in your mouth and not in the duration. By my experiences to put the focus on that difference makes more sence for the students. But this is just a small correction. General I feel very enthousiastic about your videos and I will send your youtube link of them to all of my refugee friends. Enjoy your weekend and lots of chears, Kay from Ostseebad Rerik in Germany
Exactly what I thought! The difference between short O and long O are the same as in Portuguese Ó vs Ô. And short E vs long E correspond to É vs Ê in Portuguese, or È vs É in French.
It really confused me to hear people referring to it as long vs short when they are different sounds (more opened vs more closed) and NOT the same sound with different duration
@@desanipt are you guys referring to the : placed after vowels to designate a long vowel sound? That's different entirely from open vs closed vowels, and does actually designate a vowel that's said for a longer period of time. Look at the English word "seat" /siːt/. It uses the extended /i/. In fact, English doesn't have the standard length of this sound anywhere. Now look at the French word "fils" /fis/ or the Spanish word "y" /i/. French and Spanish only have the standard /i/. They are the exact same sound, produced in the exact same way, just said for different lengths of time thus giving an auditory illusion of being different sounds. And this does make a difference with perfecting pronunciation, so the nuance shouldn't be overlooked :).
@@ElaB-x7z What I mean is that they frame it as if the diference between, for example, Beet and Bett was down to the length of the vowel sound. And it is not (just) that. The position of the mouth/tongue also changes
I'm German and although this was not the reason you made this video, I find it very helpful for learning the IPA and English pronunciation. Also, your German pronunciation is spot on!
Hi Fabienne, thanks so much! We are glad you found the video helpful!
Okay, first of all, wow! You nailed the pronounciation better than most Germans do. Respect!
Also, wow! As a native German, we never learned about the "rounded vowels" the way you explained them. Actually, we first learn to pronounce them correctly (which is near impossible as almost all local dialects change the way they sound), then we learn how to write them (as in "ä" or "ae"), and then we try to figure out why it's "ae", by quickly voicing out "a" and "e" in a weird diphthong, until we think "close enough". Now you're telling me "ö" has nothing to do with "o"? Mind blown. I have to admit I didn't really accept that part, as in "it didn't click with me", but the way you described the phonetic basics around it it all seems to make sense.
Thank you for this great video!
you are a legend my friend, even German language teachers doesn't know about this stuff.
I wanted to make my German accent better and you helped me a lot...
Arabic have only 3-6 vowels that make the German vowels a bit hard for us.
Thanks a lot!!
Hey, is the German R pronounced the same way as the Arabic letter ghayin?
@@diamox3604 no it’s not... it’s a bit different
you can see this in his Video on arabic letters
@@mohammadbayrakdar4964 Ahh okay, thanks!
This is the best explanation I’ve seen so far with the the details of the placements of the tongue and the images that really help to wrap your brain around the minor differences in the sounds. Awesome video
Thanks for watching! We're glad you found the video helpful 🙂
Some rounded vowels:
4:28 - yː
4:44 - œ
5:23 - ʏ
5:43 - øː
Harrison Owen 👍🏼
And here their examples:
i (see) → yː (Bühne)
ɛ (bed) → œ (Öffnung)
ɪ (sit) → ʏ (Stück)
e (bait) → øː (Ölfarbe)
Very nice. My mother tongue is not English, so I ignored a lot of the tips for English speakers. and just listened to how I'm supposed to pronounce the vowels etc. Great video!
I wish there were an explanation like this one but for all the languages! Bravo!!
Since I started studying it for English pronunciation (given that there isn't a better way to learn the pronunciation of a non phonetic language) I love the IPA system... This comparison was so helpful!
In Portuguese we have the sound"[ɐ"] and I can say that is practically the same as "ʌ" even though they have different symbols in the IPA. looking forward to learning German
[ʌ] is only used for English out of tradition, because it was pronounced with a different vowel in the standard British pronunciation about 100 years ago when the IPA was first used for English. Because the symbol was standardized in English dictionaries, it would have been too much of a hassle to change it to the unfamiliar [ɐ] (which, granted, is used for Portuguese and German), although [ɐ] is the best symbol for how it’s pronounced nowadays in both RP and General American. In Northern England you might get something like [ʊ], in Australia it might be [a], and in the American South you’ll hear [ɜ] or even [ə], but the one sound it probably isn’t is [ʌ], unless you’re from the American Midwest.
The symbol [ʌ] is also used for Danish and Korean phonemes. That's closer, but still a little inaccurate: Danish [ʌ] is a little lower in the mouth than usual, and the lips are slightly rounded, but not so much that you get [ɔ] or [ɒ]. The Korean one varies a lot between dialects, but in Seoul it’s a slightly rounded vowel between [ʌ] and [ɔ].
What's up bro, bye this time are you already fluent in German?
Outstanding job
You covered everything 🎉
Phonetics
How to create vowels with mouth diagrams
Similarly and differences with English
Meaning and Picture of the words
It is a well formatted and articulated Video
Thanks for your thoughts, time and efforts; it definitely goes a long way 🙏🏼❤️
We're happy to hear how much it helped! 😀😀
I wish you knew how helpful this series of video were for me as for the complete beginner today. I hope ill come back again and again sooner in order to settle confidence of proper pronounce, in order to have the video as a constant guide, without doubts useful
We're happy to know that the videos have been helpful to you!
As a german when you said the difference between "e" and "i" or "o" and "u" is really tiny I was like "huh?". To me the difference is big and obvious but that goes to show how it matters if you are familiar with those sounds to recognize them.
On the other hand many of us german speakers don't realize there is difference between the rhotic r and the english "w" sound. Or that you can end a word on a d without turning it into a t which for english speakers sounds obvious.
It's amazing how we humans can make distinctions between two sounds made by moviing the tongue a tiny bit intuitively just by being exposed to those sounds enough.
Absolutely! It makes such a difference, especially when you are not a native speaker of your target language. :)
Thank you very much for your knowledge.
All the possible vowel sounds in Germanic languages (English included) come as a big challenge for me being native in Russian and Spanish, but your video made with dedication has helped make it easier!
Happy to help!
thanks for the palatogramms you used (also in other videos), I will definitely make use of them
Simply great. Thank you!
Great video for German pronunciation. thank you so much.
We're really happy that you found it so useful!
/ʌ/ isn't a thing in US English like this. Geoff Lindsey has a good video on the subject. USAns instead have stressed schwa. For instance, both vowels in "above" are schwa, while in southern British English, only the unstressed vowel is a schwa.
I've just subscribed and I fell in love with your channel. Danke schön :)
And WOW 2:13 you blew my mind man :O
Happy to help!
Thanks so much for this video. Really helpful. I don't like or study German but even still pronunciation is something really interesting for me.
I saw in another video that german has 16-20 vowels...now as a German, I thought we had 8 + a few compound vocals and rather drastic regional differences. It never crossed my mind that the written u for example technically represents more than one vowel!
In the part you're teaching the sound u: you had to compare to the word boot in english instead of the word shoe, cause "boot" does have the u: sound
Do you recommend learning both German and French at the same time? are there different enough to avoid mistakes? and cofusions?
Wow this was a real masterclass 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
9:22 for review
this is ridiculously hard
Great information 🤗thanks a lot
You’re most welcome, Annie!
The biggest problem for me is the tongue. You say it's here and there in mouth and I go...«what??». I can't understand how do you know where the tongue is, if I don't feel it touching any side of my mouth I don't feel it at all...
Sehr hilfreich! Danke schon. Das Buch ist sehr nett auch.
hilfreich! ich danke Ihnen:)
thank you soooo much, that was so helpful, thank youuuuuuuuuu
A-sounds : 2:45
THANKS A LOT.
Thank you thank you thank you!
7:29 diphthongs
/ʏ/ is hard.. is it kinda in between /y/ and /ø/
Gabriel, do you use Praat to check yourself? I don't. But I am thinking to start doing it.
What's that?
Can I just think of /I/ (ai not ell) as a tensed /i/
I need subtitles 😞
my biggest struggle is differentiating œ and ø smh
Your videos are amazing! But I think the english [u:] sounds more like an [ʉ:]. Of course depending on dialects it can also sounds like [u:]. Also the british english [e] don't sounds like the [ɛ] in German or General American. It's more an [e̞] Like the Japanese or Spanish one.
I couldn't understand why you have to make the comparison between Eng Sound and Ger Sound, is getting much harder to distinguish and remember all of them, weird.
"Mock" as pronounced by USAns. This sound was introduced by German immigrants.
youre the best!
omg.. incredible. I thought German was strictly phonetic. But after seeing this... I'm a bit baffled! like how can you tell that there are two different sounds of ö? I'm a beginner German learner btw, so I obviously had no clue. I think I can tell Bühne and Stück are different ü, but ölfarbe and öffnung, I just can't tell them apart at all, I mean the way you pronounce it sounds the same to my ear. And I would have pronounced them the same. Maybe I'm just not trained well enough to notice the difference. What also baffles me is "Unke" and "book". They sound so different to me but somehow they're both "ʊ"! For example: unter, unglaublich, etc. (ʊ) to me just sounds like "um" in Portuguese and even "un" in Spanish (denoted with "u" in IPA) , so again, I'm wrong thinking they have the same pronunciation! But at any rate in my mind these should all be completely different from "book". Confused...
Difference between I and E, good god. I've been trying for months, like after about 20 minutes of hearing it I could HEAR there was a difference... But I just CANNOT for the life of me get it like wtffff. It's a struggle fr when you german girlfriends name is Lea💀
Does anyone else realize that a lot of people in New England touch there bottom teeth well making the a sound
Where is the ä ? :(
This video deals with the SOUNDS of the language. The ä is usually pronounced as a long version of the vowel at 1:26. Like the e in bed, but longer.
He is discussing German IPA , not German alphabets
ä ist eine kurze e wie "kennen" order ist eine verlangerte kurze e wie "Bär". Ich war ein bisschen entäuscht dass diese specielle "äh" fehlt.
Was doch komisch ist, dass viele nur einfach "Behr" sagen statt "Bähr".
4:12 5:21
4:28
How do I contact you or send you a message, Gabriel, if I (Nikoemon) would like to ask you if you are interested in making or discovering a better solution to the IPA set of phonics, something more ROMAJI or ROMAN character friendly. I believe this possible but would like your input and don't know how to contact you or where to set up a safe (and disposable) contact address. Gabriel, if you would be possibly interested in talking about these vowels briefly, could you say something positive here for me to see your interest or not? Thank you ( ^.^ )(^.^ )/
Hi Nikoemon, thanks for your interest! Could you please contact our helpdesk at help@fluent-forever.com? We'll make sure your message gets to the right department. Thanks!