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"Germans can’t say ’squirrel’" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 17 of 24 18 February 2012 at 7:08am | IP Logged | |||||
I'd never heard this before, so it was funny to me! I can see how it would be annoying if you've heard it before. What is "gracht"? Google Translate didn't know that word. But yeah, that's a hard word. "Gr" is hard to say in German with the guttural R, and the "acht" at the end is also not found in English, so pretty much every sound in that word except for the "a" is not found in English. Edited by IronFist on 18 February 2012 at 7:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nafows Diglot Newbie Austria Joined 4824 days ago 11 posts - 14 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Mandarin, Lithuanian | Message 18 of 24 18 February 2012 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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gracht is not German, but Dutch– so it's not even the German "gr"
you have to deal with. It seems to be pronounced as ɣrɑχt :) Edited by nafows on 18 February 2012 at 2:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 19 of 24 18 February 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Wouldn't that be a ʁ rather than an r? (I realize there's regional variation in the r-sound in Dutch, but even so. I'm taking this clip as an example.) Edited by Volte on 18 February 2012 at 3:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| GeneMachine Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 4685 days ago 16 posts - 40 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC1, Latin Studies: French, Japanese | Message 20 of 24 18 February 2012 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"Gracht" works as a loan word in German, though. A German speaker would talk about "die Grachten von Amsterdam", too... The German pronunciation differs from the Dutch one, though.
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| Sandy Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5629 days ago 37 posts - 61 votes | Message 21 of 24 18 February 2012 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Chirurgien was a very difficult word for me in my French anki deck. I gave up on écureuil. For an English speaker it just looks and sounds too strange. Perhaps there is some reason why the same objects are represented by difficult words in many languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 22 of 24 18 February 2012 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
What is a ɣ? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5033 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish | Message 23 of 24 18 February 2012 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I took gracht because it is a word of which they say only Dutch people can pronounce it. (probably a myth though).
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 24 of 24 18 February 2012 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's a voiced velar fricative, one of the consonants on the IPA chart. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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