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Trouble with a word in German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| tomas68 Diglot Newbie Mexico Joined 5618 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German | Message 1 of 6 18 August 2009 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Pimsleur 3 there is a sentence that must say the traffic was heavy and
the speaker says something like "Der Verkehr war stag". Should it be "stark"? I don't hear an "r" or a "k" sound. I clearly hear stag, but stag doesn't appear in my dictionary. Pimsleur is becomming a little frustrating because they don't pronounce all the words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Archimedes Tetraglot Newbie Belgium Joined 5585 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Albanian, Modern Hebrew, Italian | Message 2 of 6 18 August 2009 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi tomas68!
The word you´re looking for is definitively "stark", which means heavy or in other cases strong. It´s very confusing for me as a native speaker of German to hear that you clearly heard something like "stag", because anyone pronounces the word "stark" with the "k" spoken clearly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tomas68 Diglot Newbie Mexico Joined 5618 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German | Message 3 of 6 18 August 2009 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you! Sorry to confuse you. It may be my hearing/brain that doesn't process the sounds well or maybe my pc speakers. I am also beginning the Michael Thomas course and I like that he makes emphasis on pronouncing each letter.
I also have trouble with the endings eine/einer, sometimes I don't hear the "r". If I knew more grammar maybe that would't be a problem. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cowjunge Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5588 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Portuguese | Message 4 of 6 18 August 2009 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, the "r" at the end of a word isn't really pronounced. A good example is the song "Mutter" (mother) by Rammstein, which you can find on Youtube. In the chorus, where they repeat the word "Mutter", you can hear that there's not really an "r" sound at the end, but instead it's pronounced like the "e" at the end of the word "bitte" (please). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5774 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 6 18 August 2009 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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In this case it's actually a different way the R isn't pronounced (and the schwas of 'bitte' and 'Mutter' are different ones, too). At the end of a word, the R becomes a schwa together with the preceding vowel.
An R after a vowel and followed by a number of consonants just changes the vowel sound to a soft diphtong and isn't pronounced itself. For example the word 'Erde' actually is pronounced kind of like ɛadə, using the same vowel sound as in Ratte for the a. The same happens in 'stark' - when I say it I actually begin using the long a sound and then change it to the short a, or rather I use a long a and then abruptly end it like a short a. (sorry if this is confusing, if you want I can do some audio to contrast those sounds) The other thing is: There can't be a word that sounds like 'stag' in German. Why? Because German has this one rule that makes all voiced consonants at the end of a word unvoiced. One of the most common errors native German students make is that they cannot differentiate between 'tot' and 'Tod' because they are pronounced the same way. Now, when a German word begins with T, P or K these are strongly aspirated. The same sounds at the end of a word are considerably less aspirated, and I think that you mistakenly identified the unaspirated, unvoiced version of K as a G. It's not grammar you need for this, it's German phonology. :) Edited by Bao on 19 August 2009 at 10:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tomas68 Diglot Newbie Mexico Joined 5618 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German | Message 6 of 6 19 August 2009 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Because German has this one rule that makes all voiced consonants at the end of a word unvoiced. "
Thank you, I didn't know that rule, or don't remember it. "The same sounds at the end of a word are considerably less aspirated, and I think that you mistakenly identified the unaspirated, unvoiced version of K as a G." That must be. I would expect a K sound like in krank "It's not grammar you need for this, it's German phonology. :)" I hate phones! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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