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Einen/meinen/keinen etc in rapid speech | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5781 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 1 of 9 19 November 2013 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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When watching TV programs in German, I often hear "ein" (or kein/sein/mein etc) in positions where I
would expect "einen" (or keinen/seinen/meinen). Here is a sentence from today's Assimil lesson to illustrate: "Wir möchten Ihnen heute einen sehr bedeutenden Dichter vorstellen." In rapid speech in a TV program, what I will often hear are things like:" Wir möchten Ihnen heute ein' sehr bedeutenden Dichter vorstellen." At first I assumed that I was just mishearing, that what they were actually saying was something like "ein'n" (or even "einn), and indeed that was sometimes the case; but a lot of the time it still sounds like the "en" ending is just plain being dropped in rapid speech. I'm wondering if the "en" ending really might just be being dropped in rapid speech when the stem ends in "n". I'm starting to get worried as the other things I couldn't hear well when I first started are now resolving themselves, for instance I can now clearly hear the difference between an "e" ending (e.g. "gute") and an "er" ending (e.g. "guter"), which I just couldn't hear at first (though I knew from my studies it had to be there). So, do I just need to be patient or is the "en" ending being dropped in rapid speech when the stem ends in "n"? Edited by Random review on 19 November 2013 at 5:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5597 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 2 of 9 19 November 2013 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well I suppose they say "...einnsehr...", that means the e and its syllable is lost, but the n is a bit longer than usual. The native speaker feels the accusative ending is there.
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| morinkhuur Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 4675 days ago 79 posts - 157 votes Speaks: German*, Latin, English Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi) | Message 3 of 9 19 November 2013 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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The e in -en endings is usually not pronounced in Standard German; instead the n becomes syllabic (it acts like the
nucleus (vowel) of the syllable). in rapid speech the difference between [ʔaɪ̯nn̩] and [ʔaɪ̯n] can be very slight and almost inaudible. It might even be the case that people actually say [ʔaɪ̯n] when the case is clearly indicated by other endings (as in your example "einen sehr bedeutenden Dichter") but I'm not sure about that. Edited by morinkhuur on 19 November 2013 at 4:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 4 of 9 19 November 2013 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are tendencies in sloppy speech to drop the -en ending completely in this position, but I personally pronounce a syllabic -n instead. The e can only be heard when the word is enunciated.
Among uneducated native German speakers, there is even the tendency to drop the ending in written language, because they are no longer able to perceive it, but that's considered to be very bad German. Unfortunately, there is a lot of bad German on the Internet... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5781 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 5 of 9 19 November 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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So essentially it's einn/keinn/meinn etc in the accusative in rapid speech and ein/kein/mein in the
nominative and the difference can be heard by native speakers, right? So I just need to be patient and keep listening closely. Eventually I'll hear it. Thanks, guys. Edited by Random review on 19 November 2013 at 5:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 6 of 9 19 November 2013 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here's how I think about it. In the word "einen," you don't drop the final "en"--you drop
the "ne" from the middle. I'm actually serious, btw. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5764 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 9 20 November 2013 at 12:40am | IP Logged | ||
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In addition to what's already been said, I would expect a difference in prosody. When I say 'ein' it's shorter - even the diphthong is shorter and has a clear falling tone and stress pattern with a crisp ending. 'Einen' realized as 'einn' is sligthly longer, and I kind of carry the stress over to the syllabic n. It's not that much of a difference, though.
One of the possible colloquial abbreviations is not to shorten the last syllable, but to actually drop the 'ei' - people who speak like that colloquially might pronounce the endings differently most of the time even when enunciation the first syllable. But there are dialects in which gender endings are merged, and speakers of those dialects often just merge the endings when speaking Standard(ish) German, too. Actually, in the sample sentence I could realize all -en endings the same way, with 'bedeutenden' being the most curious word, I say 'bedeu' and then use my tongue to block off the airstream through my mouth to nasalize 'tn' and 'dn'. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 9 20 November 2013 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||
Native speakers are able to hear anything they want or expect to hear. They understand each other even if the other person has a some kind of speech impediment, thick accent, is chewing gum, has a fat lip, is numb from having been to the dentist's etc. They know what to listen for, hear if the prosody is right and then fill in the blanks. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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