(September 8, 2015 at 11:17 pm)Alex K Wrote:

(September 8, 2015 at 10:32 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: You are making it hard.  "Ihr" sounds almost like "ear" in English.  And "Er" sounds almost like "air" in English.

The main difference between Ihr and ear for an American would probably be the rhotic r in "ear", where there is none in "Ihr". The rhotic r is one of the typical shibboleths for recognizing Americans speaking German (next to pronouncing ch as k)

For a non-rhotic Brit, it becomes harder, although the e in "ear" in England is probably closer to a schwa sound, while the i in "Ihr" is more like in english "liter".

Still, there is a subtle difference between the r in "Ihr" and the non rhotic ear, the latter being more open.

Also, the beginning has -I think- a noticeable glottal stop in German "Ihr", but ideally none in British "ear"

That's a good tip.  So the r in ihr is non-rotic for native German, and with the way you are describing the I sound, then the word is pronounced almost like "ee-ah"?  I can hear that when I hear it spoken.  And Er is almost like "eh-ah".  Is that getting kind of close? 

My daughter also does struggle with the ch sounding like a k.  Some things to work on.

Yup, ee-ah that gets you close, though foreigners (not only English natives, also Italians for example) sometimes tend to overcompensate at the r by putting too open an "ah" there.Try to keep the ah short.

The ch is a bitch. If you master both main varieties of that, you're really really good. The upside is, noone will understand you any less clearly if you do ch -> k, and there are even German dialects which do it regularly (north/eastern German, famously Berlin). The northern German varieties have the ch=k precisely because they are more closely related to English historically (see the "machen"-"maken" Isogloss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benrath_line and the related ich-ick isogloss).
Remember: your native language is a northern German dialect with some french vocabulary

This is crossing threads but have you tried praying to Odin?

(September 8, 2015 at 8:09 pm)Aroura Wrote: One of the things I'm struggling the most with right now is Ihr vs Er.  They sound identical to my ear, and the only way to tell the difference is in the context of the verb, like Er hat or irh habt.  He, you, they...ugh.
But since I'm still learning which verb form goes with which pronoun, I find I'm mistaking this one often.   

I suspect that's because of another difficulty, e sounds like i and i sounds like e. And when spelling a word containing ie in one language it's normally spelled ei in the other language, or so it seems anyway.

(September 8, 2015 at 8:09 pm)Aroura Wrote: The die, der, das for "The" is a tad confusing, but after I hear it attached to the noun a handful of times, I find I'm able to remember it reflexively....most of the time.

I got the hang of that quite easily when I found out that there are several rules to determine the gender. This page definitely helped:

http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa042098.htm

What I haven't yet learned is the difference between accusative, dative and how this changed der, die and das to something completely different. I'm going to have to make a special effort to learn that I think.

(September 8, 2015 at 11:17 pm)Alex K Wrote: The main difference between Ihr and ear for an American would probably be the rhotic r in "ear", where there is none in "Ihr". The rhotic r is one of the typical shibboleths for recognizing Americans speaking German (next to pronouncing ch as k)

For a non-rhotic Brit, it becomes harder, although the e in "ear" in England is probably closer to a schwa sound, while the i in "Ihr" is more like in english "liter".

Still, there is a subtle difference between the r in "Ihr" and the non rhotic ear, the latter being more open.

Also, the beginning has -I think- a noticeable glottal stop in German "Ihr", but ideally none in British "ear"

I've been focusing on practising my German R's for an entire year actually and I've finally managed to get the hang of them.

I still have trouble doing it with a word like 'Nord' though, which I was surprised to hear when listening to the radio driving in lower Saxony but I am getting there. Particularly easy with the Bavarian 'Kruzifix nochmal', mainly because my Dad was driven to saying it so many times when I was growing up. Or 'Raus ..!'

In fact anything beginning with a K. From there I moved onto words beginning with T like Trinkgeld and then with a D like with Dringend. I'm now beginning to see how the sound seems to emanate from the bottom of the mouth and related to how Germans would pronounce 'mal' or 'loch'. In fact my German teacher did say to me last year which started me trying to master the R sound that I shouldn't have a problem pronouncing it because I have no problem pronouncing loch or nicht.

I'm really trying to master the phenomes because it's important for me not to sound too much like a foreigner. I have a friend who has lived in Germany for many years and really knows the language but has an extremely strong English accent.

I've started using Duolingo recently and the woman's voice that is recorded uses hoch Deutsch. It's made me wonder if the German teacher in Munich was actually teaching me a Bavarian accent.

(September 8, 2015 at 11:46 pm)Alex K Wrote: The ch is a bitch. If you master both main varieties of that, you're really really good. The upside is, noone will understand you any less clearly if you do ch -> k, and there are even German dialects which do it regularly (north/eastern German, famously Berlin). The northern German varieties have the ch=k precisely because they are more closely related to English historically (see the "machen"-"maken" Isogloss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benrath_line and the related ich-ick isogloss).
Remember: your native language is a northern German dialect with some french vocabulary

Although I never learnt many German words or grammar from my German father, one thing that I did learn from a very early age was the 'ch' sound. It's probably stopped me from making too many people wince with my English accent when I moved to Scotland. It's exactly the same sound.

I remember when I was about 6 or 7 having trouble with German words like 'Zu' or Tschuss. I actually mastered that many years before I mastered the English word 'the' which came rather late to me because I never knew to put my tongue behind my front teeth.

I've just figured out how to achieve the German R sound. The tongue needs to be pushed down to the base of your mouth.

Press your tongue against your lower gum to find the right level. Now stop pressing your tongue against your lower gum but do not let your tongue come up again and it should be in the right position.

(September 10, 2015 at 4:11 am)I_am_not_mafia Wrote: I've just figured out how to achieve the German R sound. The tongue needs to be pushed down to the base of your mouth.

Press your tongue against your lower gum to find the right level. Now stop pressing your tongue against your lower gum but do not let your tongue come up again and it should be in the right position.

Yes, that sounds right! It must not be curled into the back of your mouth, or you'll have too much rhoticity, and if you have the tip touching the top in the front of your oral cavity, you get a rolling r.

(September 8, 2015 at 11:41 pm)Aroura Wrote: That's a good tip.  So the r in ihr is non-rotic for native German, and with the way you are describing the I sound, then the word is pronounced almost like "ee-ah"?  I can hear that when I hear it spoken.  And Er is almost like "eh-ah".  Is that getting kind of close? 

My daughter also does struggle with the ch sounding like a k.  Some things to work on.

By the way, do you want me to correct mistakes in your emails, or is that too much buzzkilling?

All of this is a waste of time. Everyone knows that all you need to do if someone does not understand you is to speak English LOUDER.