In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus

[emjay]

Well, she does seem a bit like a crazed stalker, lol, but apart from that, I'm all for softening some of those 'ch's... the ch sound, the 'ich-laut' is very hard for me to get right, as well as the ach-laut, though I think I'm getting better, and trying to be much more mindful about it rather than falling back into the easy but bad habit of basically pronouncing it 'sch' like you're saying she does. Both sounds have the mouth in completely different positions, so I'm just trying to be mindful of that, if nothing else. Basically it's going to be important to get it right if I want to be able to properly distinguish between eine Kirche, a church, and eine Kirsche, a cherry

Thats why in all dialects we avoid the "ach" or "ich" as well, and morph them into sch/sh, or sometimes just leave out the "ch" part/have it very, very silent.

Wow, I never would've guessed that. By 'ach-laut' I understand it to mean the ch sound after just four letters... ie a (eg Nacht), u (eg Buch), o (eg Doch), and the two letters au (eg Auch) and with all other combinations ending in ch being an ich-laut... is that correct, is that what you mean? Are you saying that the majority of Germans have trouble with or avoid these sounds?

Its hard to speak high german fluently, even for germans. High german is the native language of no german. High german has never been spoken by a german native, but dialects have. And dialects, unlike high german, can be spoken very smoothly and efficently, like in every other language.

Idk, maybe its an error in non-germans thinking that germans speak high german, are able to speak it fluently. They dont. Basically only TV-news people (or actors) can do this, and they are admired in Germany for being able to do so!!!! We all speak dialects instead. Very distinct ones, that mutually cant be determined to be german even. We all speak, in everyday life a very much softened version (according to local dialect) of high german.

That sounds very much like our situation with Queen's English... everyone, mainly Americans, assume we all speak like Sophie Ellis Bexter; 'Murder on the Da-rrr-ncefloor' in England but not many people do. I certainly don't; I don't da-rrr-nce, I dance, and I don't have a barth, I have a bath. The only time I use that 'r' is for the word 'arse', but that's it's own word IMO, not just an Anglicised, or more Anglicised version of 'ass'... ie I use 'ass' as well, as a separate word. Anyway, I digress

Tbh I don't really know what I'm speaking in German; I mean I'm vaguely aware that maybe Duolingo is teaching hochdeutsch, but at the same time I watch all sorts of stuff on Youtube, not really knowing or much caring, where in German speaking countries it comes from. In other words I'm not at the sort of level where I can distinguish much between, or aspire to, different dialects. I do notice some differences between the stuff I see, but perhaps a lot less subtle than the sort of differences you might be thinking of. For instance, if I'm remembering correctly, there seems to be a difference between how the 'ig' sound at the end of words like lustig or durstig in German-German vs Austrian-German; German-German seems to be a strong 'ick' sound and Austrian seems to be more of a softer ich or isch sound. I don't know which is correct, but the Austrian ich sound feels the most comfortable to me, and seems to be the one that Duolingo uses, so that's the one I use... so I pronounce it lustich or lustisch, only changing it to the g sound if there is a declension added, eg lustiger.    

If you look at an extreme example, here is "plattdeutsch", spoken at the coast (Frisia). I (and most other germans) may only be able to decipher 20% at best. I probably have better chances with Spanish or Italian because i have learned Latin. But Platt too, sounds much softer than high german. It has to, otherwise you wouldnt be able to speak fluently with each other.

Tl;dr
Dont try to perfect your high german, unless you want a degree. Germans dont bother too 

Watch the intro with the blonde, then the old timers and compare this to the commentary from the off.



Ok, back on topic.....what was the topic again? 

Yes, as I said, you're probably noticing much more subtle differences than I'm capable of, but yes the video is interesting and I'll definitely refer back to it in the future to examine it more I can at least see one difference, meine being pronounced like 'meaner' in English, rather than the usual 'Miner', and I'll certainly look for more