As a Bavarian (South of Germany) I agree with the Ch at the start of the word being pronounced like a K (Chiemsee starts with the sound K), but with it depends on the region. I start “China” and “Chemie” with K, but a lot of people start it with “sch” (which sounds like sh in English). But that’s really weird for my ears.
And the father of my ex wife is from Cologne, his “ch” sound quite like “sh” as well. Kirche (church) sounds like Kirsche (cherry) when he says it. Funnily his last name has two “ch”.
causepix@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Omg. Nobody’s ever been able to explain this properly to me. Also vielen Dank, du hast mir mein deutscher ch-Laut endlich freigeschaltet 😄
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 days ago
I can’t quite tell if this is sarcasm or not, but either way, I would really recommend watching some YouTube videos on the topic, because pronunciation is a lot easier to communicate verbally.
Also, as the other commenter pointed out, I overgeneralized my statement and there are certainly words (like China or Chemie) that start with a ch that’s not commonly pronounced as a k (except in some dialects).
causepix@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
No I’m serious! I’ve asked german friends and they just say it’s a hissing sound, which doesn’t tell me anything about mouth placement like it does to directly relate it to a more specific sound that I do know how to make. I’ve been casually learning for a few years though, so I probably wasn’t too far off in the first place.
I’m talking only about the ‘ch’ consonant in words like ich, milch, brauchen, that isn’t present in English. I realize there’s others that are exceptional, regional, case-by-case, and so on.
Videos don’t help me much but I appreciate the suggestion! My attention and comprehension is better when I can read at my own pace, formats with audio only add benefit when it comes with live feedback on what I’m doing. Unless I’m just getting the flow of the language of course, but that would just be a normal video on any topic.
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Oh, okay then. Thanks for the praise, I was literally just being lazy.
Technically, there are two different ch-sounds (in standard German, that is). One is softer and more akin to hissing, like in Milch, and one is sharper, like in brauchen.
If we’re sticking with the Spanish comparison, you could say the first one is kinda like Juan, and the second like José, though I guess that also depends a lot on the dialect. I don’t really know much Spanish tbh, so it could also be more like the difference between Spanish Spanish and Mexican Spanish. Basically what I’m saying is that the way j is pronounced in Spanish is the closest equivalent to how ch is pronounced in German that I could think of.
IDK if there are any specific rules, but which one is correct seems to be mostly based on the accompanying vowel.
A, O, U all generally use the harsher one: Bach, Buch, doch, Koch, Drache, Fluch
I and E generally seem to use the softer one: ich, dich, Blech, Pech
HTH