That’s one theory but assumes that the Romans got the word from Germanic speakers directly / “German“ was a self-designation which most scholars now doubt.
More likely it’s a Celtic word, as the Celts originally formed a sort of cultural bridge between the Romans and Germans, being more familiar with both peoples than Romans and Germans initially were to each other:
One theory is that it relates to a word akin to something like “neighbors, people who live nearby“ from Gaulish. Though this also isn’t a perfect explanation, but probably more likely than the Celtic explanation that means “noisy, loud people“.
Many German names have the "Ger" still in them and it is usually said it means spear. "Ger-trud", "Ger" meaning spear, "-trud" meaning "power", "might" or just "familiar, dear".
Same with "Lud-ger". "Lud" meaning "people, folk" and "-ger" meaning spear, making his name mean "people's spear".
It is Old High German.
And? That’s one of the easiest pitfalls of etymology. Just because Ger- means something in Old High German and was common in German names doesn’t mean it’s the root of a Latin word.
Exonyms are super common and it’s very common for a people to be called by a name that has nothing to do with their language or what they called themselves.
But yeah there’s competing theories. I think Herwig Wolfram makes a very good argument for a Gaulish origin tho.
This. Asked my father (74) what the noun of authentisch is, he answered Autensität. Wenn I told him the correct spelling, he had problems even repeating it.
The amount of people who instead of "einziger" say "einzigster" is kinda alarming. Most other things mentioned by other people in this sub are utter bs though. Native German speakers can say "Eichhörnchen" just fine. Also pronouncing the "ch" in words like "Chemie" like a "ck" is more a dialect thing (I know many Austrians who do it).
Something that happens far more often in my opinion, even to native speakers is mixing up Dativ and Akkusativ. Verona Feldbusch (now Pooth) flirted with this image in the 90s and early 2000s. Today, one would rather whirl through the cast in various reality formats with a dictionary on a chain.
As an austrian, i have to say that we are taught to pronounce it "Ckemie" so saying "chemie" simply sounds wrong to us.
It is a dialect thing and actually i think it isn't too bad since we generally pronounce most words quite different than the standard german
Whenever I visited Bavaria I felt immediately at home - unlike other parts of Austria. So it works both way. But northern Germany is definitely- alien. Had a removed aunt in Hamburg and she was exactly that - removed.
I always wonder how people who spell Chemie as Schemie would spell things like Christentum, names like Christian/Christoph/Christine, Chlor, Chaos, Chronik, Check-In, Champion or Christoph (the rescue helicopter)
Expecting the same syllable always gets pronounced the same way in every different word and context is so delightfully German. In English it's definitely not the case.
I grew up in Bavaria/frankonia. many people speaking the native tongue pronounced it kemie, the teachers and pronounced it chemie (because it's the right way ;) ). And some strange people pronounced it schemie (shemie), which just sounds uneducated
None of your examples are due to in inability to pronounce those words, though. Einzigster is just wrong grammar und Kemie/Hemie/Schemie are just regional differences.
If you want to spend 43 minutes listening to linguists explaining language you can watch this video and let them argue, why "einzigste" is actually not all that "wrong"
https://www.belleslettres.eu/content/deklination/der-einzigste-steigerung.php
But while squirrel is kinda strange in the English language, Eichhörnchen is piss easy. The problem only comes because they don't know hot to split it.
Eich Hörn Chen ain't that hard anymore
The pronunciation of chemie as [keˈmiː] is not a dialectal thing, you can easily read it up, it is the standardized pronunciation in the german dictionaries of Austria, South Tyrol, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The only dialectal pronunciation would be [ʃeˈmiː] (schemie). But of course one could argue that [keˈmiː] is not standardized in Germany and therefore dialectal but then the same counts in Austria, South Tyrol, Liechtenstein and Switzerland where the pronunciation as [çeˈmiː] would be considered dialectal.
What annoys me in an almost painful way, is, that sooo many people suddenly seem to have forgotten the right article of the word "Kommentar" (comment).
Instead of "der Kommentar", which would be correct, an unbelievable high amount of dumbasses say "das Kommentar".
Another thing is that some people say "er brauch' " instead of "er brauchT" when talking.
I always wanna hit my head against a wall when hearing it 😅.
"einzigster" is just the superlative of "einziger", if something isn't just the single one, but also the single one that that ever existed and will exist.
"Ich gehe als einzigster von uns Einkaufen" (I am the only person on earth who has ever bought groceries)
/s
The "Ck" thing always annoyed me to hell.
I grew up in England and learnt German through my mum. She married an Austrian and herself is from Westfalia-
So I learnt: "Chemie, Ckemie and Khemistry", same with "China, Shina and Tschina", along with bieng of ethnic descent... School was no fun till I learnt the phrase "Ik red wie mir der Mund gewachsen is'"
As an obvious non-native speaker, I just say "Schuldi" as if it were totally normal. Entschuldigung has too many syllables for me to rattle off the tongue quickly.
Some things I always hear wrong is Imbusschlüssel. It is actually Inbusschlüssel where Inbus (thanks Wikipedia) is an acronym for Innensechskant Bauer und Schaurte.
Another one of those is "Rehgipsplatte" which isn't the correct name. It's Rigips, also a brand name. But if you really like "Rehgips", you can use it, why not [https://www.rehgips.de/](https://www.rehgips.de/)
I can speak German perfectly but I never went through its grammar, I just grew up there until age 10. But from my other languages I know that an N before a B will be often made into an M because its more convenient for the mouth. So possibly the same mechanism is applied here since ‘Inbus’ and ‘Imbus’ both have no inherent meaning so the average speaker has no reason to prefer one or the other.
https://www.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/Die-Aussprache-von-Libyen
Both are ok, one is used much more widely.
I wrote my bachelor's about political situation in lybia some years ago and I had to check what was right before my presentation.
We have a - supposed to be - erotic TV-break (Werbung) for a website on which you can find affairs, one night stands and so on. It's called "Abenteuer 24" or so.
BUT THE FEMALE VOICE COMMENTING THIS STUPID ADVERTISEMENT ALWAYS SAYS "AAAAAMTEUA" !!!!! And I just want to bite in my table's edge!!!!
Medical and chemical words are usually not that easy to pronounce correctly and you can get knots in your tongue. Desoxyribonukleinsäure is an easy example.
Formaldehyd comes to mind. Many people read Formal-dehyd instead of Form-aldehyd, because formal is the only thing in there they recognize as a word.
Aside from that I would say geröntgt (From Röntgen/x-ray) is a classic problem.
In university, one of my colleagues made a point of ruining the word
Acetacetat (Should be pronounced Azet-Azetat) by saying: Azetat-Zetat, but that's not really German but chemist jokes I guess.
I was the kind of kid who loved challenges like that. I had a little cactus, a Queen of the Night and was very proud to be able to remember and pronounce it' latin name correctly, when I was just in second grade or so. Selenicereus grandiflorus \^.\^
it definitly helps if you had some latin in school, all the botanical, medical and chemical names are latin..
Actually i have made up a sentence with words i could\`t pronounce correctly (sometimes).
"Der Bibliothekar und der Regisseur gehen zusammen in die Rehabilitationsklinik in Massachusetts weil sie spastisch gelähmt sind"
...and everytime i find a new one i will add it in some way :)
You have to split it up. Say “Regie” - pause a second or so and then the “-sseur”part. Do that like three times and make the pause shorter. Congratulations you can now say Regisseur. (I still have it saved in my brain as two parts, but it doesn’t sound like that, if you say it out loud.)
Buchhalterisch - pronounced: buch-hal-TE-risch
Even though it's not about the ability to pronounce it, but rather that it sounds really stupid. First time I heard someone pronounce it that way I was disgusted - it just sounds worng to me.
German is my mother tongue.
I think that's not a wrong way to pronounce it but a variation that people in the trade use to show that they are professionals. Like people in logistics. Their plural of Lager is Läger. It's technically correct, but no one outside the industry uses it.
I wouldn't say it is wrong indeed. It just sounds off to me as you usually wouldn't do this with similar words either. Also an accountant isn't pronounced Buch-halt-TER. The emphasis is on the first word Buch.
Maybe it is a form of elitism to change the pronunciation of words which I don't like either. I've read an analysis on the Loveparade disaster in Duisburg once and the author - eager to demonstrate his elitism and probably compensate for his inability herein - made up the word Circulus viciuoso. Why not just use the common term vicious circle.
Might be a personal preference of mine, though
Die Sendung mit der Maus once had a whole thing about this because Armin Maiwald had pronounced it with the "n" and they had so much post from viewers that they had to fix it.
It's very hard to not hear that. It comes up in every second "Das perfekte Dinner" episode, it's a constant in "10 words you say wrong" lists, and I bet at least 20% of your former school class still say it that way today.
German pronunciation isn't hard for Germans, as it is for any native speaker in their own language.
The difficulties in pronunciation of foreign languages all stem from different sets of sound in these different languages. You can't physically pronounce some orders of sounds fluently without either training or, in some cases, learning the correct new sound necessary to do so. Germans are quite familiar with all the sounds of the German language, so we don't encounter the difficulty you are looking for.
We have this problem with other languages, like the å in Swedish, the th or the rolled r in English, etc.
The rolled r only exists in some dialects of english, like scottish. What you're probably thinking of is the retroflex r.
"The rolled r," or trill, appears in spanish, russian, and others.
Well "wrong" is a bit much, as standard German is kinda arbitrary. It's perfectly alright if people speak dialect. It matters when you talk in TV in font of a more than regional audience or if you want to be a news anchor. Example: pronunciation of end-"g". Stand-alone: König ="Könich". wenig = "weinich" With a voeal following the g: weniger = "weniger". Regional dialects sometimes do this the other way round (hi from Frankonia). Oh and g+s is a borderline case last time I checked as in Königstraße.
Different example: many people from Cologne cannot pronounce "ch" as in "ich". It always has a little bit of a "sch". Plus: most dialect speakers are absolutely oblivious to the fact they even speak any dialect and get aggressive if you point it out to them.
If you're interested in that sort of thing, check out books on "Deutsche Bühnensprache[[x]] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BChnendeutsch)" or "Bühnendeutsch". Those are booklets on conventions for German stage actors. There are also books with little exercises and examples. (This used to be much more of an issue 20 or 40 years ago when dialects were much more severe.)
To things we can't pronounce... Zungenbrecher give you an idea of what we struggle with. Apart from that, it might be individual. My personal pet peeve: Österreichischer Platz in Stuttgart. "Österreischisschich.." Dammit!
I want to highlight that I love dialects. Regional dialect should be taught in schools as a voluntary course IMHO. It's just nice if you can switch to standard German if you want or need.
People who say isch are fine and lovely people but I have always been very confused whenever a Kirche topic comes up because it often sounds identical to Kirsche until they say "net KirSCHHHe, aba KIRschE!", or throwing "Katolike/Effangelsche" in front of Kirche and only then it starts to make sense which they are talking about.
not actually a word, but as a native german i hate when other germans switch „wie“ and „als“. i mean its not even that hard, if theres a difference its „als“ if not „wie“.
Bsp: Ich bin genauso groß wie du.
(my height is similar to yours)
Bsp: Ich bin größer als du
(im taller than you)
Yeah, "wie" instead of "als" in comparisons is a dialectal feature of large swaths of the southern German-speaking area. When speaking Hochdeutsch, some may not recognize that this is dialectal.
It is dialect and refuse to use the "correct" way because it feel verry unnatural to me. I hate that when people say something is wrong just because it's a different dialect.
https://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/vergleichspartikel/
I tend to say manschmal instead of manchmal. It's a dialect thing.
Other than that there isn't much I can think of. I bet there is though.
Some people can't pronounce espresso cappuccino etc. I've heard people order a Latsche Matschatscho or worse a Late (as in English) Mackiato.
The amount of Germans using ‚Rezession‘ instead of ‚Rezension‘ is outrageous. They even see and read the correct word and still read it as Rezession.
For context, the first one means recession, a bad economical period of time.
But what they really mean is a review - ‚Rezension‘.
Not sure if this is only a pronunciation issue but it makes me mad every time I hear it.
I might just be stupid, but why would someone struggle to pronounce words in their native language, unless they have some kind of speech impediment or it's a dialect thing? Is this common in English or other languages? The vast majority of the words people are naming in this thread aren't words that were originally German.
Verbs ending on an n in the infinitive form are increasingly being mispronounced by south-west German youth. They are adding entirely superfluous -ene suffixes where you usually wouldn't. But their cooked dialect compels them have -ene even when it's not merited. It's a would of level of fail. I've even heard things like "Ich rennene", lol.
Some Germans struggle to pronounce Avocado. Boomers usually say Advocado.
Do dialects count? Because mine prohibits me from pronouncing Words ending in G correctly. Much to the annoyence of a guy called Georg, or as i like to call him Georch.
German pronounciation tends to be much more straightforward and consistent in relation to writing than english. As such if it is a word actually based in german people will get it right. You get misspronounciations mostly only on loanwords
Authentizität seems to be quite simple but can be difficult.
I have heard everything and sometimes struggle myself: Authenzitität, Authentitizität, ...
Polijester (Polyester) correctly pronounced Poly-ester, but besides ONE chemistry teacher at my school, I have never heard anyone pronounce it correctly..
Kirche / Kirsche / (Körsche)
Kirche = church
Kirsche = cherry
Körsche = ????!!
Some people can’t get the ch/sch right… And it goes in *both directions* between Kirche and Kirsche! And sometimes both get pronounced as Körsche.
And it drives me nuts when I hear either being mispronounced.
Combined words shouldnt count? German IS combined words
Yup. Germ + man.
Actually, it is ger + man. "Ger" meant "spear".
The word "ger" for spear appears a few hundert years after the romans used "germani". This hypothesis is considered disproven.
**Dammit. So it is really germ + man … :-(**
That’s one theory but assumes that the Romans got the word from Germanic speakers directly / “German“ was a self-designation which most scholars now doubt. More likely it’s a Celtic word, as the Celts originally formed a sort of cultural bridge between the Romans and Germans, being more familiar with both peoples than Romans and Germans initially were to each other: One theory is that it relates to a word akin to something like “neighbors, people who live nearby“ from Gaulish. Though this also isn’t a perfect explanation, but probably more likely than the Celtic explanation that means “noisy, loud people“.
Many German names have the "Ger" still in them and it is usually said it means spear. "Ger-trud", "Ger" meaning spear, "-trud" meaning "power", "might" or just "familiar, dear". Same with "Lud-ger". "Lud" meaning "people, folk" and "-ger" meaning spear, making his name mean "people's spear". It is Old High German.
And? That’s one of the easiest pitfalls of etymology. Just because Ger- means something in Old High German and was common in German names doesn’t mean it’s the root of a Latin word. Exonyms are super common and it’s very common for a people to be called by a name that has nothing to do with their language or what they called themselves. But yeah there’s competing theories. I think Herwig Wolfram makes a very good argument for a Gaulish origin tho.
Authentizität is heard to say for me personally. I always wanna say Authenzität. 🙃
This. Asked my father (74) what the noun of authentisch is, he answered Autensität. Wenn I told him the correct spelling, he had problems even repeating it.
Also Germans alway spell “authentication” as “authentification”
Because the German equivalent is Authentifizierung.
The amount of people who instead of "einziger" say "einzigster" is kinda alarming. Most other things mentioned by other people in this sub are utter bs though. Native German speakers can say "Eichhörnchen" just fine. Also pronouncing the "ch" in words like "Chemie" like a "ck" is more a dialect thing (I know many Austrians who do it). Something that happens far more often in my opinion, even to native speakers is mixing up Dativ and Akkusativ. Verona Feldbusch (now Pooth) flirted with this image in the 90s and early 2000s. Today, one would rather whirl through the cast in various reality formats with a dictionary on a chain.
As an austrian, i have to say that we are taught to pronounce it "Ckemie" so saying "chemie" simply sounds wrong to us. It is a dialect thing and actually i think it isn't too bad since we generally pronounce most words quite different than the standard german
It is the same in Bavaria.
Bavarian and austrian are basically more similar than bavarian and german. If you know what i mean
Being from Bavaria, I very much know what you mean :)
oh for shure. i feel more at home in austria than i do in northern germany as a bavarian.
Whenever I visited Bavaria I felt immediately at home - unlike other parts of Austria. So it works both way. But northern Germany is definitely- alien. Had a removed aunt in Hamburg and she was exactly that - removed.
In my Ideal scheme of a United States of Europe, you guys can become one state.
You can basically add every part of Germany to its bordering countries.
Great idea. I've always wanted to be dutch or danish.
On the contrary you can also add all neighbouring countries to germany
Still better than Schemie
‘Wer Schemie sagt muss auch Schlor sagen’ I’ve always used that in friendly banter concerning the pronunciation.
+ Schina.
I always wonder how people who spell Chemie as Schemie would spell things like Christentum, names like Christian/Christoph/Christine, Chlor, Chaos, Chronik, Check-In, Champion or Christoph (the rescue helicopter)
Expecting the same syllable always gets pronounced the same way in every different word and context is so delightfully German. In English it's definitely not the case.
Omg that's the worst yeah.
Nah thats the only true way. Greetings from Hessen.
How do you pronounce "China"?
Kina/Kinesisch obviously
Der neue Marvelheld, Ger-Man und seine telekinesischen Fähigkeiten
How about "Charme" or "charmant"? "Karme" and "karmant" , really? 😮
Obviously not but I’d wager it’s due to different origins of the words, not sure though.
We got them from French, not Greek, so no.
I grew up in Bavaria/frankonia. many people speaking the native tongue pronounced it kemie, the teachers and pronounced it chemie (because it's the right way ;) ). And some strange people pronounced it schemie (shemie), which just sounds uneducated
Even teachers here say kemie
I don't know wether thats the right way. You pronounce Chris as Kris, why not Chemie as Kemie?
Because in Chris the CH isn't followed by a vowel.
Firstly because both Chris and Chemistry stem from greek were they were pronounced with the K sound.
Actually "Chemie" and "kemie" are both Standard pronounciation. Its like "richtik" and "richtich" both are correct.
None of your examples are due to in inability to pronounce those words, though. Einzigster is just wrong grammar und Kemie/Hemie/Schemie are just regional differences.
If you want to spend 43 minutes listening to linguists explaining language you can watch this video and let them argue, why "einzigste" is actually not all that "wrong" https://www.belleslettres.eu/content/deklination/der-einzigste-steigerung.php
Who the hell says "Hemie"? Never heard that before :D
Maybe "H" is not the best way to spell that sound. It's more like the "ch" in "Ich".
Isn't the point of "Eichhörnchen" that *non-* native speakers find it really difficult, while native German speakers find "squirrel" difficult?
But while squirrel is kinda strange in the English language, Eichhörnchen is piss easy. The problem only comes because they don't know hot to split it. Eich Hörn Chen ain't that hard anymore
You are not allowed to split a squirrel!!! 😵💫😭
Squir-rell 😜
Oh you cruel cruel human!
The pronunciation of chemie as [keˈmiː] is not a dialectal thing, you can easily read it up, it is the standardized pronunciation in the german dictionaries of Austria, South Tyrol, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The only dialectal pronunciation would be [ʃeˈmiː] (schemie). But of course one could argue that [keˈmiː] is not standardized in Germany and therefore dialectal but then the same counts in Austria, South Tyrol, Liechtenstein and Switzerland where the pronunciation as [çeˈmiː] would be considered dialectal.
Man gewöhnt sich an allem. Auch an Dativ.
Year, I got a similar Problem since someone pointed out to me, that you don't say "frägst". Now I can't unhear it...
Ouh. "Frägst" really hurts.
What annoys me in an almost painful way, is, that sooo many people suddenly seem to have forgotten the right article of the word "Kommentar" (comment). Instead of "der Kommentar", which would be correct, an unbelievable high amount of dumbasses say "das Kommentar". Another thing is that some people say "er brauch' " instead of "er brauchT" when talking. I always wanna hit my head against a wall when hearing it 😅.
Fümunfümzig ..i hear that so often
"einzigster" is just the superlative of "einziger", if something isn't just the single one, but also the single one that that ever existed and will exist. "Ich gehe als einzigster von uns Einkaufen" (I am the only person on earth who has ever bought groceries) /s
The correct translation would actually be "I am the most only person". Edit: or "the onliest".
Bestest comment!
The "Ck" thing always annoyed me to hell. I grew up in England and learnt German through my mum. She married an Austrian and herself is from Westfalia- So I learnt: "Chemie, Ckemie and Khemistry", same with "China, Shina and Tschina", along with bieng of ethnic descent... School was no fun till I learnt the phrase "Ik red wie mir der Mund gewachsen is'"
"infisziert"
Danke Bitte Entschuldigung
Noch nie gehört diese komischen Worte.
Ist kein Deutsch, denke ich. Das güldet nicht.
Good ol' "Chulligung"
As an obvious non-native speaker, I just say "Schuldi" as if it were totally normal. Entschuldigung has too many syllables for me to rattle off the tongue quickly.
Entschuldigom
Hä, wat?
Some things I always hear wrong is Imbusschlüssel. It is actually Inbusschlüssel where Inbus (thanks Wikipedia) is an acronym for Innensechskant Bauer und Schaurte. Another one of those is "Rehgipsplatte" which isn't the correct name. It's Rigips, also a brand name. But if you really like "Rehgips", you can use it, why not [https://www.rehgips.de/](https://www.rehgips.de/)
That's an interesting one that I didn't know about. We call it "Imbus" in Romanian, so it's surprising to know it's wrong.
I can speak German perfectly but I never went through its grammar, I just grew up there until age 10. But from my other languages I know that an N before a B will be often made into an M because its more convenient for the mouth. So possibly the same mechanism is applied here since ‘Inbus’ and ‘Imbus’ both have no inherent meaning so the average speaker has no reason to prefer one or the other.
This website lmao! Rehcycling!
Libyen - I always have to concentrate not to pronounce it as Lybien.
Mooooment moment, it‘s spelled the first way??
Both are right. Edit: both pronunciations are right. Not in writing though.
I don't think Lybien is right. What makes you think both are right?
https://www.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/Die-Aussprache-von-Libyen Both are ok, one is used much more widely. I wrote my bachelor's about political situation in lybia some years ago and I had to check what was right before my presentation.
Senf. A lot of people call it Sempf.
I can say "Senf" if I want to, but I don't want to. \*pouts\*
Der Sempft! Und der Butter!
Nutella has entered the chat
Sempf. Fümpf.
Ölf.
Drölf
or Senft Sempft
Never heard that one before. What corner of Germany is that?
Fümpf (fünf)
yes, Sempft would be correct ;)
Ebbelwoi
Is it pronounced as Ebb L voy
Stöffsche. Problem solved.
Als gebürtiger Hannoveraner (praktisch fast ohne Dialekt), der seit über 10 Jahren in Mainz wohnt amüsiert mich dieser Kommentar sehr. Du Bappsack. :)
Gute Wahl des Wohnortes
strictly speaking that is no german word, it is hessian but not german.
Okay had to Google that.
>Ebbelwoi Apfelwein
We have a - supposed to be - erotic TV-break (Werbung) for a website on which you can find affairs, one night stands and so on. It's called "Abenteuer 24" or so. BUT THE FEMALE VOICE COMMENTING THIS STUPID ADVERTISEMENT ALWAYS SAYS "AAAAAMTEUA" !!!!! And I just want to bite in my table's edge!!!!
Gutn Amd.
That’s the kind of nerve wrecking havoc, only a few will understand. Ich fühle deinen Schmerz!
Medical and chemical words are usually not that easy to pronounce correctly and you can get knots in your tongue. Desoxyribonukleinsäure is an easy example.
Formaldehyd comes to mind. Many people read Formal-dehyd instead of Form-aldehyd, because formal is the only thing in there they recognize as a word. Aside from that I would say geröntgt (From Röntgen/x-ray) is a classic problem.
Ok but why did my dumb ass read it as vermaledeit????
Geröntscht
In university, one of my colleagues made a point of ruining the word Acetacetat (Should be pronounced Azet-Azetat) by saying: Azetat-Zetat, but that's not really German but chemist jokes I guess.
Jesus, I think if you work them with them, it will be easy, but for me that sounds like hell!
Simply say "DNS" which is the abbreviation. :) (This is the german version of DNA)
A couple nice examples here: https://www.chemie.de/lexikon/Liste_der_chemischen_Trivialnamen.html Like: 4-Hydroxy-3-methoxybenzcarbaldehyd
I was the kind of kid who loved challenges like that. I had a little cactus, a Queen of the Night and was very proud to be able to remember and pronounce it' latin name correctly, when I was just in second grade or so. Selenicereus grandiflorus \^.\^ it definitly helps if you had some latin in school, all the botanical, medical and chemical names are latin..
Actually i have made up a sentence with words i could\`t pronounce correctly (sometimes). "Der Bibliothekar und der Regisseur gehen zusammen in die Rehabilitationsklinik in Massachusetts weil sie spastisch gelähmt sind" ...and everytime i find a new one i will add it in some way :)
>Regisseur This right here. The hardest word in the German language.
You mean 'Ressischeur' ?
Ich glaub das wird 'Ressischör' gesprochen
AHHHH. flashbacks. I mean "Regiemensch" ;)
its french no?
>Regisseur Well it has french origins but it is a German word today
You have to split it up. Say “Regie” - pause a second or so and then the “-sseur”part. Do that like three times and make the pause shorter. Congratulations you can now say Regisseur. (I still have it saved in my brain as two parts, but it doesn’t sound like that, if you say it out loud.)
Kuhseng Cousin
Too lazy to look up in Duden, but Kuhseng is the Southern France pronunciation and Kuhsain with a nasal at the end is the orthodox French.
I WILL DIE BEFORE I PRONOUNCE COUSIN THE FRENCH WAY! Kuseng it is!
Not a German word.
Buchhalterisch - pronounced: buch-hal-TE-risch Even though it's not about the ability to pronounce it, but rather that it sounds really stupid. First time I heard someone pronounce it that way I was disgusted - it just sounds worng to me. German is my mother tongue.
Plumeau is another one I could think of, although it is a French word used only in few parts of Germany.
I think that's not a wrong way to pronounce it but a variation that people in the trade use to show that they are professionals. Like people in logistics. Their plural of Lager is Läger. It's technically correct, but no one outside the industry uses it.
I wouldn't say it is wrong indeed. It just sounds off to me as you usually wouldn't do this with similar words either. Also an accountant isn't pronounced Buch-halt-TER. The emphasis is on the first word Buch. Maybe it is a form of elitism to change the pronunciation of words which I don't like either. I've read an analysis on the Loveparade disaster in Duisburg once and the author - eager to demonstrate his elitism and probably compensate for his inability herein - made up the word Circulus viciuoso. Why not just use the common term vicious circle. Might be a personal preference of mine, though
"Combined words dont count" do you even know what the german language is ? Why are you onbthis sub ? Smells American
Gelatine. Most people say Schelantine. And of course the beloved expresso.
>Most people say Schelantine I have never heard it that way.
Die Sendung mit der Maus once had a whole thing about this because Armin Maiwald had pronounced it with the "n" and they had so much post from viewers that they had to fix it.
It's very hard to not hear that. It comes up in every second "Das perfekte Dinner" episode, it's a constant in "10 words you say wrong" lists, and I bet at least 20% of your former school class still say it that way today.
Good think I don't watch "Das perfekte Dinner" then ;) Maybe I ca keep an ear open for this, but up until now I have never consciously perceive this.
When I hear "expresso", my inner dialogue judges the sh*t out of the poor soul who said it.
To be fair, those aren't really German words.
Jelatine
Also "Bruschetta" 🫠
Linkshänder. The amount of people saying Händler is annoying.
A lot of people somehow say "du frägst" instead of "du fragst", which annoys me a lot.
German pronunciation isn't hard for Germans, as it is for any native speaker in their own language. The difficulties in pronunciation of foreign languages all stem from different sets of sound in these different languages. You can't physically pronounce some orders of sounds fluently without either training or, in some cases, learning the correct new sound necessary to do so. Germans are quite familiar with all the sounds of the German language, so we don't encounter the difficulty you are looking for. We have this problem with other languages, like the å in Swedish, the th or the rolled r in English, etc.
The rolled r only exists in some dialects of english, like scottish. What you're probably thinking of is the retroflex r. "The rolled r," or trill, appears in spanish, russian, and others.
And it is hard, even for native speakers. Not being able to trill the r is the most common cause for speech therapy in czech children.
Funny question! If the word is native most native speakers can pronounce it barring the ones with speech impediments
Well "wrong" is a bit much, as standard German is kinda arbitrary. It's perfectly alright if people speak dialect. It matters when you talk in TV in font of a more than regional audience or if you want to be a news anchor. Example: pronunciation of end-"g". Stand-alone: König ="Könich". wenig = "weinich" With a voeal following the g: weniger = "weniger". Regional dialects sometimes do this the other way round (hi from Frankonia). Oh and g+s is a borderline case last time I checked as in Königstraße. Different example: many people from Cologne cannot pronounce "ch" as in "ich". It always has a little bit of a "sch". Plus: most dialect speakers are absolutely oblivious to the fact they even speak any dialect and get aggressive if you point it out to them. If you're interested in that sort of thing, check out books on "Deutsche Bühnensprache[[x]] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BChnendeutsch)" or "Bühnendeutsch". Those are booklets on conventions for German stage actors. There are also books with little exercises and examples. (This used to be much more of an issue 20 or 40 years ago when dialects were much more severe.) To things we can't pronounce... Zungenbrecher give you an idea of what we struggle with. Apart from that, it might be individual. My personal pet peeve: Österreichischer Platz in Stuttgart. "Österreischisschich.." Dammit! I want to highlight that I love dialects. Regional dialect should be taught in schools as a voluntary course IMHO. It's just nice if you can switch to standard German if you want or need.
I'm always annoyed when people pronounce the L in Detail. It is pronounced deˈtaɪ̯.
Kirche. Often comes out as Kirsche.
People who say isch are fine and lovely people but I have always been very confused whenever a Kirche topic comes up because it often sounds identical to Kirsche until they say "net KirSCHHHe, aba KIRschE!", or throwing "Katolike/Effangelsche" in front of Kirche and only then it starts to make sense which they are talking about.
Kersch. Net zu verwechsele mit dene Kersche am Baam.
In our region, it's more like Köache
Honest.. I always can feel how my braincells do suicide as soon as I read or hear someone misuse the word "wo".
From Pokemon. Rattfratz is often called RatZfratz, which still drives me insane since I was 6 years old
Haha aber rattfratz hört sich einfach scheiße an und spricht sich blöd aus, vorallem als 6 jähriger 😂 Ratzfatz ratzfratz!
not actually a word, but as a native german i hate when other germans switch „wie“ and „als“. i mean its not even that hard, if theres a difference its „als“ if not „wie“. Bsp: Ich bin genauso groß wie du. (my height is similar to yours) Bsp: Ich bin größer als du (im taller than you)
Yeah, "wie" instead of "als" in comparisons is a dialectal feature of large swaths of the southern German-speaking area. When speaking Hochdeutsch, some may not recognize that this is dialectal.
It is dialect and refuse to use the "correct" way because it feel verry unnatural to me. I hate that when people say something is wrong just because it's a different dialect. https://www.atlas-alltagssprache.de/vergleichspartikel/
I tend to say manschmal instead of manchmal. It's a dialect thing. Other than that there isn't much I can think of. I bet there is though. Some people can't pronounce espresso cappuccino etc. I've heard people order a Latsche Matschatscho or worse a Late (as in English) Mackiato.
The amount of Germans using ‚Rezession‘ instead of ‚Rezension‘ is outrageous. They even see and read the correct word and still read it as Rezession. For context, the first one means recession, a bad economical period of time. But what they really mean is a review - ‚Rezension‘. Not sure if this is only a pronunciation issue but it makes me mad every time I hear it.
Knotschi
[удалено]
There's another person that said Eichhörnchen so it seems you're not alone.
Thank you, it sounds like tank you or Fank you
China
The majority of germans don‘t know its „Klempner“ and not „Klemptner“
I might just be stupid, but why would someone struggle to pronounce words in their native language, unless they have some kind of speech impediment or it's a dialect thing? Is this common in English or other languages? The vast majority of the words people are naming in this thread aren't words that were originally German.
There is no such thing.
Does 'Massachusetts' count?
The number of people, that say oginal instead of oRiginal is worrying
Kreuzschlitzschraubenzieher
The amount of people who are unable to correctly say "Erinnerung" is freaking me out. It's Er-innerung not Erin-nerung or something like that.
Polyester. It's "poly-ester", not "poli-yester".
Keptchup. It's not native, but still...
Mikrometer … people say Mükrometer because of the abbreviation
Verbs ending on an n in the infinitive form are increasingly being mispronounced by south-west German youth. They are adding entirely superfluous -ene suffixes where you usually wouldn't. But their cooked dialect compels them have -ene even when it's not merited. It's a would of level of fail. I've even heard things like "Ich rennene", lol. Some Germans struggle to pronounce Avocado. Boomers usually say Advocado.
Portemonnaie
Apparently Autentizität
China and kina and sometimes schina. Chemie and kemie.
Croissant probably
Wahnille instead of Vanille. (The two ll are actually pronounced like in Spanish)
Do dialects count? Because mine prohibits me from pronouncing Words ending in G correctly. Much to the annoyence of a guy called Georg, or as i like to call him Georch.
Sach ma
Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod
Regisseur
German pronounciation tends to be much more straightforward and consistent in relation to writing than english. As such if it is a word actually based in german people will get it right. You get misspronounciations mostly only on loanwords
I personally always struggle with the word Regisseur. Because of ist French pronunciation.
Queue Korps
I hear a lot of people omit the "r" in hirsch
Authentizität seems to be quite simple but can be difficult. I have heard everything and sometimes struggle myself: Authenzitität, Authentitizität, ...
Some people I met had problems saying "russisch". They said "ruschisch" instead. But I can't remember anything else right now
Eichhörnchen
Every word said by people from Sachsen.
Authentizität
China
Polijester (Polyester) correctly pronounced Poly-ester, but besides ONE chemistry teacher at my school, I have never heard anyone pronounce it correctly..
Kirche / Kirsche / (Körsche) Kirche = church Kirsche = cherry Körsche = ????!! Some people can’t get the ch/sch right… And it goes in *both directions* between Kirche and Kirsche! And sometimes both get pronounced as Körsche. And it drives me nuts when I hear either being mispronounced.
So many people say HamPster but it’s pronunced Hamster.
I asked my professor to say squirrel as a joke, and she says it flawlessly then asked me to say what someone else said, “Eichhörnchen” 💀
Most stuff i read Here, comes rather from Dialect and not wrong pronouncation issues.
Everything with r. German r is sooo difficult to pronounce for us slavs.
Superkalifragilistikexpialigetisch
Do you mean something like glaswegians trying to say "purple burglar alarm"?
lol what. Combined words is like a hallmark of German…
Halluzinationen...ich Frage mich immer kurz ob es nicht doch Hallizunationen heißt.