German Pronunciation Video 1: The German Consonants and the IPA

This is the first of a 3-part series on German pronunciation. The goal is to quickly familiarize you with the sounds of German and the IPA symbols for those sounds. You'll then be able to learn them faster, either through your own studies or through my pronunciation trainers. Enjoy!
Flashcard Designs for Teaching Yourself Pronunciation: blog.fluent-forever.com/gallery/
My Pronunciation Trainers: fluent-forever.com/product/fl...
Anki Language Learning: ankilanguagelearning.com
Anki Decks, including German Pronunciation: speakada.com
Reddit's Anki Language Learning Community: / ankilanguagelearning
A super detailed discussion of the IPA: • Pronunciation Tutorial...

[@jaimebenito620]

Finally some quality tutorial without the typical crappy "it sound like in English XX" to try to describe sounds that don't exist in English! Most people have good intentions, but little idea. Great stuff, please do more like this!

[@Szpulenso]

EXACTLY MY THOUGHTS. I LIKE YOU. Finally some video where creator presents something simply and doesn't treat his viewers like retards who will break down and cry the moment they hear about diphthongs

[@obedotto4465]

Yeah, that's why ipa exists!

[@mphuong002]

as someone who studied English pronunciation through the IPA, this is super helpful! I can easily review the easy consonants and focus more on the newer, more difficult ones. The IPA's helped me so much with breaking down the sounds and get the correct pronunciation in English, and I hope it'll be the same with German!

[@dmanakell]

Since I snore, I find the German R easier to pronounce

[@marcoaperezmartinez4193]

One of the best german language videos I've seen

[@UnexpectedGamer7]

I want to start studying German sometime soon, and I've been trying to find helpful phonetic guides for the German language so I'll already have an idea of what German is supposed to sound like when I start my studies. This video was the most helpful one I've watched so far, the phonetic examples and descriptions are great! Thank you for this.

[@tjazz979]

I totally agree with you! The best German with phonetics video ever!

[@bigshagger1789]

mach

[@yanasimitchiyska9289]

That was super helpful, thanks! I've been speaking German for over 6 years now and I still had a few things to learn about pronunciation. ;)

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hi Yana, We are never too old to learn. 😊 We are super happy to help.

[@ToranJShaw]

Currently learning German, so this helped a lot! You mentioned English not using glottal stops so much?! My native dialect is part of the Cockney (London) continuum, where we heavily use it, especially since we mostly drop the /h/ and /t/ sounds!

[@joeyjiang1587]

really helpful, short and brief, no crap, well-organized, Thank you!

[@corinnew8433]

Well done - excellent explanation - I've been studying German for years and some of this was new to me.

[@DavidJohnsson]

This is awesome! I've been waiting for these videos for so long!

[@douglasbatista2037]

Finally all these years studying phonetics and phonology at uni came in handy!!! Great video!! Thanks a lot!!! Have you made any video dealing with linguistic variation in German yet? It would be awesome!!

[@maipham6845]

It's very 'klug' the way you explained the sounds of German and compared the 'same same but different' sounds as well. Danke!

[@luda-coup]

You are the first person made me sound german r sound!! You are awesome thank you :) Love your book as well im sure it will shorten my journey.

[@uniquelyleira]

I like the way you teach this language. You're fun to listen to.

[@asteraki88]

Really good video!!! You explain it really really well! Thank you!

[@angetrujillo4446]

This was incredible. Thank you so much!!!

[@user-hm5qk8ic6j]

started learning german recently. hoping this tutorial helps lots:D

[@stevenburton7922]

Wow..truly brilliant teaching! Very logical. Well done! I can see your intent was to simplify the process and you achieved that very well...Thanks for posting!

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hi Steven! Thank you, we're glad that you enjoyed it! 😊

[@CeciliaMM]

Thank you. I understand much better now how to pronounce the new sounds. Great job, the video is funny and easy to understand!

[@alexuqt]

This is really high quality, thank you!

[@FluentForeverApp]

We're glad you find it helpful!

[@BishoyHabib]

Gabe, that is so useful. You're brilliant. Danke schon

[@c.e.1039]

I've loved it! Kurz und bündig 👍🏻 Freue mich auf das Video mit den Vokalen🤩

[@FluentForeverApp]

We're really happy to hear that you found this video useful!

[@g-raffasaurus2350]

Very cool video Gabriel!! Very interesting and I like your sense of humour and precision with pronunciation :);)

[@g-raffasaurus2350]

+Gabriel Wyner :)

[@ibrahimissaissa6627]

Thanks for your efforts

[@1mateustg]

Thanks for the video, the summary is great. Just a small correction: in BaCH, the phone is a velar fricative, and therefore is not produced in the same spot as the initial phone in Ratte, which is a uvular fricative.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hi there; we are glad you found the video helpful! Thank you for the feedback.

[@gabriellecarvalho4238]

So useful! Thank you!!!!!

[@minatheteacher2582]

You are a lifesaver!

[@rainydaykennels]

This is awesome, I just hope you cover the soft H sound that you find in words like sprechen

[@diamox3604]

the "soft h" is part of the "ch" sound

[@desanipt]

That's not the H. That's the "ch", covered at 7:23 When the "ch" is after an E, i, or U, that's how it's pronounced (which is indeed the same sound as most English speakers use when pronouncing the H before U, as in "huge" or "humid"). After A and O, the "ch" sound in German is pronounced as qt 6:54

[@angellaboy8336]

Gut gemacht. Fielen Dank!

[@user-ir5kk6zw4n]

thank u dude,it helps a lot

[@rachel11z22]

Shoe Shine reminds me of Johnny English's 'Susan'!

[@qazxwecvr]

Interesting that the uvular R and CH were used instead of the velar. I haven't seen a real consensus on either of them. Great video, though.

[@camilotello3296]

Very useful!!! Thank you so much for this video :'D

[@FluentForeverApp]

We are happy to hear it was useful! 😊

[@zulycardenas1633]

Good video!

[@ramzy-6566]

super helpful, thank.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Very happy to help!

[@mr.midnight23]

I’m having some trouble hearing the difference between a couple of sounds, such as the sch/sh example you used. On vowels, I can’t hear the difference reliably between Ö and the short U.

[@seb_5969]

5:10 ironically the first one sounded way more German than the latter. I have heard someone pronounce German as hard as that

[@vancesweg6321]

Das ist das Beste aller Zeiten, weil niemand bei uns in meinem Heimatland die Liste der IPA-Zeichen unterrichten kann. Vielen Dank.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Really happy to help! Good luck with your language learning!

[@KK-bm9lc]

Finally I can say the German r, thank you very much!

[@nicolaslara5119]

Hey Gabe, I was doing some mini research on the French and German R's; I read that an upside-down R symbol, like in French, is called the uvular fricative while a right side up R symbol, as shown in the video, is called the uvular trill. I don't know if they could be the same sound or not. Thanks for the video by the way because I just love to make new sounds that don't exist in English and Spanish :-)

[@ramamonato5039]

In Indonesia, we pronounce German "r" with regular Spanish alveolar trill "r". This is the original historical German "r", and not that French uvular trill "r" or Australian English "a" of -er.

[@dmanakell]

So the German R and the French one sound the same, right? Could we say that the German R and the X looking one are consonant pairs? one voiced and the other one unvoiced?

[@mellon.x]

Thank you very much

[@FluentForeverApp]

We hope you found the video helpful!

[@yurikatz284]

this is brilliant. holy hell

[@user-sp4if8vc8t]

“[ʀ]” is uvular trill, "r" in Standard German is “[ʁ]; uvular fricative”.

[@hubertsoroczynski9612]

This is fucking it. 10/10 pronunciation video people.

[@walker6549]

I love the pictures, i move my tongue due to these pics!!thanks for the vid ❤❤❤❤❤

[@FluentForeverApp]

Excellent to hear that these are useful to you

[@Pedro_lopes22]

“Sch” in german is like Sean Connery pronouncing the letter “s”

[@SaiTangHuang]

Great video. It's been very useful and it's really well done. I do have some doubts. In British southeast English accents, I'm quite sure people don't say /ˈsɪŋɡə/ for "singer", instead they say /ˈsɪŋə/ which is exactly what happens in German, the fact that there is no G per se. Your explanation is correct for "finger" though, it is definitely /ˈfɪŋɡə/. On the topic of the L sound. You said that in English (US I assume) the L is a more of a "ɫ" sound. I'm not a 100% sure about this, it could be due to my non-native accent, but I think again in some Southeast English accents and also RP the word "leap" is just a normal "l" sound. So what I'm trying to get at is that depending on your native English accent, maybe some of those differences don't actually exist between the two languages

[@nimrahm1211]

you're correct, I'm British and our l is lighter except in the north

[@esmelo]

Thank you, Gabe. Maybe, I should say: Danke.

[@jnmc2498]

What is the difference between the german pronounciation of ”shoe” and ”Licht”… I can’t tell the difference on the tongues position.

[@UltraGayTony]

3:27 btw the correct German word for singer is "Sänger" instead of "Singer" :D

[@FluentForeverApp]

Thank you. 🙂

[@walker6549]

We already pronounce (the german-french R غ)and (X or khخ) and (the glottal ء)in arabic language So it became easy for me to start learning german, ( but in english i struggled a lot pronouncing the letter R and The softD like in better, and especially when theyre combined togather in one word (literally [ li də rə li ]):Literally killed me!!i remember i had my throat hurting that day!i spent a month learning this only word! hahahahahahahha........ U know?but after learning IPA it became thousands of times easier, i wish i started 2years ago learning it ,then i would've spent a few months to learn englsih not 2years!!!! And I'm still learning. I dont know when i get done!! Keep the good work up bro...the most important thing before learning any language is to have a good dictionary and to learn IPA so u'd be able to prounounce anything the way natives do!! I love what u offer in this channel❤❤

[@FluentForeverApp]

Thank you for your continued support! The fundamentals are so important and we will never stop highlighting that.

[@gide5489]

I think that the Arabic غ is slightly different from the French-German R. I would have the advice of an Arabic speaker about the sound h in German (and in English) compared to the letters h in Arabic. I see that the IPA considers that the h in German and English is the same as a ﻩ in Arabic. In my opinion it is wrong, the German h is pronounced as a ﺡ. What do you think?

[@kenp8050]

Is it possible to write German words pronunciations in this vowel scheme? What vowels are missing here? IPA to TS Vowel Transliteration Scheme: ə,ʌ,ɑ̈,ɪ,ɪ̈,ʊ,uː,ɛ,æ,æʊ,ɑ̈ʊ,ɑ̈ɪ,ɔ,o,ɝ,ɚ,ɒ/ɑ̈ or ɔ à,á,ä,i,ï,u,ü,e,ă,ău,äu,äi,ŏ,o,àr,àr,ɒ/ä or ŏ ...diacritic a,a,aa,i,ii,u,uu,e,ae,aeu,aau,aai,aw,o,ar,ar,ɒ/aa or aw....spell able

[@lucasviegas1834]

This guy is a genius 😱😐

[@jimcrayne]

How do I pronounce 'ʁç' together? as in: Furcht [fʊʁçt] 'fear' Can you upload a video devoted just to this sound? I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how to get my tongue from gargle position to palate /j/ position without any front vowel or pause in between.

[@moonbuster4667]

Fuiesht maybe? i think...

[@yayu984]

The actual pronunciation of "Furcht" is [fuːɐ̯çt]

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@yayu984 it's not a Schwa-a. It is like a [ɣç]

[@desanipt]

When the R is at the end of a syllable, it is rather pronounced as an A, not a true R sound

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@desanipt what is a true R sound? And no, it depends on the accent if it more a Schwa-a or r pronounced. In Swiss German it is mostly r sound.

[@azzteke]

01:40 - Error - There a two kinds of "V": Vater-V and Vase-V.

[@Leontor1234]

Well... he is talking about the sound, not the letter. The letter V in Vater sound is /f/, which is mentioned. So both sounds are covered.

[@luisphiliperocha6122]

I'm a total beginner and I feel lost watching this video. I'm familiar with most of the pronunciations in German, but I have absolutely no clue about these IPA symbols. What should I do?

[@FluentForeverApp]

We offer an IPA deck here for use in Anki: fluent-forever.com/product/international-phonetic-alphabetipa-anki-deck/ Otherwise, here are some other useful links: ➡️ Do you have a single page overview of the IPA alphabet? help.fluent-forever.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004356032-Do-you-have-a-single-page-overview-of-the-IPA-alphabet- ➡️English Pronunciation and IPA: Voicing and Place kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y5aZZ3Wvmtmjers We hope this helps!

[@RA-hs6ry]

i really dont know how to differnciate between the R at the end of the word and middle or beggining

[@seb_5969]

Usally the r at the end is softer, also dont take this to seriously, we do not pronounce every single letter in a word fully. If you speak normal to Germans most aggressive Rs will Sound way easier with next to no vibration in the back of your throat. EG the first example at 5:10 sounded like fairly normal German, while the second one was nearly mocking German

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

Kinda like the French R, but only the French R that is Eg word final

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

the German R sounds way lighter than word-initial French R

[@mytrannguyenhoang949]

Why can't I see those new consonants in the alphabet? Are they just used in the pronunciation of the words? Thank you.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hello there! If you're referring to the IPA symbols, they are indeed only used to pronounce the words, as each symbol represents a sound. However, those symbols are not consonants from the German alphabet.

[@wolframhoff5290]

wo ist das W geblieben?

[@walker6549]

Glottal in arabic is distinguished by hmza this oneء أ ؤ ئ

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

4:20 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

[@Irtisrive]

Emad Saeed

[@hulyayusuf5656]

the R sound is the same as the خ sound in arabic.

[@gide5489]

Not at all, it is close to the arabic غ

[@Niels-3]

What about W?

[@desanipt]

Well, W in German is pronounced as an English V (he maybe explains that on the third part). It isn't clear here because he is explaining sounds, not writing conventions, but the sound is covered at 1:41. The sound that the English W has, does not exist in German outside loanwords, as far as I know

[@allannascimento5330]

Almost threw up trying the german R

[@FluentForeverApp]

Oh no! 😊 Maybe try what Gabe suggests in the video. Try gargling and maybe listening to the sound at the same time. It might help the dexterity of your pronunciation. 😊

[@minamicole2943]

Lmao-

[@memo6032]

So 'ch' can be pronounced as a /k/ as in chimney /x/ as in yacht / ʃ / as in schuh And as a /ç/ as in licht And from what i know its /k/ when ch follows an a ,o,u or au And its /ç/ when it comes after an e,ä,i,äu or a constant or at the beginning of a word (except in South Germany and Austria its pronounced as /k/) And its /ks/ when its written as (chs) And i *guess* its /ʃ / when written as (sch)

[@shoshuz1180]

At the moment I heard about IPA, I hit LIKE.

[@PhamLeAnhQuan_]

Iust reallise how similar some consonant to Vietnamese, like "kh" and the "ng" thing

[@bozhidarpetrov]

We all wait R to come xD.....

[@neri9170]

1 - you did not mention that "e" in the end of words sounds like "â" 2 - the r in german has three different possible sounds, of which you didn't mention and I think it's important to know 3 - when a word ends with "en" you usually do not pronounce the "e", example: stehen sounds like steh'n... and for verbs that end in "e" you usually don't pronnounce the "e"... example: ich gehe turns into ich geh' those things shouldn't have been left out but good video anyways

[@mikatu]

when the word ends with an e you pronunce it of course, that is very important, gehe sounds like geh'a not geh.

[@lisaniemand5593]

Yes what about the rolled R!!!

[@GatAtTube]

@neri your comment is due to a misunderstanding of the topic

[@phuonglinhthai31]

2:16: /l/

[@callmeswivelhips8229]

Maybe I'll learn german before French. Much easier for me to pronounce, haha

[@musical_lolu4811]

Le français est plus simple que l'allemand.

[@somedude151]

@@musical_lolu4811 say sike

[@bigshagger1789]

Ich weiß nicht ob du nen Dialekt gelernt hast, oder ob du nicht nativ Deutsch sprichst, aber für mich klingt's so als sprächest du zu hart :P

[@gaymooshroom371]

Are you SERIOUS? I have been learning German for nearly six years, and i have always trilled or tapped the "r" at the front of my mouth. Time to un-learn everything. Fml.

[@qiro3633]

+Felix Manocha Stop! I am half Norwegian and when I speak the German language I alwasys rolled the r and they understand me in Germany. (In Austria they do this as well.)

[@blovlh6258]

You can pronounce it both ways. I'm pretty sure it depends on where you are.

[@rzeka]

+Qiro I think in Bavaria too

[@royakonopka7072]

german without any dialect does the r without any rolling or something so I would really try to pronounce the r as explained in the video. The diference between non-Germans trilling the r and bavarians doing it is very noticeable

[@ThePassingVoid]

Switterland and Austria mostly roll the r like in spanish and russian

[@wizalexone]

Are you a native speaker 😳😳😳

[@musical_lolu4811]

Nah, he's American, from California.

[@abcpenn2788]

Wait ur supposed to use ur whole tongue to make an L sound in english? I only use the tip XD

[@timpackard1015]

The only way it can be true is if you're from Ireland. Oterwise, you just don't realise it