German. Pronunciation

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OswaldvW

OswaldvW

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I have noticed that homebrewers usually do a good job of pronouncing French terms (biere de garde, Saison), but we really don't do a good job pronouncing German. For instance, Perle, lauter and Vorlauf.

Perle should be pronounced Pear-luh.
Lauter [really should be Läuter, or Laeuter. Should be pronounced loitern, but lawter is not too far off] - thanks to ClaudiusB for the help on this one].
Vorlauf - I hear many people say vorloff. It actually should be pronounced Four Louf ...(with vowel sound like ouch or couch or out).
Dunkel - not done cool but more like dune kell, but not elongating the "u" too much.
Weizen. V - eye - Tsen.
Trub - we actually do a good job with this. Troooob. Rhymes with glue.

Added April 1, 2014:
Hefe - hey feh (but no diphthong ending on the ey)
Kräusen - kroyzen

I know that many people will continue to pronounce it the way they want, but for those of you interested in learning more authentic pronunciation, give it a try.

Signed,
A sincere and hopefully helpful Teutophile.
 
I don't bother trying to pronounce things correctly. It makes me feel pretentious, like the gringo who rolls the R's when ordering a burrito at Taco Bell. :p Then again I hail from the part of the country that's famous for butchering it's own tongue, let alone foreign words....
 
OswaldvW said:
I have noticed that homebrewers usually do a good job of pronouncing French terms (biere de garde, Saison), but we really don't do a good job pronouncing German. For instance, Perle, lauter and Vorlauf.

Perle should be pronounced Pear-luh.
Lauter rhymes with powder (well, with a t instead of a d)
Vorlauf - I hear many people say vorloff. It actually should be pronounced Four Louf ...(with vowel sound like ouch or couch or out).
Dunkel - not done cool but more like dune kell, but not elongating the "u" too much.
Weizen. V - eye - Tsen.
Trub - we actually do a good job with this. Troooob. Rhymes with glue.

I know that many people will continue to pronounce it the way they want, but for those of you interested in learning more authentic pronunciation, give it a try.

Signed,
A sincere and hopefully helpful Teutophile.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't Vorlauf be pronounced with a W instead of an F? I always thought the Vs and Ws were backwards in Germany (ex: WolksVagen instead of Volkswagen and "V-eye-Tsen" above").


And thanks for starting this thread. I know I'm "a ole hillbilly from TN", but I don't want to sound like "a old hillbilly from TN." when it comes to the various styles of beers ;) :tank:
 
V is pronounced with an F sound.
W is pronounced with a V sound.

There is no English W sound in the German language.

Volkswagen is folks vaahgen.
 
alane1 said:
how is ausfahrt pronounced?
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I remember when my grandfather visited me in Germany. He got such a kick out of that word.

Aus. Like out with an s.
Fahrt - similar to fart, but with a slightly elongated "ah" and a German "r" sound.


One other thing. I think Wort is an old English name. The Germans use die Würze to describe the wort. Incidentally, this is the same word for spices, which makes sense because when cooking the wort is when one adds hops and/or seasonings.
 
OswaldvW said:
One other thing. I think Wort is an old English name. The Germans use die Würze to describe the wort. Incidentally, this is the same word for spices, which makes sense because when cooking the wort is when one adds hops and/or seasonings.
Click to expand...

I always wondered about the etymology of that word. Makes sense. And "Wort" means "word" in German, and is pronounced differently (rhymes with "short").
 
One of my favorites is Löwenbräu being pronounced "Low-en-brow". "Looer-ven-broy" is more correct.

Also using "Das Boot" to describe the boot glass. Pronounced correctly. But doesn't mean what folks think it means.

That said, still very much a beginner with German, and still struggle very much with the umlaut pronunciations. Can't say em right without making it sound really awkward.
 
Looks like my German classes in college finally found a use.

I still love screaming "unter, uber, unter, uber, ja ja ja."

German is a relatively easy language for english speakers to learn due to the closeness of the languages. But correct pronunciation is really hard for non-native speakers
 
Calichusetts said:
Looks like my German classes in college finally found a use.

I still love screaming "unter, uber, unter, uber, ja ja ja."

German is a relatively easy language for english speakers to learn due to the closeness of the languages. But correct pronunciation is really hard for non-native speakers
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I'm always surprised and impressed when I meet an American with an awesome German accent. It doesn't happen too often, but there are a few of them out there.
 
Yesfan said:
Wouldn't Vorlauf be pronounced with a W instead of an F? I always thought the Vs and Ws were backwards in Germany (ex: WolksVagen instead of Volkswagen and "V-eye-Tsen" above").


And thanks for starting this thread. I know I'm "a ole hillbilly from TN", but I don't want to sound like "a old hillbilly from TN." when it comes to the various styles of beers ;) :tank:
Click to expand...
V in German makes an F sound, W makes a V sound.

So Volkswagen is Folksvagen.

Which makes sense since Volk = folk in English.

Also using "Das Boot" to describe the boot glass. Pronounced correctly. But doesn't mean what folks think it means.
Click to expand...
Jawohl herr kaleun.
 
I had German in high school. I remember two things:

1. To make the umlaut "U" sound, you shape your mouth like you're going to say "OO" as in "oo-la-la" and say a long "E" sound.

2. The valedictorian of my class called our teacher "chicken scheisse" when she wouldn't do karaoke with us on the last day of classes.

I remember more of course but that's what sticks out.:)
 
Yes, the movie Das Boot is often mangled by Americans. They call it boot as in shoe. It actually is pronounced Das Boat, like boat, except without using any diphthongs. Like an elongated "oh" but no diphthong.

The only diphthongs in German are:
au - aaouu
eu - oy
äu - same as eu
ei - eye

All other vowel sounds are pure, like Italian.

On the other hand, my German friends talk about Pizza Hut, calling it Pizza Hat, not Pizza Hütte, so they get things mixed up, too.
 
OswaldvW said:
I'm always surprised and impressed when I meet an American with an awesome German accent. It doesn't happen too often, but there are a few of them out there.
Click to expand...

Not sure where most of the actors hailed from, but the film "The Book Thief" nearly brought me to tears with the beauty of their Teutonic R's.

The OP surprises me - I haven't studied it, but French pronunciation is absolutely wack. German pronunciation, with the exception of loanwords, is pretty strictly by the book. Sure, you have to change a few phonetic concepts in your alphabet (Z - 'ts', V - 'f', W - 'v', EU - 'oi', AU - 'ow', EI - 'I', IE - 'ee', etc.), but once you've figured out the substitutions, it's very easy to pronounce German words correctly, though not necessarily to do so with a convincing accent.
 
shelly_belly said:
I have yet to hear someone say Kölsch correctly.
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i used to work with 2 guys from cologne/koln whatever. they would yammer on and on about the wonderful beer from their city. what's it called?
them: "kolsh"
anyone else (usually me): "kolsh"?
them: "no that was ridiculous. i don't know what you just said. it's kolsh"
other person / me: "kolsh"?
them: "i can not understand you at all, that is nothing like what i just said"
even though it was pretty much the same as what they just said. perhaps slightly less weird. either it's impossible or they just can't bear non-locals even muttering the word.

OswaldvW said:
I have noticed that homebrewers usually do a good job of pronouncing French terms (biere de garde, Saison), but we really don't do a good job pronouncing German.
Click to expand...

i know quite a few homebrewers just to the east of here who do a bangup job of it!

all right, back to listening to american podcasts of people murdering "westvleteren", "roeselare", "gueuze" (not that anyone actually knows on that one), "gruit"... or for that matter, "edinburgh", "nottingham",,,,,,,

good thing it doesn't matter!
 
OswaldvW said:
I have noticed that homebrewers usually do a good job of pronouncing French terms (biere de garde, Saison), but we really don't do a good job pronouncing German. For instance, Perle, lauter and Vorlauf.

Perle should be pronounced Pear-luh.
Lauter rhymes with powder (well, with a t instead of a d)


I know that many people will continue to pronounce it the way they want, but for those of you interested in learning more authentic pronunciation, give it a try.

Signed,
A sincere and hopefully helpful Teutophile.
Click to expand...
You need to fix this one(Lauter). Läutern:D
 
One of the big issues with mispronunciation comes from the fact that umlauts were dropped from the words and never adjusted for by adding an "e" after the modified vowel.

trub should be trueb (trüb)
krausen should be kraeusen (kräusen)

Makes a huge difference in pronunciation.
 
"Tell someone you love them today, because life is short, full of wonder and beauty. But because life is also unpredictable and terrifying, you should yell it at them, in German."

ICH LIEBE DICH!
 

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