German Linguistics Lectures

German Linguistics Lectures

• Lecture 11:
• German and the Phonetic Alphabet
• Designed by Paul Joyce
• University of Portsmouth
• E-Mail: [e-mail]

11.1 Introduction

• It is important to distinguish between the way in which a sound is pronounced and the way it is written.
• The alphabet we use when writing German and English turns out to be imprecise when it comes to describing the sounds of the two languages.

11.2 Similar sounds, different spellings

• Let us examine the following historically related words:
• Vater = German
• Father = English
• Whereas the first sound of each word is spelled differently, their pronunciation is nonetheless the same.

11.3 Similar spellings, different sounds

• Now consider the two following words:
• Sand = German
• Sand = English
• This time, the two initial sounds are spelled the same, but their pronunciation is different.
• The ‘s’ in the German Sand is pronounced like the ‘z’ in the English word zoo.