#+ I'm into the use of english vs german in this scene to highlight the impersonal vs personal strands

[sylviamarsh]

Tut mir Leid, Captain.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

Would you have any recommendations on where one could hear/learn a German accent? I'm learning the language but my most recent teacher said that my accent/pronunciation is not very good despite being at a B1 level. I think this is probably due to I have not one, not two, but THREE separate American accents already because of how many times we moved when I was younger, so adding another accent is hell my mouth cannot keep up. Thanks for your time.

Hey sorry that I took my time answering this.Okay, first of, Josie’s personal opinion time (feel free to skip this lmao): It’s not bad to have an accent. Everyone has an accent - not just because of your native tongue but also because of the people around you, your class, family, friends or whoever you practice with. I have a German accent and probably always will have, because I learnt English from teachers with German accents, with partners and fellow pupils who had a German accent and now I study English at a German university and people around me still speak with the same accent. 90% of the conversations I hold in English are German-accented English. But at this point, I refuse to consider my accent “inferior” to...a Yorkshire accent or a New York accent just because those are “native” accents. Of course, it’s also not bad or anything to want to sound like a native speaker and I’m not going to tell you that if you truly want to speak like a native-speaker you shouldn’t pursue that interest - but it’s something few people really 100% accomplish, so pls make sure you’re not putting the actually important things like vocab, grammar and you know - enjoyment - on hold to pursue something really elusive that your teacher thinks is important. It is very hard to accomplish especially for someone not living in Germany and Germany is a country with a lot of different regional and foreign accents, so most of us have some experience with different pronunciations - so you will most likely be understood.

Now, the my actual answer to your question: 

Listening to people always helps, so does talking. I noticed it when I was still in school. I started watching American shows and it strongly affected my vocabulary and pronunciation - mind you, we were taught to speak strictly British English, American English was an evil taboo - but later I discovered my love for British films and tv shows and I reverted to the English I learnt at school, for the most part (not regarding the language level but the variety). So I definitely recommend exposing yourself to native German-speakers bc otherwise, your main influence will be your fellow students.

There are a lot of German shows on Netflix - you can check if some of them have English subtitles, I know “Dark” for example does. (I’m not sure about Vorstadtweiber, but if you want to get a taste of a Viennese accent, this might also be fun to check out. “Extra3″ is a German satire show that puts all its episodes on Youtube and with a VPN you can also access the ZDF Mediathek and RTL-Now, two very big German tv channels). 

It’s especially helpful to watch out for words you’ve so far only seen in their written form so that you know you struggle with. If you hear them, maybe stop the video and try to repeat it. If you’re interested in specific accents from specific regions (which might be a bit hard, mind you) you can also look for some source material from different regions. For example the German audio of “My Fair Lady” has her speaking with a very thick Berliner accent instead of Cockney, so that’s something you might find interesting bc it’s a film you might already be familiar with. Another tip: I noticed about myself that I easily start thinking in another language, even if I’m really far from fluent and miss words. And doing that I noticed that my inner monologue still has a German accent but it’s much weaker than when you know. my actual physical mouth is involved, for some reason. I can also imitate different English accents in my head much better than I can when I speak - you might try that and even talk to yourself. If there’s no one to tell you you are doing it wrong, it becomes much easier to experiment and have fun with language. 

In my experience, it also helps to imitate the accent the speakers of your target language have while speaking your language: I noticed that when I was practising Russian on duolingo: Now, duolingo makes you repeat sentences to practice your pronunciation and my Russian pronunciation was horrible - until I purposefully tried to sound “Russian” - suddenly Duo understood what I was saying. So you might try to speak German with what feels like an exaggerated German accent to you, even if it feels weird at first. (I do the same when I want to sound British)Another thing that helped me (much more than teachers ever did) is to watch English people contemplate and imitate and play with German accents - because even if it’s something I made fun of a lot these last days, it’s interesting and helpful, because if done for comedic or storytelling purposes (I’m going to give an example of that later on), it often highlights the aspects that make it sound different from a native pronunciation and help you localise these aspects in your own language use. That said - the reason I make fun especially of British people playing Germans is that their accents are often based on other British people pretending to be German, not actual Germans so it sounds...very different from the way we speak English. So keep in mind that it’s not always authentic. (Personally, I still think I learnt how not to pronounce the word “convenience” from an episode of Blackadder but that’s another story)

Okay I threatened that I would add an example on how accents in media might help you understand your own accent better:

There are many examples of English-speakers pretending to speak German, but since you are already at B1 and probably speak better German than most of them (many just say stuff without knowing the words or even...just make up sounds that they think sound German), so I picked a film scene that I mentioned in a post a few days ago: the pub scene from Inglorious Basterds (which I saw on youtube is apparently popular for language teaching purposes). 

It’s interesting because Michael Fassbender is half-German and knows the language somewhat so he at least knows what the words he’s saying mean. Also, he’s surrounded by native speakers which make for good comparison material. (mind you, Inglorious Basterds is obv. a film about the NS-era so while the German they speak sounds rather modern, I can understand if you would like to avoid that content. Especially since the second video ends in a shooting.)  I couldn’t find the whole scene online but if you have the DVD, you might want to look into it, because it’s much longer than the excerpts I found online and maybe you can spot more of the language patterns I will point. (It also has Christoph Waltz in it and his Austrian dialect which might also be interesting to you)

Now, what you need to know is that Fassbender plays an English spy pretending to be a German officer - but when someone points out his accent, he tries to pretend to be Swiss. He does a pretty good job speaking German actually and a German would understand every word he is saying (unlike we do with some other actors pretending to speak German) - but it’s also very obvious with every word that he’s not a native speaker (and no one would actually mistake him for Swiss.) (btw if you want to check out what an actual Swiss dialect sounds like: (x) (I could imagine it’s very difficult for English speakers, because it has a lot of “ch” sounds and is very guttural. 

Now, back to Inglorious Basterds:

The first thing that’s very interesting to look at is the first 30 seconds of the first video because it’s clear that they made Fassbender exaggerate his accent because in that scene it leads to a German soldier he’s talking to noticing and pointing out his strange pronunciation. At 0:35 in the first video it’s very, very obvious when he yells the word “zurückkehren” (which finally makes the soldier address the issue)- because he pronounces it “zurück-kerr-än” - a very typical pronunciation with an English accent. Whereas a German would usually say: zurück-kehr’n”  (You can compare it to one of the Germans saying “zurückkehren” at minute 2:30) It is also interesting to compare how Fassbender pronounces an “r” vs. how the Germans do it - because he pronounces it like you would in English, while the German “r” sound is a bit harsher and produced a little bit further back in the throat. (Tip: If You can feel it vibrate in your mouth, you’re doing it rrrright). 

When he says “rrrrrüpelhaft” it seems as if he’s trying to pronounce the “r” like a native speaker there - but overdoes it. (Fassbender does the same exaggerated “r” sound at 2:56 with the word “Regisseur” and at 2:33 with “Riefenstahl”) - which just sounds a bit off. Compare it to Til Schweiger at 1:00 saying “betrunken (oder völlig) verrückt”. btw If you compare the way Schweiger says “sprechen” in that sentence with Michael Fassbender saying “sprechen” at 2:35 you will also notice the difference in the way they pronounce the “ch”.In that sequence at 2:30, Fassbender also says “gesehen” a lot - and always pronounces it G-esehen, while a German would probably pronounce it ge-seh-’n

Something that many German learners struggle with - that you can observe in these videos as well - is the pronunciation of infinitive verbs. German verbs, as you know, usually end in “-en” (gehen, sagen, sprechen, hoffen. etc). Now, German speakers usually barely utter the second “e” at all, it’s often: geh’n, sag’n, sprech’n - it*s something that sounds a little off sometimes when Fassbender speaks, because he often puts more emphasis on it than a German would for example when he asks “Haben Sie den Riefenstahl Film gesehen?” or at 3:24 in the second video when he says “aufsteh.en.”You can also observe the impact of the native English - at 2:50 when he says “Brüder” it comes out as “Brüddr” which sounds a lot like “brother” - while in German, the “ü” is stressed and the “r” is almost inaudible.I think the biggest challenge for English-speakers is the “ch” (which unexperienced speakers often turn into a “k” sound - for example turning “Nacht” into “nackt”, always fun). You can see Fassbender struggle a little with that a few times as well (it’s particularly important to keep in mind that there are two “ch” sounds - the one produced in the front of your mouth like in “ich” or “frech” or the one produced farther back in your mouth like in “Nacht” or “Bach” - so if you encounter a word with a “ch”, it’s best to check out which one it is.You can also see him struggle with the long words in German - he basically forces “tausendjähriges” out very quickly which sounds very strange and mechanical and at 3:20 in the second video he has a different strategy and stresses EVERY part of the world Hauptsturmbannführer: “Haupt. Sturm. Bann. Führer.” which sounds ... strange even when done for dramatic purposes. You can compare that to the way the German actor says the same word at 3:31. (especially if you pay attention to how they pronounce “Führer” you will notice the proximity issue. “Führer” is a word that many English-speakers find difficult to pronounce and I think it’s a) because many English-speakers are familiar with the word “Führer” but never heard a German pronounce it b) because of the close proximity of an “ü” and two “r” sounds. When Fassbender pronounces “Führer” it sounds very much like an English person would pronounce the world in an English context while the German guy pronounces it like a German does - that’s something else to keep in mind, that words you might be familiar with like “Volkswagen” or “Weltschmerz” or any of the others are usually pronounced with an accent when English-speakers use them (The same is, of course, true for any other loan words)

There*s a similar scene in First Class also with Michael Fassbender sitting in a pub with Nazis (seriously that’s... a huge part of his repertoire it seems) which you might want to check out bc again, he speaks German and the other guys are native speakers so if you want to keep looking for different pronunciations and accents, it might be interesting. 

(Also “Auslautverhärtung” is a big issue with English-speakers and German-speakers. The reason why German speakers tend to say things like “sayin-k” and “goin-k” and “leavin-k” is because the last sound of a word is usually spoken harsher in German than it is English. English-speakers often have the opposite problem and swallow the last sound a little. I didn’t notice particularly jarring examples of that in these scenes, but it’s still something to keep in mind)

All of that said and done and dissected, I think natural development and interacting with native speakers is much more effective and fun than just trying to avoid certain pronunciations or imitate how other people sound, especially bc I don’t want to bore you with technicalities or even worse, make you nervous about speaking because honestly? Accents are fun and everyone has them. Don’t worry too much about it

If you speak slowly, people will understand you and if you spend some time around native speakers, it will help a lot, it has a strong impact on the way you speak (so obviously i recommend listening to a lot of spoken German, watch films, shows, youtube etc.) And yes, pronunciation is important - you need to be understood after all - but having an accent is natural. Everyone has at least a regional accent and I don’t understand why foreign accents are automatically considered a flaw or a sign that someone isn’t able to communicate fully in that language they learnt. 

I recommend you focus on words and grammar and listening and reading comprehension and let things grow naturally and don’t actually enjoy having an accent. There’s nothing wrong with it.