Phonological difficulty for English speakers: Moderate

GERMAN — Pronunciation for English Speakers

This guide is based on a phoneme-by-phoneme comparison of GERMAN and English. GERMAN and English share 21 sounds — about 51% of GERMAN's inventory. The remaining sounds are where English speakers will need to focus their practice.

New sounds to learn

Familiar sounds

English sounds not used

Sounds to learn from scratch (20)

These phonemes exist in GERMAN but not in English. English speakers will need to learn to produce and perceive them as new categories — not just a variation of an existing English sound.

k Voiceless... p Voiceless... t Voiceless... x Voiceless... ʀ Voiced Uvu... pf Voiceless... aː Voiced Vel... eː Voiced Vel... uː Voiced Bil... ɔ Voiced Bil... ɪ Voiced Pal... ə Voiced Vel... ɛː Voiced Vel... œ Voiced Bil... øː Voiced Bil... yː Voiced Bil... ʏ Voiced Bil... ai Voiced Vel... au Voiced Vel... ɔi Voiced Vel...

Familiar sounds (21)

These phonemes exist in both GERMAN and English. You already produce and perceive them — though they may appear in different positions or syllable structures.

h j l m n s ŋ iː oː b d ʊ z ɡ ʃ ʒ f v ts ɛ ɐ

English sounds not used in GERMAN (24)

These English phonemes don't exist in GERMAN. Native GERMAN speakers learning English will face the reverse challenge with these sounds.

pʰ t̠ʃ w e i d̠ʒ ɒ ð θ ɘ ɹ kx ɐː ʉː iə eə oe æe ɑe ɵː æo ɐʉ ɒɯ ʉə

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