GERMAN DIFFICULT CONSONANTS

The German language has a few combinations of consonants that don’t occur in the English language. Most of them are easy to pronounce, with the exception of “ch,” which is unfamiliar to the English tongue. The letter combination ch has absolutely no equivalent in English. It’s kind of a gargling hiss and is represented by a capital “H” in the phonetic script.

Try to approximate this sound by starting with the way you pronounce the letter “h” in the beginning of the word human and then drawing out and emphasizing the “h.” The “ch” sound is produced at the same place in the back of your throat as the “k” sound. But instead of rolling your tongue in the back of your mouth — as you do when you pronounce a “k” — you have to lower it and bring it forward to your front teeth.

If you practice it a little, you shouldn’t have problems pronouncing the words ich (îH) (I) and vielleicht (fee-lyHt) (perhaps). (Yes, it does sound a bit like your cat when she has a hairball.)

GERMAN DIFFICULT CONSONANTS

German Difficult Consonants videos