Any advice/tricks for teaching the German /o/ and /e/?

[Alharacas]

Hi! I'm new here, so I apologize if there's a different forum for this. If so, I'd be grateful if you redirected me. The thing is, I'm trying to teach somebody German whose native language is Turkish. He is very much willing to learn but seems incapable of pronouncing the German /o/ and /e/ (IPA). His /o/ always sounds like "oa" to me, his /e/ like a strong "ä". This makes his German very hard to understand (frustrating for him and everybody else).
Ideally, I'd like an animated video of the inside of someone's mouth to teach him how to produce these sounds. Unfortunately, so far the only vaguely helpful site I've found is "Sounds of German" (University of Iowa) but it's too simplified/schematic, it doesn't help him.
So, I'd be very grateful for any tricks and/or links you'd like to share.
Please note that I'm a German native speaker, so am able to produce any number of nice /o/ and /e/ sounds, which is why youtube videos of people saying /o/ and /e/ with examples are not what I'm looking for. Also, since my student is a man from a different culture, asking him to touch my cheeks and/or have a really close look at or even inside my mouth is out, unfortunately.
Very much looking forward to reading your answers!
Alharacas

[linguoboy]

His /o/ always sounds like "oa" to me, his /e/ like a strong "ä". This makes his German very hard to understand (frustrating for him and everybody else).

I'm surprised the "strong 'ä'" is an issue for other German-speakers, since /ɛ(ː)/ for /e(ː)/ is characteristic of the Alemannic dialect area and most Germans don't seem to have much trouble understanding an Alemannic accent. This makes me wonder if there's something else at play than just vowel quality which is causing an issue.

For instance, most varieties of English have a subphonemic feature by which vowels are lengthened in closed syllables before voiced obstruents. This is a technical way of saying that the /ɛ/ in bed is of slightly longer duration than the /ɛ/ in bet. Native speakers aren't aware of the difference when they speak, but they definitely notice it when it's not there. When L2 speakers don't lengthen the vowel in bed, native speakers are likely to mistake it for bet. (I have a German friend whose English is otherwise fluent and it took me the longest time to figure out why it sounded like he was devoicing final obstruents when he wasn't. This was the reason.)

If you can figure out what else might be a contributing factor here, you might be able to work on that instead. This would have the effect of increasing the intelligibility of his speech without having to force him to learn a distinction he's clearly struggling with.

[kevin]

When L2 speakers don't lengthen the vowel in bed, native speakers are likely to mistake it for bet. (I have a German friend whose English is otherwise fluent and it took me the longest time to figure out why it sounded like he was devoicing final obstruents when he wasn't. This was the reason.)

This is interesting. For myself, I feel that remembering to avoid the final devoicing is much harder than using different vowel lengths, so as another native German speaker, I'm likely to make the exactly opposite mistake.

[Car]

When L2 speakers don't lengthen the vowel in bed, native speakers are likely to mistake it for bet. (I have a German friend whose English is otherwise fluent and it took me the longest time to figure out why it sounded like he was devoicing final obstruents when he wasn't. This was the reason.)

This is interesting. For myself, I feel that remembering to avoid the final devoicing is much harder than using different vowel lengths, so as another native German speaker, I'm likely to make the exactly opposite mistake.

Same for me. Actually, I think I automatically tend to lengthen them because it makes it easier not to devoice the following consonants.

[Alharacas]

Thanks for the detailed answer, Da!
Yes, of course there are other issues at play, any number of them. Word stress for one (I can't figure out the rules for word stress in Turkish, that doesn't help, either, otherwise I might be able to point out the difference), i.e. a strong tendency to stress/over-enunciate the last letters, the ones which are rarely even pronounced in German (-en, -er, -ng, -e), not differentiating between long and short vowels (Turkish doesn't have those), and of course he tends to forget that "z" sounds like "ts" in German, the "h" in "wohnen" is silent and the "w" is not pronunced the way he thinks it is (rather like an "f") - that kind of thing which needs practice. So, all in all he tends to end up with something approximating "Ee phonEY" for "ich wohne".
However, I've now figured out that the only thing that matters if you want a clear /o/ sound is the kissy mouth. Problem is, it makes him laugh so much that he stops speaking at all. Apparently, it just makes him feel ridiculous. Sigh.

[linguoboy]

Yes, of course there are other issues at play, any number of them. Word stress for one (I can't figure out the rules for word stress in Turkish, that doesn't help, either, otherwise I might be able to point out the difference)

Final stress is the default, but there are many exceptions.

not differentiating between long and short vowels (Turkish doesn't have those)

Actually, it does, but their distribution is very different from German, so it may be difficult to map the Turkish long vowels to German long vowels.

he tends to forget that "z" sounds like "ts" in German, the "h" in "wohnen" is silent

Maybe encourage him to think of medial <h> as the equivalent of <ğ> (which is often pronounced only as lengthening of the previous vowel)?

and the "w" is not pronunced the way he thinks it is (rather like an "f") - that kind of thing which needs practice. So, all in all he tends to end up with something approximating "Ee phonEY" for "ich wohne".

And if you rewrite this ih voğne, what happens?

[linguoboy]

When L2 speakers don't lengthen the vowel in bed, native speakers are likely to mistake it for bet. (I have a German friend whose English is otherwise fluent and it took me the longest time to figure out why it sounded like he was devoicing final obstruents when he wasn't. This was the reason.)

This is interesting. For myself, I feel that remembering to avoid the final devoicing is much harder than using different vowel lengths, so as another native German speaker, I'm likely to make the exactly opposite mistake.

Same for me. Actually, I think I automatically tend to lengthen them because it makes it easier not to devoice the following consonants.

Isn't this a widespread feature among Austro-Bavarian varieties?

[Car]

When L2 speakers don't lengthen the vowel in bed, native speakers are likely to mistake it for bet. (I have a German friend whose English is otherwise fluent and it took me the longest time to figure out why it sounded like he was devoicing final obstruents when he wasn't. This was the reason.)

This is interesting. For myself, I feel that remembering to avoid the final devoicing is much harder than using different vowel lengths, so as another native German speaker, I'm likely to make the exactly opposite mistake.

Same for me. Actually, I think I automatically tend to lengthen them because it makes it easier not to devoice the following consonants.

Isn't this a widespread feature among Austro-Bavarian varieties?

I wouldn't know.

[linguoboy]

Siehe §6: http://www.bairische-sprache.at/Index/Remaraweng%20Boarisch%20-%20Lehren/Lautlehre-1.htm

[Alharacas]

Thanks again, Da! What a great idea, of course you're right about <ğ> being rather like the "Dehnungs-H". I should have realized that myself, only my Turkish is hardly even rudimentary, not even approaching A1. That's why my attempts at phonetic writing are pretty much doomed.
Any ideas on what to do about the (invariably soft) "z"? Other than to pencil in a /ts/ above every "z" in the text?

[Car]

Siehe §6: http://www.bairische-sprache.at/Index/Remaraweng%20Boarisch%20-%20Lehren/Lautlehre-1.htm

Thanks, but why did you ask if you already knew the answer?

[kevin]

Same for me. Actually, I think I automatically tend to lengthen them because it makes it easier not to devoice the following consonants.

Isn't this a widespread feature among Austro-Bavarian varieties?

Aren't those consonants always unvoiced? (§5 in your link) The section you referred to only talks about Fortis/Lenis.

[vijayjohn]

Any ideas on what to do about the (invariably soft) "z"? Other than to pencil in a /ts/ above every "z" in the text?

That might just take time for him to get used to. (I'm pretty sure it did for me when I was learning German). Have you considered (or are you already) using or recommending him audio materials with a transcript, such as one of the various online Deutsche Welle series for foreigners learning German?

[Alharacas]

Well, we're using Kolay almanca (ASSiMiL), with the audio tracks, obviously. And we're working (a bit) with the First German Reader (lppbooks.com, audio tracks freely available on the internet), since the daughter's English is quite decent. I've asked in both the Turkish and the German forum here on unilang if anybody knows of a good German grammar for Turkish native speakers, because of course they notice the bits which are different, and explaining grammar in Turkish is completely beyond me. But so far no answers.
Yes, I'll recommend Deutsche Welle, at least to the daugther. Using different kinds of materials and approaches often helps, I know.
Thanks for taking an interest, Da.

[Vlürch]

he tends to forget that "z" sounds like "ts" in German, the "h" in "wohnen" is silent

Maybe encourage him to think of medial <h> as the equivalent of <ğ> (which is often pronounced only as lengthening of the previous vowel)?

That, and to pronounce the long vowels as if they were followed by <ğ> as well. That could go horribly wrong if he speaks a dialect where that's actually pronounced as a fricative like [ɣ], though...

Another thing that could be contributing to the difference is that in Turkish, apparently /t/ and /d/ are proper dental [t̪ d̪].

...but I'm not really in a position to give suggestions on how to improve pronunciation, since I butcher English worse than Leatherface and I've been learning it since I was five... and even my Finnish is apparently somewhat weird, like a few borderline speech impediments.

[vijayjohn]

If it helps you feel any better, my English is a little weird sometimes, too. E.g. "gimme a fruit" is a perfectly grammatical utterance for me.

[OldBoring]

If it helps you feel any better, my English is a little weird sometimes, too. E.g. "gimme a fruit" is a perfectly grammatical utterance for me.

So what are you supposed to say in English? A piece of fruit?
That sounds weird to me. Cause if I hear piece, I imagine fruit cut into pieces, like in fruit salad.

[vijayjohn]

If it helps you feel any better, my English is a little weird sometimes, too. E.g. "gimme a fruit" is a perfectly grammatical utterance for me.

So what are you supposed to say in English? A piece of fruit?

Yep.

That sounds weird to me. Cause if I hear piece, I imagine fruit cut into pieces, like in fruit salad.

Me, too! And of course that's the interpretation that a literal translation into Malayalam would suggest, and probably also the one a literal translation into Italian or Chinese would suggest. But apparently, that's just how it is.

[Babbsagg]

From my experience, make a really exaggerated eee-äää-eee-äää-eee and make them do it too. It may seem cartoonish, but that's not bad at all if it gets across the idea.