German as a spoken language is as "phonetic" as any other spoken language, but of course you wonder whether the spelling is phonetic. Entirely phonetically spelled languages are extremely rare (I think Finnish is probably the most accurately and constant spelled language in Europe). Whether you think something is phonetic depends on the sound values you give to letters or letter combinations. If these values or rules are applied constant, you might say it is very phonetic. There are, however, several problems:
First of all, a written language is always an abstraction of the actual spoken one. Since most languages involve dialects, a written language is hardly ever coping the whole spectrum of that language. as soon as you have phonetic spelling for a part of the language it excludes another immediately. Maybe written languages are never really spoken...
Secondly, alphabets, including the latin one we use, do not contain all the sounds a language has, so you will have to make combinations (e.g. sh and th in Engli
sh). Also some sounds can be double in an alfabeth: k-q-c can have the same value.
Thirdly, some letters may not be pronounced, but can have functions like stress or vowel length.
Furthermore, written languages can contain all kinds of "historic loads", e.g. words that are spelled differently than expected to indicate etymology or words are spelled in the way they
used to be pronounced in the past (very common in English).
Lastely, some spellings are caused by grammatical derivations.
MackMallone wrote:I don't think German is phonetic, But I think it is far more phonetic than English and French
It is indeed true that German has a more regular pronunciation than English, but to my opinion also French is regular. But in German, contrary to French, usually most letters are pronounced. I think that German has a fairly phonectic pronunciation. Or is at least very regular (though regular is not the same as phonetic:
senatortombstone wrote:I have been learning German for over two years and I can tell you that nearly all of the prnounciation rules are followed.
Problematic, though, are vowels, particularly e/i. And many examples you give indeed show deviations from absolute phonetic spelling. But there are some comments and corrections:
z is pronounced ts = not phonetic
but it is regularei/eu/äu pronounced AI/OY/OY = not phonetic
eu/äu are pronounced oiW is pronounced v, and V is pronounced f = not phonetic
Actually w is pronounced differently than w AND v in English. v=f is indeed not phoneticÄ Ü Ö are pronounced totally different than the original vowels = not phonetic.
They ARE phonetic, as they should be considered as different letters rather than derivations. However, they can be long and short, and ä can sometimes be pronounced [e] instead of the official [æ]. This is a case of a shortage of letters in the latin alphabeth.Ig is pronounced iç not ig or ik.
In the middle and south of Germany -ig is actually pronounced as [ik], in the north as [iç]. g is used because of this, but there is also a grammatical cause: adjectives are conjugated when folled by an noun, and then it is pronounced as [ig]: lustig [lustik/ç] becomes das lustige Lied [das lusti:ge li:t], the merry song. So there is a reason for spelling words in an unphonetic fashion.ß is pronounced ss and not B
ß ("eszet" [es-tset]) is not a B, but a combination of the gothic/old German letters s and z. It is used to indicate a sharp s instead of a soft s (which is a [z]). Example: Straße. The eszet indicates that it is pronounced as [shtra:se] (sharp s after a long vowel), Strase would be [shtra:ze] and Strasse [shtrase] SILENT LETTERS = NOT PHONETIC
Silent O: Schoen. Tour
schoen should be spelled schön, tour is an unchanged French word. In a regular, adjusted spelling it would be "Tur".Silent A: Maedchen
Like oe= ö, ae= ä: MädchenSilent U: Muendung
again, ue= ü, MündungSilent E: Knie, Nie (not silent in Tier)
true, it is not really phonetic, but regular. The e indicates i is long and not shortSilent T: Etwas, Netz
t is NOT silent in etwas, but fully pronounced: [ætwas]Silent H: Heute, Gehen, Stehen, Thema = not phonetic
h is always pronounced in heute, and officially pronounced in stehen and gehen, of which exist several versions: e.g. stehen: [shte:hen, shte:n, shte:en].Silent C: Stock, Nach, Schön
c in ck-combination is used to indicate that the vowel before is short (see below). "ch" and "sch" are used becaus the latin alfabeth lacks letters for [x], [ç] and [sh] , I use sh since I don't now the alt-code for the actual phonetic letter)Silent D: Stadt
This is an example of historic load: in old German it was stade or staede (like in old English and Dutch, too). It could be spelled as Statt (as you indicated already below), and plural: Stäte (the vowel is long than). So Städte, as it is spelled now, is completely non-phonetic AND irregular!Silent R: Tier
R is notoriously difficult in German: including all dialects it can be everything between tong-tip r and French-like throat-r (though not the English "are") and a or silent at the end of a word or syllable. It depends on where you are from or how "socially upperclass" you try to speak.IRREGULARITIES FOR V
Lava, Vase, Vulkan.Vulgär
REDUNDANCIES
Netz = z is already pronounced ts
Stadt instead of Statt
Gehen, why not Geeen
gehen: see abovevowels
This is indeed true!There are two sounds for i [i:] and [I
There are two sounds for u [u:] and [U]
There are two sounds for e [e:] and [E]
There are two sounds for o [o:] and [O]
There are two sounds for a [a:] and [A]
There are two sounds for ä [E:] and [æ]
There are two sounds for ö [2:] and [9]
There are two sounds for ü [y:] and [Y]
MackMallone wrote:We can never know when a vowel is long or not, we have to mesmorize the word.
There are several ways to indicate whether a vowel is short or long in German, although there are cases where you have to learn it by heart:
-a double consonant usually indicates a short vowel, a single a long vowel: stumm (silent, dumb), Ton (clay), Tonne (barrel). However, Mann (man) and man (one, people, they as in people say, one says) are both [man]. For k, ck is used instead of kk: Sack (sack), gucken (to look, see)
-h after a vowel indicates it is long:
Stahl (steal) [shta:l], Stall (stable, shed, sty) [shtal]
-e after i:
Stiel (stalk, stem) [shti:l], still (silent) [shtil][/i]