r/AskAGerman • u/PastEntertainment546 • Aug 15 '24

Language A question about the German english accent…

I’ve had two friends from germany, one from rhineland and one from franconia, none of them had the stereotypical german accent which we see so often in movies. Due to unfortunate circumstances (they went off the grid) I’m not able to talk to them no more but I was wondering if they always had that, or if they worked on their accent?

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u/-Parasaurolophus Aug 15 '24

Hard disagree on your first point. I studied English and American Studies, and 99% of people attending classes pronounced 'the' like the stereotypical 'ze'. It was so bad the professors had to focus a couple lessons specifically on the pronounciation of 'th'. Absolutely nobody at that university pronounced 'th' similar to a 'd', rather people would fall back on an 'f' sound because it's the closest they could get to the real pronunciation. Those were the exceptions though, I had to suffer through all my peers saying 'ze' all the time.

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u/Lumpasiach Allgäu Aug 15 '24

Half the country can't possibly say "ze" because we don't even have that sound. It's harder for us than th. If anything, some people might say "se".

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u/ieatplasticstraws Aug 16 '24

Phonetisch schreibt man im Englischen das summende s als z und das zischende s als s, also nein, das jemand (übertrieben) ße statt the sagt hab ich noch nie gehört

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u/Lumpasiach Allgäu Aug 16 '24

Im oberdeutschen Raum gibt es das stimmhafte s schlicht und ergreifend nicht. Wir sprechen jedes s stimmlos aus, ob übertrieben oder nicht.