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Foreign Words
Foreign words should be transcribed with a certain adaption to German
pronunciation habits. As there are hardly any conventions for this type of
transcription (the DUDEN only provides the 'original' pronunciations), we
can only give some rough guidelines here. It is generally advisable to avoid
exaggerations, transcriptions should represent a reasonably talented speaker
(so no 'Mock German English', please!). The native pronunciation remains
the reference.
A table giving an overview about the phoneme mapping between German,
English and French can be seen here.
Vowel qualities have to be mainly modified in view of the German pronunciation
of English words:
- English distinguishes between more closed /e/ and more open /{/.
For the German pronunciation, /E/ should be used in both cases.
Example: |
Brenda |
br'end@ |
|
»»»»»»»» |
br'Enda |
|
BigDaddy |
bIgd'{di |
|
»»»»»»»» |
bIkd'Edi |
- English /V/ has to be replaced with German /a/. Those two qualities
are not very different, anyway, and using the German symbol helps reducing
the number of additional phonemes.
Example: |
brother |
br'VD@ |
|
»»»»»»»» |
br'aD6 |
- English /Q/ has to be replaced with German /O/ (Note: /Q/ does
not stand for glottal stop here, but for a open back rounded vowel quality)
Example: |
McDonalds |
m@kd'Qn@ldz |
|
»»»»»»»» |
m@kd'On@lts |
- English final /@/, often respresented by the graphemes <-er>
or <-a>, is replaced with /6/ or /a/ depending on the orthography.
Example: |
brother |
br'VD@ |
|
»»»»»»»» |
br'aD6 |
|
Brenda |
br'end@ |
|
»»»»»»»» |
br'Enda |
- English /@/ can be replaced with German /9/ when occurring in
an unstressed position.
Example: |
Dolby-Surround |
d''Qlbis@r'aUnd |
|
»»»»»»»» |
d''Olbiz9r'aUnt |
- English further back /A:/ has to be replaced with German /a:/.
Example: |
Hugh Grant |
hju:grA:nt |
|
»»»»»»»» |
hj''u:gr'a:nt |
- The English Diphthong /eI/ has to be replaced with the German
Monophthong /e:/.
Example: |
Take-Away |
t'eIk@v''eI |
|
»»»»»»»» |
t'e:kEv''e: |
- English /3:/ has to be replaced with German /96/:
Example: |
Worst-Case |
w3:stkeIs |
|
»»»»»»»» |
v96stke:s |
This example shows also, that the typical English /w/ has to be replaced
with /v/ for German pronunciations.
The French nasalisation of vowels can be indicated by adding a tilde after
the relevant vowel. Note that the tilde should be placed before a
following lengthening symbol ':'.
Example: |
Restaurant |
rEstor'a~: |
English 'th', which has to be transcribed as /T/ and /D/ respectively,
as well as the voiced fricative /Z/ and the voiced affricate /dZ/ (English,
French, Italian, ...) should not be changed - that is unless they occur
in the coda and are subject to the 'auslautverhärtung'.
Example: |
brother |
br'aD6 |
|
Regie |
reZ'i: |
|
Giardino |
dZard'i:no |
When transcribing words from less common languages it is advisable to
look at the orthography in order to decide on what could be the most likely
German pronunciation.
Example: |
Tarragona |
tarraG'ona |
(span) |
|
»»»»»»»» |
tarag'ona |
(dt) |
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All Symbols Up: Basic
Transcription Previous page: Reductions Contents
Sonja Biersack 2003-04-02