Posts tagged ‘w’

August 22, 2010

“Quit quailing”

If you start studying German, you probably hear (or read) that the letter “w” is always pronounced as English ‘v‘. Hence “Walzer” sounds a lot more similar to ‘vulture’ than to its translation ‘waltz‘ (though by far not identically!) . Not that I wasn’t fond of dancing …

What sometimes is not explicitly mentioned in learning material: The second part of the combination “qu” is also pronounced as ‘v‘. Thus “quetschen” (‘to squash, to crush‘) sounds quite similar to ‘kvetch‘.

The English ‘w’ sound just doesn’t exist in German, and many Germans are not used to pronouncing it. Consequently, if English names or words are included in a German text, ‘w”s usually are substituted by ‘v”s in pronunciation – even if the speaker adopts to original English pronunciation otherwise.
This may be different if your conversational partner has high-level English skill and applies them frequently; however, even in that case, they might (unconsciously) adapt the foreign words to their sound environment.

So be prepared if a German mentions his visit to “Disney Vorld”.