English → German
German uses 43 sounds. You already own 27 of them from English. The other 16 are the work — and 14 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: postalveolar → alveolar
German: time · written "z", "tz", "c (before e, i)", "-tion"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in church (church).
the move: near-open → open
German: man · written "a (short)"
Your /æ/ is the one in cat (cat).
the move: longer
German: cheese · written "ä (long)", "äh"
Many speakers say /eː/.
Your /ɛ/ is the one in bed (bed).
the move: close, but not identical
German: sun · written "o (short)"
Your /ɔː/ is the one in law (law).
the move: rounded
German: five · written "ü (short)", "y"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in sit (sit).
the move: rounded
German: door · written "ü (long)", "üh"
Your /iː/ is the one in see (see).
the move: front → central
German: mother · written "-er (final)", "r after a vowel"
Vocalised r — sounds like a light 'uh'. Tür /tyːɐ̯/.
Your /æ/ is the one in cat (cat).
the move: open-mid → close-mid
German: bread · written "o (long)", "oo", "oh"
Your /ɔː/ is the one in law (law).
the move: postalveolar → palatal
German: I · written "ch (after front vowels, consonants, in -chen)", "-ig"
Whisper a 'y' (as in yes) hard. Ich-Laut.
Your /ʃ/ is the one in ship (ship).
the move: postalveolar → labiodental
German: horse · written "pf"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in church (church).
the move: near-open → open, longer
German: father · written "a (long)", "aa", "ah"
Your /æ/ is the one in cat (cat).
the move: plosive → fricative
German: stream · written "ch after a, o, u, au"
Ach-Laut — from the back of the throat.
Your /k/ is the one in cat (cat).
Words you may say identically
Two or more German sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
Genuinely new
Nothing in English sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| English | German | |
|---|---|---|
| Stress | Contrastive, and unmarked in writing — the single most common cause of not being understood. Dozens of noun/verb pairs differ only in where the stress goes, and every unstressed vowel collapses to /ə/. | Contrastive in a very German way: with separable-vs-inseparable prefix verbs, the stress tells you which grammar you are in — and therefore what the sentence means. Otherwise stress sits on the stem syllable, and the unstressed prefixes (be-, ge-, er-, ver-, zer-, ent-) never take it. |
What you have that German doesn't
16 sounds with no job in German. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your English has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned German from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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