How to read German
Video: Introduction to German in 30 Minutes - How to Read, Write and Speak 2024, July
Many find the German language very difficult to learn - and completely unfair. Structured grammar helps to quickly understand the principles of sentence construction, and light phonetics makes it possible to read texts from the very first lesson in the language.
Instruction manual
one
Unlike English, French and other European languages, about German the formula "as it is written, so is read" is valid. You just need to learn the rules for reading individual sounds. For example, sch - w, tsch - h, st - pc, sp - sp, umlauts, several diphthongs and so on. Often, transcription can be found in the dictionary, after a single reading you will remember how a particular word is read.
2
Some words in German at first glance seem very cumbersome, but don’t be scared, but look for short words that are familiar to you. The Germans have a special passion for mixing a few words into one big one. For example, a complex pile of letters of Fischfangnetz can easily be decomposed into the components of Fisch - fish, Fang - fishing and Netz - network, after which a huge noun becomes easy to read and understand.
3
Many Russian-speaking students make a huge mistake, softening the consonants before the soft vowels, this can not be shared in any case. In German there is only one soft sound, denoted by the letter "L", for its pronunciation should use the analogue of the Russian sound "L", located somewhere in between the sounds in the words "lamp" and "strap". In all other cases, the consonants remain firm, no matter what sound they follow.
4
The accent in German words is usually placed on the first syllable, but some prefixes may remain unstressed, but suffixes, on the contrary, are stressed. It is enough to understand the principle of stressing once and there should be no problems with this in the future.
Useful advice
It will be nice if your German textbook is supplemented with audio materials. Then you can listen to the texts, following them on paper. This will make it possible to quickly understand how to read German correctly.