Re: How to Make Chicken Cacciatore (was: phonetics by guesswork)

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 18:09:50 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
> Quoting Christian Thalmann <cinga@...>:
>
> > > I was taught that ä was pronounced
> > > like (German) e (and äu like eu),
> >
> > That's the case in the spoken High German of many Germans
> > I know.  It might actually have become the standard
> > pronunciation nowadays.  Saying /mE:dCn=/ rather than
> > /me:dCn=/ sounds kinda Swiss to my Swiss ears.  ;-)
>
> Most High German speakers I know do uphold the e~ä distinction,
Most of the ones I know don't :) For them, /E:/ is [e:].

> but I'm intrigued by eu~äu. As far as I'm aware, I've never met
> anyone distinguishing them, and I don't know what the distinction
> would be.
Nor do I. AFAIK eu = äu = oi = oy; all four spellings have identical
pronunciations. (Borrowed words such as "Toilette" excepted.)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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