Re: Number

On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, Henrik Theiling wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...> writes:
> > On Monday, August 6, 2001, at 05:16 AM, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> ...
> > Thank you.  :-)  That makes more sense to me now.  And [IS] for "ich" *is*
> >   acceptable in some dialects?  I had begun to wonder since I've heard both
> > [IC] and [IS] from my fiance.
>
> Well, many people seem to have it.  Some dialects even *swap* [C] and
> [S].  Anyway, this kind of things are not assumed to by Standard High
> German.  But who speaks the standard, you know?  Where's he from?
<wry g>  Well, he isn't; his father's parents are from the
Schwarzwald? region, and his father was 2 when they moved from
Germany to the U.S.  So my fiance probably got his pronunciation from
the high school German teachers, since his father understands but
almost never speaks the language.

> > >       der Dachs   [daks]
> ...
> > <profoundly relieved look>  You mean all that time I was sitting there
> > strangling on -chs- in those one-syllable words it was unnecessary?  <G>
>
> Hehe.  Maybe for most of them. :-)  It applies to more-syllable words,
> too: `wachsen' [vaksn=], as the morpheme boundary is after -chs-.
>
> Any try `Füchschen' (small fox) then: ["fYksC@n].  I think [sC] is
> really strange.  Or `Fläschchen' (small bottle): ["flESC@n].  [SC] is
> also weird.
The first is a bit difficulk, the second for some reason doesn't
bother me as much.  Then again, since you can't hear me, maybe I'm
deluding myself.  ;-)

> > Thanks for all the clarifications--now I must go work on my pronunciation
> > again, assuming I don't get a sore throat first.  <G>
>
> Well, German is no Arabic, is it? :-)  Have a lot of fun then!
The r's and ch's make my throat hurt...French did that too.  If I
could learn the apical? trilled r I would doubtless get fewer
throataches.

YHL

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