Читать книгу Instant! German - Nick Ph.D Theobald - Страница 4

Please read the following care-full-lee…

English: Sorry, my German is not very good.

German: Tut mir leid, mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut.

Phonetics: Toot mere light, mine Doytch ist nisht zeer goot.

Toot - what boats do

mere - a mere handful

light - the opposite of dark

mine - it’s mine, not yours

Doytch - kind of as you’d expect

ist - same sound as list

nisht - nish + a ‘t’ at the end

zeer - same sound as beer

goot - same sound as foot

English: What’s new?

German: Was gibt's neues?

Phonetics: Vass gibs noy-iss?

Vass - like pass

gibs - like ribs

noy-iss - noy + iss

English: How much please?

German: Was kostet ess bitte?

Phonetics: Vass cost-est ess bitter?

Vass - like pass

cost-est - cost + est

ess - same sound as less

bitter - as in bitter

English: Do you have an English menu?

German: Haben sie eine englische Karte?

Phonetics: Ha-ben zee eye-ner Englisher carter?

Ha-ben - Ha + ben

zee - as you’d expect

eye-ner - same sound as miner

Englisher - as you’d expect

carter - as in get carter

English: May I ask who’s calling?

German: Wer ist dort?

Phonetics: Vair ist dort?

Vair - same sound as fair

ist - like list

dort - like sort

Pronouncing the “Ich” word & other Teutonic technicalities

Ich is the first person singular in German.

Ich can be hard to pronounce, so we’ve cheated slightly and phoneticised it throughout as Ish. Ich and all German words with an ich or ch in them, are pronounced like the end of Bach. Ish is close enough, and in some parts of Germany, Ich is in fact pronounced as Ish.

• You’ll see that some phrases vary slightly when addressing friends, or strangers.

• We hyphenate many words so the the component parts are easier to sound out. Always run hy-phen-ated words together. OK?