General > General Technical Chat

Funny Company Names....

<< < (73/79) > >>

boffin:
I was always taught that an U with an Umlaut was to be prounced somewhere in-between "EW" and "OO"; so somewhere between
FOOKER and FEWKER in English, but not as a "y" in English (german EI sound)

Was I led astray by poor teaching?

harerod:
The IPA transcription of "Fücker": [fʏkɐ]. [fʏkər] would sound unnatural to most German native speakers, at least in the south. We have lots of accents and dialects in this country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Standard_German
[ʏ] is used to transcribe umlaut ü.
/er/ at word ending is often reduced into [ɐ], an effect similar to the schwa-sound in English - [ə].


As for ebastler's "won't raise an eyebrow at this" - that depends pretty much on the mental age of the reader...  :)

harerod:
boffin, have a look at this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_German_phonology, especially the vowel diagram.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_diagram
The vowel diagram shows the position of the blade of the tongue during sound production. The history of the first vowel diagram tells of sacrifices comparable to what the Curies did. When this research was first done, MRI was not available. So volunteers had several pieces of metal sewn to their tongues to enable x-ray photography and movies to be taken, while they spoke.

Edit: if one wanted to investigate further, the name "Daniel Jones" would provide a good starting point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_vowels <- check x-ray pictures to see the metal strips.

ebastler:

--- Quote from: boffin on July 05, 2021, 07:01:10 pm ---I was always taught that an U with an Umlaut was to be prounced somewhere in-between "EW" and "OO"; so somewhere between
FOOKER and FEWKER in English, but not as a "y" in English (german EI sound)

Was I led astray by poor teaching?

--- End quote ---

I wasn't thinking of the long "y", but a short one like in "mystery" or "cyst". But I realize now that this does not get the right "ü" sound.  The English pronouciation of that short "y" is much closer to a short "i" like in "picture" or "minion" than what we want for the "ü".

I guess there is a reason the the "ü" and "ö" are difficult for English speakers; there is no directly equivalent sound in English. "EW" or "OO" don't cut it either, I'm afraid.  ;)

There are plenty of sites with pronounciation examples these days, e.g. here: https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/dr%C3%BCcken. But if one is not used to the sound, it might be difficult to pick up the difference even from listening? (Just like it is difficult for Germans to get the English "W" or "TH" sounds initially...)

Edit: To offer another take on the "ü" sound: It is somewhere halfway between "eee" and "ooo" (as pronounced in English). Raise your tongue towards the roof of your mouth as when pronouncing "beetle", but round your lips as you would when pronouncing "boot". That should get you in the ballpark?

Nominal Animal:
Every time I write "per se", I cannot help but giggle a bit.  You see, Finnish "perse" = "arse" (in English).  I've hidden several dad jokes in my posts for those who know that to discover.  No laughs yet, though.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod