Do you have any Jews handy? Because the German ch is almost exactly the same as the sound of the Hebrew letter chet. If you know how to pronounce the Hebrew words l'chaim or Chanukah, you know how to pronounce ich.
It's also the same sound as the one that ends the Scots word "loch".
Failing these, put your tongue at the roof of you mouth and prepare to spit. That's as close as I can describe the actual mechanics of pronouncing it.
To further complicate matters, there are some dialects which pronounce it as a soft sound, as in church or chatter.
If random prefixes wierd you out, just wait until until you start dealing with verbs that get split up. I think they're called separable prefixes. Thus: I come to Berlin = Ich komm' zu Berlin. (infinitive is kommen) I come back to Berlin = Ich komm' zu Berlin zuruck. (infinitive is zuruckkommen). I have come back to Berlin = Ich hab' zu Berlin zuruckgekommen. Zuruck has an umlaut there, but my ascii-fu is too weak to get in. Usually the separated part is a actually a preposition or adverb on its own, but glommed onto the main verb. Just remember that the prefix shows up at the end of the clause or sentence unless it's one of those cases where the verb itself is required to be at the end, in which case the prefix is joined to the parent verb, but ge- gets put between them because the prefix is only a prefix.
And after you've got a semester worth under your belt, look up Mark Twain's tirade against the German language. Not only is it funny, but it's deadly accurate; sentence ending verbs come in for more than their share of the diatribe.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 04:24 am (UTC)It's also the same sound as the one that ends the Scots word "loch".
Failing these, put your tongue at the roof of you mouth and prepare to spit. That's as close as I can describe the actual mechanics of pronouncing it.
To further complicate matters, there are some dialects which pronounce it as a soft sound, as in church or chatter.
If random prefixes wierd you out, just wait until until you start dealing with verbs that get split up. I think they're called separable prefixes. Thus:
I come to Berlin = Ich komm' zu Berlin. (infinitive is kommen)
I come back to Berlin = Ich komm' zu Berlin zuruck. (infinitive is zuruckkommen).
I have come back to Berlin = Ich hab' zu Berlin zuruckgekommen.
Zuruck has an umlaut there, but my ascii-fu is too weak to get in.
Usually the separated part is a actually a preposition or adverb on its own, but glommed onto the main verb. Just remember that the prefix shows up at the end of the clause or sentence unless it's one of those cases where the verb itself is required to be at the end, in which case the prefix is joined to the parent verb, but ge- gets put between them because the prefix is only a prefix.
And after you've got a semester worth under your belt, look up Mark Twain's tirade against the German language. Not only is it funny, but it's deadly accurate; sentence ending verbs come in for more than their share of the diatribe.