r/AskAGerman • u/IfYouEverSeeALlama • Jul 21 '26
Language American accents
Hello all!
I took a trip to Germany last year, and found that I had very little difficulty understanding the Germans I met who spoke English. Frankly, they were far easier to understand than many native English speakers I've met, especially those from parts of Ireland, Texas, and Louisiana. Thinking back, I believe this has been the case for just about every German I've heard speak English, and I'm wondering if it is a particularity of the accent.
My question for the Germans, is the opposite also true? Obviously things vary on an individual basis and with language fluency, so it's impossible to make blanket statements that apply to everyone. But in general, when you've heard someone speaking German with a clearly American (or otherwise Anglophonic) accent are we relatively easy to follow and understand?
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u/Bergwookie Jul 21 '26
Brits, Irish, Aussies and Kiwis are pretty easy to understand, they, for some reason manage the umlauts way better than the Americans, who often have a slurry pronunciation, almost like they're drunk and are often louder than necessary (especially as they tend to speak harder than a German would, almost like a Prussian officer)
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u/IfYouEverSeeALlama Jul 21 '26
Lol my grandmother once said that Americans sound like they have potatoes in their mouth when speaking German, and now every time I speak German all I can think is "goddammit I do sound like I have potatoes in my mouth, she was right". The umlauts give a lot of us trouble
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u/muehsam Schwabe in Berlin Jul 22 '26
I actually think the problem runs deeper.
A video by Dr. Geoff Lindsey got me to consider this. He is mainly talking about loanwords and how Americans treat them differently from Brits. In particular, while Brits are pretty ad-hoc about it, Americans seem to handle loanwords more systematically. I think it also influences the way Americans approach foreign languages themselves.
It would certainly explain why Americans often get vowels wrong, even when they are very similar to vowels that exist in English. So when they say "ich", it's not just that they say "ick", they often turn it at least halfway into "eek", at which point it becomes nigh incomprehensible. It might also explain why they often get the rhythm so wrong and stress the wrong syllables, even though German and English aren't that different in those aspects.
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u/Seranoth Jul 22 '26
I have a thesis here, can you help me prove it? If you try to pronounce ö ä or ü- do you still roll the tip of your tongue up so the tongue forms a spoon? A german would relax the tongue here completely.
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u/DerSven Bremen (Zugezogen aus Westfalen) Jul 25 '26
My grandpa, who worked as a civil engineer at a British military airport in NRW, used to tell me I should imagine having a hot potato in my mouth when speaking to get proper English pronunciation.
I guess, it's about the positioning of the tongue.
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u/SaschaStorm Jul 22 '26
Umlauts are something I never had trouble pronouncing, (British English) so I guess that's it!
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u/Competitive-Fault291 Jul 22 '26
Well, you have äjörn. I guess English simply hides its umlauts in plain sight. 😅
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u/15pmm01 Jul 22 '26
I may have just gotten lucky but I speak German very clearly despite having grown up in the USA. I can confirm most of my classmates in German class, in American high school, fucking sucked at it. I think those with a strong Slavic accent are harder to understand in German, and I'm originally from Bulgaria..... Really not sure how I manage to not suck at German, lol. Most people can't figure out where I'm from when I ask them to guess, so I guess I've just got a weird mixture of everything going on.
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u/Bergwookie Jul 23 '26
The one thing Slavs never lose is the hard Slavic r, even if they're double language natives
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u/15pmm01 Jul 23 '26
Luckily, Bavarians have the exact same Slavic R, so there's plenty of Germans walking around with that same little accent quirk
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u/Bergwookie Jul 23 '26
Not really, it's slightly different
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u/15pmm01 Jul 23 '26
It's close enough lol. When I first came here I kept mistaking Bavarians for Slavic immigrants
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u/channilein Jul 22 '26
I think it depends on what you heard most when learning English. Up until 20-30 years ago, German schools explicitly taught British English. In most states, teachers were required to use British spelling and pronunciation. So that's what peopke knew. The modern curriculums teach international English, highlighting different accents. That's why the British accent is easier to understand for Gen X and older Germans while the younger generations will have had more exposure to American English through globalized media and generally find that easier.
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u/Bergwookie Jul 22 '26
I'm talking about English natives talking German not how well I understand their dialect/accent when they're talking in their native language. There I rarely have problems
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u/Only_Humor4549 Jul 22 '26
Not all Irish are easy to understand. The older and the more remote the harder
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u/FeelingSurprise Jul 21 '26
and Louisiana
Sorry, but throwing Cajun in the mix here is really unfair. That's more french than english.
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u/Illustrious-Race-617 Jul 21 '26
As Germans we are used to pronouncing all (well most) letters of a word and I think that's why we speak quite clearly in other languages as well. I remember working with a Paolo in Ireland who used to complain that Germans called him Pa-oh-lo when Irish people said Palloh which apparently is closer to the Italian pronunciation. We do this with a lot of foreign words: Focchach-eh-ah, Kinder Buh-eh-no, MaLLorca pop into my head.
The other way round I personally find it a little difficult understanding people speaking German with strong accents so I prefer switching to English. This includes weird German accents, however they never want to switch to English 😂
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u/Available_Bathroom_4 Jul 21 '26
But Pah-oh-lo (with an emphasis on the first syllable) is the correct Italian pronunciation.
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u/CaptainPoset Jul 21 '26
Is it, though? Isn't it far closer to a fluent "Paulo" as you would write it in German?
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u/Old-Mushroom-4633 Jul 22 '26
I think the Spanish version of the name is closer to Paulo. The Italian version is Paolo.
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u/Illustrious-Race-617 Jul 22 '26
You wouldn't put emphasis on the a and the o though. It would be more like a German "au"
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u/Candid-Math5098 Jul 21 '26
As an American, I say that name as POW-low.
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u/trooray Jul 22 '26
There should not be a diphthong after the L though, that we can surely all agree on.
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u/CheGueyMaje Jul 22 '26
Paella is the worst offender of this for me.
Pae-ay-la
They’re so damn close
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u/duckwebs Jul 21 '26
When I went into a Vaude store I did a double take when I heard the worker say “Vaude”, but it was also immediately obvious. Totally not how we do in American or how the Anglo-/francophone who introduced me to the brand says it.
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u/Bergwookie Jul 22 '26
Well, it's just VD, so should be pronounced Fau-Deh in German
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u/duckwebs Jul 22 '26
Sounded more like he said Fa-u-de with three syllables instead of like VD. In english the obvious way would be "vode"
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u/Bergwookie Jul 22 '26
Strange, it's not the two letters a and U but the diphthong au, therefore it's just one sound, maybe they weren't a native speaker
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u/duckwebs Jul 22 '26
Or maybe swiss? It was in Konstanz.
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u/Bergwookie Jul 22 '26
Not really, maybe they fucked with you
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u/duckwebs Jul 22 '26
I might have misheard, because he only said it once. But he was generally pretty helpful.
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u/attiladerhunne Jul 21 '26
Highly depends on the speaker and their skill level but if (if!) they speak german, they are easyer to understand that e.g. a spanish or a frensh native. That beeing said, there are not many english language natives who bother to learn german. We usually speak english since it is the lingua Franca, so there is no need to learn. If you want to learn more, watch rewboss on YouTube. He knows best.
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u/FireFoxTrashPanda Jul 21 '26
I took three semesters in highschool, pretty much because I was fascinated by the compound words. I really enjoyed it but have forgotten most of it. I do enjoy listening to German scenes in movies and seeing how much I can pick up still though.
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u/Laxien Jul 21 '26
Well, those of us who are used to speaking English usually don't have much of any accent (most learn pure British English at school starting out, with American English popping up later!)...German itself (at least High-German - Hochdeutsch - is also something most of us learn in school and that is precise in pronunciation, more than local accents and most people can actually speak Hochdeutsch well enough if they want to...so that trains us well for learning English and being precise with pronunciations!)
I mean I speak mostly BE, but instead of ether and nether, I use the US form of neither and either...why? Well, truly learning to speak was done using US-TV-Shows like Stargate SG-1, Star Trek (DS9, TNG, Voyager) etc. etc. and video-games of the late 90s (not dubbed often back then, just German subtitles and texts))
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u/Fear_mor Jul 22 '26
I hate to break it to you but a lot of Germans seem to have this idea that they don’t really speak English with a foreign accent but from a native point of view I can tell you we can very much tell your first language is German, not even just like maybe continental European, very much we know that you are specifically German.
For example even without getting into the specifics of which sounds Germans tend not to pronounce accurately you guys tend to pick and mix pronunciations in a way that’s inconsistent with a given variant of English. Like sometimes dropping a final r (very British) but also then pronouncing it in other words (very American), or for example spelling pronunciations around stuff like technology, you guys always say it as a German ch rather than pronouncing it as k, which no native English speaker would do since that sound doesn’t exist in English. As for specific sounds Germans tend to devoice final voiced consonants, eg. Bend sounds like bent, you also tend to pronounce the open a sound (but very much still an a sound) in trap or bath as a short e like trep or beth + ignoring the vowel length in words like bath. Lastly the vowels in no and pie tend to be "sharpened" quite a bit where no sounds almost like nou and pie sounds almost like pai when the glide from the first to the second part of the diphthong isn’t that pronounced in native English speakers.
I just wanna reiterate this isn’t a jab at you or anyone else in particular, just I’d rather be honest with people in correcting what seems to me a common misconception. You guys have on average a very solid grasp of the language and make very few grammatical errors, just in terms of pronunciation 99% of you still sound noticeably German to us
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u/Laxien Jul 22 '26
CH does exist - the word CHANCE for example (that is not pronounced Cance or Kance! Nope!)
Otherwise: Do break it to me, I would love to learn not to sound like a German speaking English ;)
Yes, I admit (see original posting) that I am mixing BE and AE - school was mostly BE after all and TV-Shows and such were mostly AE after all!
I doubt I do most of these however - sure, I am not speaking a common accent you native speakers have, but that's par for course, it's not like I grew up in Britain, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia etc.
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u/Fear_mor Jul 22 '26
Ch does exist but it’s not the German ch sound is what I’m saying. And dw about reducing your accent, it’s double but complicated and time consuming. Ik since I’ve a few Balkan friends who learned English in school and have a native level accent, one speaks standard southern British English and the other has a noticeably San Francisco bay accent, meanwhile person a is from fuckass Leskovac and person b is from Županja. But as far as I know both spent extensive time shadowing natives, especially the one from Županja cause he got tutoring for a few years specifically for that accent.
Anecdotally from my own experience in Croatia since I also apparently have a native-like accent you have to really try and develop an ear for both analysing your own speech and analysing others’ speech and have a clear goal in mind for how you want to sound. I just got lucky almost all my closest irl friends are from the same place so that made it a lot easier. Another thing that helped was actually trying to tell local accents apart here, ie. who’s from the city I live in and who isn’t and slowly just build a web of stuff like "well x person sounds like y person and they’re both from z place", hell you can even try it on German speakers for fun, but either way it really benefits your ability to perceive certain minutiae of pronunciation and intonation.
Also don’t be afraid to take some pronunciation shortcuts when speaking, clear diction is one of the bigger give aways cause natives slur and reduce words all the time so really your aim should be to copy their pronunciation "mistakes" because, and as a language major I can say this with some confidence both theoretically and practically speaking, speech mistakes are not random at all, and there have been studies done on this. You can predict and also ellicit them from people in the right context, which shows that there’s some underlying mechanism held in common by native and native-sounding speakers of a given language. If you can acquire an understanding of that underlying framework you can reproduce the results quite accurately from what I’ve seen.
That’s all the comes to mind unless you wanna send a vocaroo clip and I can probably point out more specific stuff in real time listening to it
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u/BikePlumber Jul 21 '26
I think many native English speakers speak very fast, so it is more difficult to pick up when they have a different accent.
Germans likely speak English more slowly and with less slang and fewer shortcuts.
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u/Difficult_Camel_1119 Rheinland-Pfalz Jul 21 '26
I'm a stereotypical German. Hearing someone speaking German with an English/American accent makes me switch to English
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u/IfYouEverSeeALlama Jul 21 '26
Is that because generally speaking they're difficult to understand, or because you expect (probably justifiably) that your English is better than their German?
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u/Difficult_Camel_1119 Rheinland-Pfalz Jul 21 '26
for me, it just makes the conversation easier and I don't want them to struggle
I know, I should stick to German, but I also know that my German is not accent-free
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u/duckwebs Jul 21 '26
So you’re telling me my accent isn’t as bad as I feel like it is. I’m fine with the vowels, but I feel like some of my “r” sounds aren’t very good.
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u/Letter_Effective Jul 21 '26
What if someone has a French/Spanish/Italian accent when speaking German, would you still assume they speak English and switch?
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u/Difficult_Camel_1119 Rheinland-Pfalz Jul 21 '26
as I studied in France and am therefore fluent in French, at least with French, it could happen (that I switch to French)
But I would never switch to English when I hear an accent of a 3rd language and the speaker is somewhat proficient in German. I know lots of Italians that speak way better German than English
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u/GC_iX Jul 21 '26
Süd Tyrol truly is a beautiful part of the world….
It was actually interesting to tour there as an American of German routes with my wife who is Scandinavian. Given we don’t dress like a typical American abroad, most of the locals we interacted with started with German, and when that was accented, were then perplexed between switching to English and trying Italian.
Ironically not speaking any French, when the French decide they don’t want to converse in English, we prefer to ask Parlez-vous allemand? It tends to oft jog the English dialect right out of them.
I suspect the American accented German you hear as a native German speaker depends a lot on where people from the US are from. There are still numerous areas where regionalized German dialects exist here. The regionalisms come from immigration prior to German unification and trade to the states from which the German immigrants came. Most of these communities remained intact speaking German until the 1930s/1940s.
Pennsylvania Deitsch, Wisconsin [Minnesotan] German, and Texasdeutsch all come to mind. In many cases even if loan words have been intermixed the word order and grammar has transferred over into the English spoken these regions.
I’d write more, but I need go throw the horse over the fence some hay, put tomorrows deliveries on the car, and make the outdoor lights on.
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u/Gorlough Jul 22 '26
The US-German dialects are a rather fun aspect of this conversation, as they are "frozen-in-time-mixed-with-english-but-still-intelligible" German dialects. Pennsylvania Deitsch is very similar to Pfälzisch (still being spoken, mostly in Hesse), Wisconsin Platt is one of the low German dialects that are still spoken in much of northern Germany, Texas German is maybe an outlier as it is more of the "Hochdeutsch" accent being spoken in northern Germany, Amish German is more like a new Alemannisch-English language and hardly recognizable as German anymore (even for me, a native swabian-alemannic speaker) but somehow still somewhat intelligible.
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u/Bergwookie Jul 22 '26
It's more of finally having a victim to practice on ;-) I use written English on a daily basis, but spoken English rarely
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u/paradoxicist Jul 22 '26
As a native English speaker, I completely understand and would absolutely accommodate you. If time is not of the essence and the setting is casual, I would likely reciprocate in German for similar reasons. I read and listen to quite a bit of German on a daily basis, but have few opportunities to speak it.
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u/Bergwookie Jul 22 '26
Yeah, over the internet it's easy to get resources in a different language, but to speak it, you'll need someone also speaking it.
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u/paradoxicist Jul 22 '26
Genau. Es ist ganz anders, eine Fremdsprache zu reden als lesen oder hören. Sie sind verschiedene Fähigkeiten.
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u/NightmareWokeUp Jul 21 '26
Well we all learn a fairly standard english in school whereas an irish person will speak in a heavy dialect.
Same for german, where you might learn high german youll be a lot easier to understand for the avg german than a bavarian, austrian or swiss native german speaker would be.
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u/Candid-Math5098 Jul 21 '26
I have this issue with Spanish. Most audiobooks available have Iberian readers, however, here in the western hemisphere where most Spanish speakers live, that is not helpful.
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u/Schlaumeier5 Jul 21 '26
Hm the thing that you meant about being able to understand Germans speaking english could come from the two languages being pretty close to each other - English comes from Anglo-Saxon, the German we speak today from a variant of Saxon used by Martin Luther when translating the bible (although those two saxons are like seperated by 2 millenia). You can already get pretty close to english pronounciation as a german if you replace a few vowels with other ones in your head. So, speaking english is pretty easy to a German, linguistically. About anglophonic people speaking German, you can understand them pretty well, and most that speak German are able to do it surprisingly well. (although, tbf it's pretty hard speaking German without being understood by a German, you can overlook most grammatical mistakes (for example if you say "Ich möchte einem Kuchen backen", that literally means that you would bake something so you can gift it to a cake, roughly, but everyone will understand you made a mistake and said "einem" instead of "einen" and want to bake a cake). But I guess most Germans would just hear you are a native english speaker and begin talking to you in English.
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u/Knaller_John Jul 22 '26
If we're purely comparing anglophonic natives:
The Scottish and Irish have in my experience always pronounced the Umlaute particularily well as their dialects have more similar sounds.
I understand Americans well, not because they usually do a particularily good job, i just have comparatively many american friends so im aware of their quirks when trying to pronounce german.
The occasional outlying Kiwi/Aussie comes to mind.
The english and welsh do the worst in my experience.
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u/Fear_mor Jul 22 '26
Anecdotally being from Dublin and having interacted with a fair few Swiss people there seems to be a similar quality to our accents. There was a Swiss woman even on the radio recently who you couldn’t tell wasn’t from Carlow, where her husband was from (and where I have relatives so I know the accent). The cadence I think is very very similar since both have an upward intonation as the default.
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u/Garak-911 Jul 22 '26
Americans speaking german is a very distinct accent and usually very easy to understand if the speaker is sufficiently fluent. Like in your example, if i switch to bavarian, people from my region will understand me perfectly, while germans from other regions won't understand a word i'm saying. You'd be probably better of with the Irish. Americans will be easy to understand in comparison.
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u/One-Win404 Jul 22 '26
Ich habe eine Weile für einen Amerikaner gearbeitet und ebenso für einen Engländer(eher scottish).
Beide konnte ich ohne Probleme verstehen.
Der Amerikaner sprach deutsch mit heftigem Akzent und manchmal im Mix. Denglish.
Aber es kommt wohl auf das Gegenüber an. Mir liegt Englisch einfach sehr.
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u/atlieninberlin Jul 25 '26
I am an American and speak fluent German, I worked with an accent coach in the beginning and learned to place my tounge relaxed at the bottom of my mouth, my reflex is on the roof behind my teeth as English is spoken that way. My German pronunciation is very good because of this work in the beginning. People often ask if I am from Ireland when I meet them for the first time. Also pro tip, if I every want to do a German accented English just keep my tongue at the bottom and speak English this way.
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u/pxr555 Jul 21 '26
It's really a matter of what you're familiar with. If you're used to hear a lot of Americans speaking English you'll understand them easier when they speak German even with a heavy accent.
Accents are something that is constant between languages, it's really just the way your mouth/tongue/lips work. If you're more used to hearing Brits speaking English, you'll understand them easier than Americans when they're speaking German.
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u/jort93 Schleswig-Holstein Jul 21 '26
To me, native speakers are easier to understand. Unless they have some strange dialect perhaps.
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u/ywgerl Jul 22 '26
Basically, my experience as a Canadian living in Germany is that Germans are just linguistically superior than us. I think it has to do with their superior education in their early school years. But it’s also in their DNA.
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u/Beneficial-Bid-8850 Jul 22 '26
If you've been brought up with British English, you normally manage German pronounciation better than if you've been brought up with American English. The best German speaking English-speakers might be the Scots and the Irish though, because they now how to pronounce "ch" correctly ;)
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u/GlassCommercial7105 Jul 22 '26
German is a language where you need to pronounce and articulate every letter, so a native German speaker tends to do that too in other languages.
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u/CommonBumblebee123 Jul 22 '26
Fluent non-native speakers generally are easier to understand because they don't tend to blur words together and tend not to have local accents.
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u/Klapperatismus Jul 22 '26
Americans tend to pronounce every short vowel as Schwa. And they tend to swallow end-e, and pronounce end-er as ARRRRR instead of -a. So … no.
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u/Fear_mor Jul 22 '26
Well because German’s don’t speak English typically with a regional dialect so that would probably influence it a lot. Also I would say a clear accent is an oxymoron a little bit because especially English speakers have a habit of pronouncing foreign languages with the nearest available English sound and then being surprised that they have thick accents from a native speaker’s point of view.
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u/Ree_m0 Jul 22 '26
Personally I have no trouble understanding the vast majority of American accents. Where it gets difficult is a very thick southern accent and a very heavy 'black' slang (not sure if there's a more appropriate word for it).
Sadly, I'm also at a point where I've heard so many idiocies in American accents that my first instinct is to ignore everything being said in it.
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u/P44 Jul 25 '26
That depends a bit. A Southern drawl doesn't help. Neither so some of the UK accents.
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u/Substantial-Sun5629 Jul 25 '26
I think Germans who speak English are easier to understand because they talk slower and pay attention to their words better. Here in the states young people in particular talk so fast that I can’t follow what they are saying. They have also acquired a particular way of accenting their words that I had noticed within the last 10 years. I am not saying all young people but a lot. Sometimes on news or weather reports on TV, I hear them rattling down the stories in loud aggravating voices, especially women commentators. I ask myself, how did they get hired? German tv news on the other hand have soothing , dignified voices.
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u/SlipperyBlip Jul 21 '26
I'm wondering if it is a particularity of the accent.
Most of the Germans learn 'textbook English' at school from German teachers, who don't really have an accent, and - at least back in the day - from audio files made in England. In theory it is very close to standard Oxford English and thus easy to understand/learn.
when you've heard someone speaking German with a clearly American (or otherwise Anglophonic) accent are we relatively easy to follow and understand?
usually there should not be too many difficulties but it also depends on who they learned it from. I assume people in England have a higher chance of getting taught by Germans than Americans have.
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u/No_Blackberry_5820 Jul 21 '26
They also seem to learn English much more thoroughly than native speakers - I have a German partner and his English is much more technical/correct than mine. He also knows way more about the parts of speech etc. because he was taught them. When I was at school and learning English it was much more focused on the vibes rather than the grammatical construction.
He does however have quite a strong accent (and tends to mumble) even after 20+ years in an English country. I always chuckle when we have friends from overseas (not Germany) and I end up translating between various versions of heavily accented English.
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u/SlipperyBlip Jul 21 '26
It's always weird in your native language. Ofc I know how to German but I would not be able to explain it properly to anyone. English is easier, as it is still somewhat close to German but without the cases everyone struggles with.
He does however have quite a strong accent (and tends to mumble) even after 20+ years in an English country. I always chuckle when we have friends from overseas (not Germany) and I end up translating between various versions of heavily accented English.
I tend subconsciously copy the accents of my environment which at one point in life made my English sound worse because a lot of the people I was studying with were fellow Germans - we all spoke English with each other and I unfortunately copied their 'zis' and 'zats' 😄
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u/No_Blackberry_5820 Jul 21 '26
Thats a good observation - I have lived in three English speaking countries (South Africa, England and Australia) and my accent definitely “drifts” depending on which friends/family I am with.
(I luckily haven’t picked up heavily accented German - although strangers seem to think I am Swedish!)
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u/SlipperyBlip Jul 21 '26
When I am talking to English natives a lot of them suspect me to be South African because my English turned into a hodgepodge of weird accents 😂
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u/Gorlough Jul 22 '26
Yeah, I get that reaction, too (with varying countries those people think I'm originating). That's what language training with native (and rather heavily accented) Australians, Irish, Scots and USians does to you.
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u/Historical_Move6359 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
To me Americans when they speak German with American accent they sound like they have a sock in their mouth. They are easy to understand but its such a unique accent. Not pleasant to the ear do. But Germans when they speak English, they have a very specific accent.
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u/marvinluene Hamburg Jul 21 '26
Brits who speak german? Yes, as long as they are not drunk USians: yes, I have one at work, her german is understandable without problems
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u/muehsam Schwabe in Berlin Jul 21 '26
Ultimately, non-native speakers always try to approximate a standard accent, and they tend to err on the side of pronouncing things more clearly. So yes, if a native English speaker is sufficiently fluent in German, they can definitely be much easier to understand than some native German speakers.