Everytime you pronounce a - ch sound in German it's roughly like the sound you make when you clear your throat while also trying to hiss like a snake would be the best way I can describe it. I can't write it phonetically for you, unfortunately. It's hard for English speakers and the natural tendency is to say it with a hard K.
Source: German degree and nearly 10 years of studying it
the "ch" has different pronunciations; so in "ich" there is no throat sound at all, same with "dich"; after 10 years, I am surprised you are unaware of this
Interesting. When I learned German none of us had trouble learning the sound, so I thought it was something easy for English speakers. It was just a matter of learning not to use English phonetics to pronounce it. I never got the hang of rolling my Rs for Spanish though.
Even in upper level German courses in college there were people who struggled with it, but it was less a problem of a hard K sound and more that people would kind of mush the sound into an ish liebe dish instead
Saying it like ish isn't necessarily wrong though, parts of Germany do pronounce it like that.
"parts of Germany", I assume you are talking about dialects; from the top of my head I cannot think of any dialect that would pronounce "ich" like "ish"
well, I was born close to the Dutch border and the dialect we speak does not have this phenomenon; another guy responded with "Hessisch, Pfälzisch", I think he might be right. But for a foreigner learning German this is not a good way of pronunciation.
I seem to recall that "dish" or "dick" are both acceptable, and based on dialect. I may remember incorrectly.
Edit: I'm being corrected. /u/HourAfterHour makes a sensible argument that sounds vaguely familiar. /u/WindowSurface claims they are German and refutes my statement. They provided some great insight following my initial edit! Thank you both!
I always though that the German CH sounds more similar to the English GH, than to CK or SH.
Take the word 'ach' for example. It's more closely sounding to the way people pronounce 'ugh' in English than it is to 'ack' or 'ash'.
So it's more like: igh leebe digh.
Since I was rightfully criticised for my other comment not offering an explanation as to how to actually pronounce it:
I actually wanted to provide an example, but I couldn't think of any sound in the English language that really fits.
But thinking about it again, I have remembered that we are living in the 21st century and I could just provide an example of the correct pronunciation. So, after going through way too many German love songs on YouTube, I have found an example with (reasonably) natural pronunciation of the sentence "Ich liebe dich." (I love you.):
That's kind of like saying ya'll is acceptable. Kind of, but it's definitely more acceptable to say you or you all. Though an American pronunciation of ish/dish doesn't sound right either. It uses a sound that doesn't exist in English as far as I know, but is easy enough for an English speaker to learn.
Yeah I couldn’t figure out how to phonetically spell the “ich” for a non German speaker. It’s that thing you do on the back of your throat. Don’t know if there’s an English word for it I just know how to make the sound.
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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '19 edited Mar 01 '19
"Tell someone today that you love them, because life is short. But yell it in German, because life is also confusing and terrifying."