Modern German Pronunciation

Book excerpt: This revised and updated edition of Modern German Pronunciation offers the most complete guide to the correct pronunciation of German for native speakers of English. It begins with an introduction to the problems of pronunciation and the basic concepts of phonetics. The following chapters take each aspect of pronunciation in turn: consonants, vowels, stress and intonation, and the conversational pronunciation of German with its many reduced or "weak" forms. The text is comprehensively illustrated with clear pronunciation and intonation diagrams and the emphasis is on the problems that speakers of English are known to encounter when learning to speak German. This second edition has been revised and updated, taking into account comments and suggestions from readers and adapting the German texts to the new official spelling. A significant new feature is the discussion of English-speaking learners of German has been extended to include American learners, reflecting the use world-wide of the first edition of this volume.