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   The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 24-Mar-2025 08:06:38 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

   Question.

   Is the German sound written as "ch" genuinely so difficult for English speakers to pronounce, or have they just bee conditioned by ortography to pronounce it as a variant of /k/?

   In my very amateurish opinion, it would be more correct if they pronounced the "ch" as /h/ as in the word "hint", instead of /k/. But I almost never seem to hear that.

   This is relevant to mostly because of my interest in WWII history, and the insistence among almost all English speakers of pronouncing the relevant words as, essentially, "third reik".

   Why?

   • Embed this notice
     Taylan (Now 18% More Deranged) (taylan@fedi.feministwiki.org)'s status on Monday, 24-Mar-2025 08:06:38 JST Taylan (Now 18% More Deranged)

     in reply to
     @Gnomeshatecheese Note that there are two separate ch sounds.
     
     One is like in Reich and is soft, like white noise. Comes from the tongue being held close to the roof of your mouth and pushing air through.
     
     The other is like in Bach and is a harsh sound coming from the throat.
     
     I can't think of any English word that contains either sound though, so I imagine they're both difficult if you never trained them.
     KeepTakingTheSoma likes this.
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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 24-Mar-2025 08:08:04 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • Taylan (Now 18% More Deranged)
     @taylan @Gnomeshatecheese A bit like the *th* sound variation between things and that.
     Wait till you do the ll in Welsh.