In order to build up your personal language library and to continuously improve your language skills, as many books and language teaching films as possible should be archived locally, on your computer and of course in parallel on several backup data carriers (USB memory, DVDs, etc.).

As far as possible, make yourself independent of the availability of online language resources so that you can continue working even if there should be a prolonged Internet outage or if computer servers should be shut down.

Various phonetic alphabets are avail­able for transcribing the pronunciation, including the widely used IPA (In­ter­na­ti­o­nal Phonetic Alphabet)

Even without a thorough course of study, you will benefit from the IPA in a short period of time through pattern rec­og­ni­tion.

1. Look up the IPA phonetic notation of any words in your native language, or read introductory texts to the IPA at the beginning, in which the phonetic symbols are introduced using sample words in your native language, such as English phonetic, „English phonology“, „Ap­pen­dix:​English pro­nun­cia­tion“, and „Ap­pen­dix:​Ger­man pro­nun­cia­tion“. In ad­di­tion to specialized dictionaries, there are numerous on­line dictionaries that contain the pho­net­ic transcription as well as sound files and sample sen­tences for each list­ed word, including Linguee (good pro­nun­cia­tion ref­er­ences from native speakers, list of language directions) and Wiktionary (sample words: ex­cur­sion, ascent).

2. Now look at the pronunciation of words you already know in your target language, e.g. in German, British Eng­lish or French.

3. As you learn new words, you' ll pay attention to the IPA pho­net­ic transcription notation and by reading familiar pho­net­ic transcription patterns, you''ll get your first clues to pronunciation.

Searchengines form a good initial basis to find material for illustration, example queries: English Pho­netics, pho­né­tique anglaise, American English Phonetics, phonétique anglaise américaine. German Phonetics, phonétique allemande. The WP overview “Category:Pronunciation by lan­guage” also represents a good starting point for ap­prox. 80 languages, example contents: “Ap­pen­dix:English pronunciation”, “Ap­pen­dix:German pro­nun­cia­tion”, “Ap­pen­dix:​French pro­nun­cia­tion”. Further pronunciation ar­ti­cles: “Category:Phonologies by language”, et al: “English pho­nol­ogy”, “Standard German phonology”, “French pho­nol­ogy”. See also: “Cat­ego­ry:German language”, “Cat­ego­ry:Languages of Germany”, “German language”, “Cat­ego­ry:​English language”, “English language”.

English: Examples of words that contain a vowel at the be­gin­ning of a word: Apple, owl, apricot. “[...] In English there are five vowel letters in the alphabet, but there are many more vowel sounds. [...] These letters are vowels in English: A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. [...] The rest of the letters of the alphabet are consonants: [...]” (source: SE-​WP-​article “Vow­el”).

Read introductory: “Introduction to English Vowel Sounds” • “Long and Short English Vowels” • “9 Con­so­nant Digraphs You Need to Know” • “How to Pronounce & Spell Vowel Digraphs” • “Eng­lish Consonant Sounds” • “Eng­lish Vowel Sounds”. Searches: English vowels • English consonants

German: Examples of words that contain a vowel (Selbst­laut) at the beginning of a word: Apfel, Obst. The letters a, e, i, o, u as well as the umlauts ä, ö, ü (and the diph­thongs (Zwie­lau­te [also: „Dop­pel­lau­te“ resp. „Di­phton­ge“] au, ai, ei, eu, äu) form the vowels in German, the other let­ters of the German alphabet, are consonants (Mitlaute). In addition to the sources listed in section 2.2.1, detailed over­views with examples can also be found in the WP-​ar­ti­cle sections “Vo­ka­le im Deut­schen”, “Kon­so­nan­ten im Deut­schen” and in “Diph­thon­ge im Deut­schen”.

Introductory reading:: “Selbst­lau­te/Mit­lau­te”, “Vo­kal”, „Kon­so­nant“, “Diph­tong”.

Words can be divided into smaller units, so-called syl­la­bles, using separation rules. A syllable contains at least one vowel.

English. “Syllables are often considered the pho­no­logi­cal ‘building blocks’ of words. [...] Syllabification is the sepa­ra­tion of a word into syl­la­bles, whether spoken or writ­ten.” (extract from WP-​article “Syllable”).

Examples: The word potato has three syllables (vowels high­lighted): po ∙ ta ∙ to. Damson consists of two syl­la­bles: dam ∙ son, so does the word table: ta ∙ ble. You may wonder why the word apricot consists of only two syl­la­bles instead of three: apri ∙ cot.

That's because of the following fact: The written English lan­guage has no simple hyphenation rules (see 2.2.5).

German. A syllable contains at least one vowel. Ex­am­ple: The word Hei­mat­lie­be (Heimat + Love [Homeland + Love of one's native country]). Here there are four syl­la­bles, each containing one vowel: Hei ∙ mat ∙ lie ∙ be or with black highlighted vowels Hei ∙ mat ∙ lie ∙ be. The syl­la­ble boundaries are marked in the IPA with a dot resp. in­ter­punct (∙).

Separation rules vary from language to language. From the German separation rules, the following were used in this ex­am­ple:

1. You can separate before a consonant. The word Heimat contains the consonant m, before this we can sepa­rate and receive Hei- mat or Hei ∙ mat . In Lie­be the con­so­nant b is contained (Liebe), before this we can al­so sepa­rate: lie-be or lie ∙ be.

2. If two consonants follow each other, then one can sepa­rate between these two consonants. In the word Hei­matliebe the consecutive consonants t and l are con­tained, between these we can sepa­rate: Hei­mat- lie­be or Hei­mat ∙ lie­be. Since this is a compound word (Hei­mat + Lie­be) we can also separate there because at this point the word joint (Wort­fu­ge) of the compound word is located.

3. Further separation rules (not complete):

There are exception rules for consonant separation. The mne­mon­ic “Tren­ne nie st, denn es tut ihm weh!” (“Never sepa­rate st, because it hurts it!”) has its justification. Sepa­rating the st can lead to reader-unfriendly sepa­rations,[1] even with many compound words where we should ac­tu­al­ly sepa­rate according to the double consonant rule, e.g. with the word Bau­stahl (structural steel): If the st-rule is tak­en into account, the result is Bau- stahl resp. Bau ∙ stahl, if not taken into account, the word Baus-tahl is the result; the Wach­stu­be ([guardroom] Wach-stube) oc­cu­pied with guard personnel becomes a tube, from which wax comes out (Wachs-tube), if not observed.[3] For some compound words in which s and t border on each other, e.g. in Don-ners-tag (Thursday), the correctness is pre­served.[2]

The double consonant ck is written with kk when sepa­rating, so that the correct stress is maintained. In “Zuk-ker” (sug­ar) the short “u” is kept, but “Zu-cker” leads to a long, wrong­ly emphasized “u”.

In syllabification cases may occur where the correct em­pha­sis is not maintained despite observance of the rules. For­eign words can also lead to incorrect hyphenation: Ado­les­cents are teenagers and not Tee-nager [te:ˈnaːɡɐ] (tea ro­dents).

Words are not separated in such a way that one vowel stands alone. Abend could be separated to A-bend, but no space would be gained and it would look typographically un­pleas­ant.

“Consonant clusters ch, sch, ph, ß, as well as z, x are re­gard­ed as single consonants for purposes of syl­la­bi­fi­ca­tion.” Ex­am­ple: Mäd­chen (Mäd ∙ chen). “In the case of groups of consonants, the last one in the series usually starts the new syllable”. Examples: Schlendrian (Schlend ∙ ri ∙ an), Pünktchen (Pünkt ∙ chen), “[...] ch is treat­ed as one consonant”, (Quotations, knowledge con­tent excerpt and examples of this paragraph taken from [2], p.9).

In German and probably in some other languages, few rules are enough to divide words into their syllables. In the English language there is no comparable simple set of rules. The following ex­cerpt of the WP article “Syllabification” explains and il­lus­trates the reasons for this:

“[...] At the end of a line, a word is separated in writing into parts, conventionally called "syllables", if it does not fit the line and if moving it to the next line would make the first line much shorter than the others. This can be a par­ticu­lar problem with very long words, and with narrow columns in newspapers. Word processing has auto­mat­ed the process of justification, making syllabification of shorter words often unnecessary.

In some languages, the spoken syllables are also the ba­sis of syllabification in writing. However, possibly due to the weak correspondence between sounds and let­ters in the spelling of modern English, written syl­labi­fi­ca­tion in English is based mostly on etymological or mor­pho­logi­cal instead of phonetic principles.

For example, it is not possible to syllabify “learning” as lear-ning according to the correct syllabification of the liv­ing language. Seeing only lear- at the end of a line might mis­lead the reader into pronouncing the word incorrectly, as the digraph ea can hold many different values. The his­to­ry of English orthography accounts for such phenomena.

English written syllabification therefore deals with a con­cept of “syllable” that does not correspond to the linguistic con­cept of a phonological (as opposed to morphological) unit.

As a result, even most native English speakers are unable to syllabify words according to established rules without con­sult­ing a dictionary or using a word processor. Schools usually do not provide much more advice on the topic than to consult a dictionary. In addition, there are differences between British and US syllabification and even between dictionaries of the same English variety. [...]”

Examples. The IPA notation was mainly taken from the dictionaries Pons.com and wiktionary.org, the tran­scrip­tion detail varies by dictionary and word entry. The main stress is highlighted in green, with some words the sec­ond­ary stress is highlighted in light blue.

🍒 “cherry” [ˈtʃeri] consists of two syllables: cher ∙ ry, the stress is on the first syllable: cher ∙ ry, cherry; Linguee en­try, article at Wik­ti­o­nary /ˈt͡ʃɛɹi/, Pons entry. German die Kir­sche also has the accent on the first syllable: Kir ∙ sche [ˈkɪrʃə] (Lin­guee entry).

The German word Pro­dukt [proˈdʊkt] consists of two syl­la­bles: Pro ∙ dukt. The main emphasis is, according to the stress sign, on the second syllable: Pro ∙ dukt resp. Produkt resp. Pro-dukt, or, in the phonetic transcription, [proˈdʊkt]. In the Lin­guee entry for “Produkt”, click on the speaker icon to the right of the word to listen to the na­tive speaker pronunciation and accent.

The English word engagement is pronounced differently in British and American English. If we call up the word entry at Pons.com, we receive the following information on phonetic transcription: “en ∙ gage ∙ ment [ɪnˈgeɪʤmənt, Am enˈ-] NOUN”. “Am” (or the flag symbol shown) refers to the (different) American pro­nun­cia­tion of the first syllable. The word consists of three syllables, the emphasis is on the second: en∙ gage∙ ment resp. engagement or en-gage-ment, or [ɪnˈgeɪʤmənt] or American [enˈgeɪʤmənt]. Listen to both the British and American pro­nun­cia­tions of the Lin­guee entry for engagement. Also call up the Wik­tio­na­ry word entry and the Merriam-Webster entry for en­gage­ment and listen to their audio recordings.

Review the phonetic transcriptions, some of which contain ad­di­tion­al information or may differ.

infrastructure [ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌktʃəʳ, Am -ɚ] contains three syl­la­bles: infra ∙ struc ∙ ture. According to phonetic transcription, the main stress is on the first syllable, the secondary stress on the second syllable: infra ∙ struc ∙ ture, infrastructure, [ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌktʃəʳ] and [ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌktʃɚ]. Wik­tio­na­ry en­try /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌk(t)ʃɚ/, at Linguee, at Pons.​com.

resist: re·sist [rɪˈzɪst], Linguee pronunciation, Wik­ti­o­nary en­try /ɹɪˈzɪst/ resp. /ɹəˈzɪst/. 🍪 Humorous word-​ex­pla­na­tion on Youtube with the Cookie Monster “Sesame Street: Ian McKellen Teaches Cookie Monster to Resist”.

Also read the WP-article versions “Stress (linguistics)” and “Sec­ond­ary Stress”. Always note the links at the end of the articles, they usually contain high-quality knowledge sources. From the “External Links” of the article „Stress (lin­guis­tics)“: “Word stress in English, SIX BASIC RULES of word stress” and an extremely detailed web page on stress, which also offers interactive exercises, “Word Stress Rules” (wordstress.info).

🥔 Engl. “po·ta·to <pl -es> [pəˈteɪtəʊ, Am -t̬oʊ] NOUN” (Pons), German [karˈtɔfl̩] Kar­tof­fel (Linguee, Pons), French “pomme de terre” [pɔm də tɛʀ] (apple of the soil), Lin­guee entry 🥪 Sandwich, sand ∙ wich “[ˈsænwɪʤ, Am -(d)wɪtʃ]” (Pons, Lin­guee, Wiktionary). 🌶️ Chili in German: [ˈtʃi:li] (Pons, Linguee), Chili in English: [ˈtʃɪli] (Pons, Linguee, Wiktionary).

“The length sign (ː) similar to the colon (:), [used] in the so-called International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), indicates that the sound represented by the pre­ced­ing letter must be pronounced long (stretched).

The word ‘length sign’ serves as a generic term for three char­ac­ters: the two stretch signs length sign (ː), half long sign (ˑ), and brevity sign (˘) of the IPA.”

Translated excerpt from the WP-​article “Länge­zei­chen”. See in particular: “Length (phonetics)”.

🍓 The straw·berry “[ˈstrɔ:bəri, Am ˈstrɑ:ˌberi] NOUN” re­spec­tive straw·berry. German die Erd­beere [ˈeːɐ̯tbeːrə] has three syllables, the stress is on the first: Erd ∙ bee ∙ re. The sound displayed before the length sign (ː) must be pro­nounced long (stretched): [ˈeːɐ̯tbeːrə] respective Erdbeere. (Lin­guee, Pons, Wik­ti­o­nary entry: “[ˈeːɐ̯tbeːʁə], re­gion­al­ly also: [ˈɛʁtbeːʁə]”).

🍉 Dt. die Me­lo­ne [meˈlo:nə] (Linguee, Pons). die Saat [za:t] (Linguee, Pons), engl. seed, [si:d] (Linguee). Dt. der Pfad [pfa:t, plural ˈpfa:də] (Linguee, Pons).

🎹 Engl. synthesizer, “syn·the·siz·er [ˈsɪn(t)θəsaɪzəʳ, Am -ɚ] NOUN MUS” (Pons). Engl. “Con·tin·uum <pl -nua [or -s]> [kənˈtɪnjuəm, pl -njuə] NOUN form SCI” (Pons); 𝅘𝅥𝅮 example: “Klaus Schul­ze - Kon­ti­nu­um” (Yt.-vid­eo). 🕰️ The time machine [taɪm məˈʃi:n] (Linguee); dt. die Zeit­ma­schi­ne Zeit ∙ ma ∙ schi ∙ ne [ˈt͡saɪ̯tmaˌʃiːnə] (Wik­ti­o­nary, Linguee). Videos: “1928-1929: Early Sound Foot­age of Germany”, “1928-1929: Life in England (real sound)”. “Ger­man Empire around 1900 [part 1]”, “Ger­man Empire around 1900 [part 2]”. Feature film excerpt: Marty McFly begins to realize that he has arrived in a (prob­able) year 1955: “BTTF 1955 Hill Valley Mr. Sand­man”.

The Snow­man [ˈsnow·man], deutsch der Schnee­mann [ˈʃneːˌman] (Wiktionary). Car­toon “Der Schnee­man”, 1944, a snow­man sits down in the fridge to wait for sum­mer (re­ap­pear­ance in a 1950s com­mer­cial).

Dt. “Gri­mas­sen schnei­den” [ɡʁiˈmasn̩] / [ɡʁiˈmasən] [ˈʃnaɪ̯dn̩] (Linguee), Engl. to grimace “[grɪˈmeɪs, Am esp ˈgrɪməs]” (source: Pons. Sound at Linguee). Dt. Kon­tern [ˈkɔntɐn], Engl. to counter [ˈkaʊntəʳ, Am -t̬ɚ] (Pons). Il­lus­trating: “McDonald's - Traffic Jam”.

Gutmensch /ˈɡuːtˌmɛnʃ/. For this central term in the political debate, the English Wiktionary article and, in par­ticu­lar, the detailed articles „Gutmensch“ and „Lü­gen­pres­se“ in the German-lan­guage Metapedia (de.metapedia.org), with many ex­am­ples, are recommended.

Illustrating this is a cult figure from the German Sesame Street, a prime example of a do-gooder: Uli von Bödefeld. Turning reality or facts upside down, moralizing, accusing, acting indignant and outrageous for the purpose of gaining an advantage, and at the same time acting like a ben­efac­tor, Mr. von Bödefeld leaves Tiffy, Samson, Lilo and Uwe stunned in the face of so much audacity and chutzpah. On Youtube, in German: “Herr von Bö­de­feld hält al­le für zu fett | 80er Jah­re” (“Herr von Bödefeld thinks everyone is too fat | 80s”), around 1980.

Sentence stress resp. “Prosodic stress” • “Phonetics” • “Satz­ak­zent” • “Ka­te­go­rie:Pho­ne­tik” • “Pho­ne­tik” • „Dia­kri­ti­ka und Su­pra­seg­men­ta­lia“

“Deutsch – wa­rum nicht?” (“German - Why not?”) is a German course produced in 1991 by the German radio station “Deutsche Welle”, which comprehensively, thoroughly and easily conveys the basics of the German language. Further German courses from dw.com can be found on the “Learn Ger­man” subpage or on the other language version learning sections, “Apprendre l'Allemand” etc. (Lan­guage se­lectable in the upper right corner, “DW.com in 30 Lan­guages”)

The course comprises four series, consisting of 104 written individual lessons with solutions, 24 appendix chapters and 104 moderated accompanying radio podcasts to the lessons. “Deutsch – wa­rum nicht?” is avail­able in 30 language versions, i.e. all PDFs and audio accompanying documents are available in 30 lan­guage-moderated versions.

The PDF documents and MP3 files are available on the course accompanying page (EN, FR, RU etc.) of Deut-

sche Welle, the sound files are also published parallel on several websites, in each case complete, also directly and free of charge accessible and, like the PDFs and MP3s on dw.com, also directly linkable (hotlinking).

The table after the language version over­view table refers directly to all course contents of the English language version on dw.com. To save the PDFs and MP3s, point to the respective link with the mouse arrow, press the right mouse button and select the save function (Firefox: "Save target as..."). You can archive all individual documents on your local computer, or view and listen to the contents via your browser. You can also listen to the sound files via the radio podcast title page or via the embedded audio player.

The other language versions (PDFs and MP3s) can be accessed via the language version page of “Deutsche Welle”: Select your national language at dw.com (top right), then switch to the course section. Here is an over­view of all language versions (skip table):