Comment by vaskebjorn
2 months ago
The "ich-laut" does not exist in english. It's not like just saying "ish."
Example: https://youtu.be/oSIPAMoCzhA?t=195
2 months ago
The "ich-laut" does not exist in english. It's not like just saying "ish."
Example: https://youtu.be/oSIPAMoCzhA?t=195
The parent comment is correct—the ich-laut isn't its own phoneme in English, but (at least in many dialects) it does exist as an allophone of /h/.
It very much does exist, and I chose those words on purpose as they're places where the realisation of /h/ is a voiceless palatal fricative (i.e., the German ich-laut) and not a voiceless glottal fricative. "ish" would be a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative.
I recommend you read up on English phonology, as a video for German learners really isn't a good source.
My point was that what Nabokov said about Russian "When you speak Russian your mouth ought to distend laterally at the corners" also applied to German, and that saying "ich" properly in German was an example of this.
Yes, one does not NEED to have the mouth open wide to express the "voiceless palatal fricative" but if you do not do it with a "slight smile" as described in that video it will not sound right.
I truly hope you know something about German pronunciation, otherwise I don't know what would compel you to even comment on the thread.