german dialects

hi. it is interesting to know, how is better to pronounce such words, as Lehrer for example? because in the south of Germany they pronounce R in the middle of the word, but in the northern Germany they are not. and not only this word and letter. there are many diferencess:) so how is more acceptable to speak, to be more apropriate in german? happy new year to all by the way:)

Hi Letonita, happy new year to you too. Just like English, German has quite a few different dialects. Even a native speaker from Hamburg might have trouble understanding a native speaker from Munich. Some words are completely different and so is the pronunciation. For example, it's common to say "schnuddeln" ("to chat/talk") in northern parts of Germany, whereas "ratschen" is used in southern parts of Germany. But luckily so called high German is understood in all parts of Germany. High German is basically German without any regional accents. Rocket German teaches you high German, to make it easier for you when travelling around.

You can even hear the difference between Paul and Matthias. As a young child I spoke German in southern Germany (as a adult it has gone away since I have been in the US since the age of 8). So Pauls dialect sounds right to me, where as Matthias sounds more foreign. German TV is also hard for me to understand, I believe for this same reason. Paul, do you have a Southern German accent?

Hi Glen, oh yes, Matthias and I do sound different. Matthias rolls his "r", which is typical for people from the North of Germany. I speak high German, perhaps with a slight southern sound to it, but it is hardly noticable. I don't think many native speakers would pick that I am from the South. The Rocket German Premium Grammar and Culture lessons are recorded in "pure" High German, you might want to have a listen to them to see if you can tell a difference. Listening to the news is usually the hardest, as you will come across expressions and sentence structures that are not commonly used in everyday language. When I learned English I could understand everything people said, had no problems at work, but when it came to watching the news I still felt like a complete beginner and no one could believe it. Everyone thought that if you can understand everything else surely you must be able to understand the news as well. But like I said, it's a different kind of language. So don't dispair if the news are foreign to you. All the best Paul

Thats a relief. I download news video clips to try to judge how my learning is going. I figured that once it was setting in that I would be able to understand the news. But it is very very hard for me to understand. I started to understand the difference between the southern pronunciation and high German when I was going through the numbers. I pronounced 20 as zwanzich instead of zwanzig. At first I thought that I just had it wrong, but after talking to my Mother (native German) she explained the whole dialect thing. Paul, maybe you should do a whole seperate language class called "Bavarian" :lol:

Hi there, yes, a Bavarian course would be good. Especially the "ig" ending is often noticable. You can say zwanzich or zwanzig Könich or König and so on. Your mum is right, it is due to the different dialects. All the best