Ich pronounced as "ikh" on occasion by Nik

1) On occasion, Nik will pronounce ich as "ikh" rather than "ish". I realize that "ish" is now correct, but I seem to remember being taught back in the early 60's (in Berlin) that it was pronounced "ikh". Is there a situation when "ikh" is correct? 2) In lession 5.1 extra vocabulary - keine Flaschen vs keine Frau. On keine Flaschen the last e in keine is pronounced as "a" and then as an "e" in keine Frau. Why the difference?

Hi Charles, I don't know the answer but I have noticed the same thing too and with native speakers. I suspect though it might be regional.

Hi Charles, Some people around Berlin have a dialect. The Berliner dialect includes saying 'ich' as 'ik', replacing the sound 'ei' with 'e', replacing some words including 'au' with 'o' and leaving out the 't' at the endings. An Example sentence of a strong spoken Berlin dialect:"Ik weß och nich" which is "ich weiß auch nicht" in standard German. Lieben Gruß Paul

Now I'm curious as the conversation is about regions and dialects... From where comes Plattdeutsch? I have a record LP that is interesting to hear but one can hardly understand what she is saying. It seems to be a heavy dialect.

Hi Marvin, The short answer is Plattdeutsch, also known as Niederdeutsch is low German as opposed to "hoch" or high German. It originated in the low land costal areas in northern Germany and the Netherlands and is still spoken in some areas today. There is some debate over whether it should be regarded as a dialect or a separate language so apparently it is quite a bit different than hoch Deutsch. There are some articles on the web including a very comprehensive one in Wikepedia.