Germany 23

Listen to Germany 23, a 31-year-old woman from Hanover, Germany. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples. IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 31

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/05/1985

PLACE OF BIRTH: Ludinghausen, Germany (but raised in Hanover)

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: German/Caucasian

OCCUPATION: student and videographer

EDUCATION: current Ph.D student

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The speaker was born in Ludinghausen but was brought almost immediately to Hanover, where she was raised. Hanover was her home for her entire life, with the exception of the following school- and work-related trips: Illinois, United States (10 months); Spain (six months); Netherlands (two years); Mexico (six months); Argentina (nine months); and mid-Michigan, United States (one year and six months). She was in mid-Michigan pursuing her Ph.D at the time of this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker’s first language is German. English is her second language. She learned English in Germany from German and British people and in Illinois from Americans. She also speaks French, Spanish, and Dutch.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Greg Hunter (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 04/04/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I think one of my favorite memories with my siblings and the entire family: My little sister wasn’t born yet, but, um, when my mom was pregnant with my little sister, we all went to New Zealand. My aunt — godmother actually — she moved to New Zealand when she was probably around my age, um, and so we, we visited her. [laughter] We went, uh, we, we stayed there over Christmas break because it’s one of the longest holidays and then it’s nice in New Zealand — right, because of the southern and northern hemisphere, like when we have winter they have summer. So we went there and stayed for three or four weeks, I think. So we also spent Christmas there. And it was the first time for us to spend Christmas in warm weather, which is kind of uncommon, right. It’s not something that you get to experience when you were brought up in Germany. And I remember w- over New Year’s: My parents really tried to give us like a New Year’s, you know, event of what you would usually expect like, oh, with fireworks and those kind of things. But we were in the middle of nowhere, and there was nothing that they could’ve done because there just wasn’t anything happening. There were no parties, there- they tried to buy some fireworks, but they couldn’t get any, so the only thing they could get were these weird, um, we call them “knallbonbons” in German. Eh, yeah, I’ll try to explain it. It — “knall” — means like it’s like it’s lou- it’s, it’s a really loud sound, like “Pew!”– like a “knell.” Um, and, um, bonbon is like a a sweet, right? So it, it’s these like, it’s a huge sw- sweet piece; how do you call them? Like, eh, um, oh, I can only think of the, the German and the Spanish words. Well it, it’s a, it ee, eh, um, like, eh, a “Schokobon” or like Starburst. How do you call these? Like, eh, do you call them sweets? Yeah, like a candy, exactly. So it has the shape of kind of like an old-fashioned candy, but it’s huge. It’s like five times the size. So, um, but it doesn’t have any candy inside, so they bought those, thinking that there was candy inside. [laughter] Then they gave them; they was like, OK, at least something for the children. Then they gave them to us, and we open them, um, but, but so when you open, when you open candy, kind of like pull on the outsides right because it unwinds the candy wrapping paper, and then you can get take the candy out. So what happens if you did that — if you pulled on the side — it would explode. It would be like, “Pew!” So it would be a knallbon [laughter], and then all like, like there was confetti inside, and it went all over the place. And then there was this really terrible [laughter] crown in there, er, made out of plastic, obviously because you know it had to be wrapped up somehow. So we had all these, like, really, really ugly plastic [laughter] crowns on our heads, and we were just laughing. It was just so much fun.

OK, now in, uh, auf Deutsch [English translation: in German], OK. [Subject speaks part of Comma Gets a Cure in German]: Also, hier ist eine Geschichte fuer dich: Sarah Perry war eine Tierärztin die täglich in einem zoo, in einem verlassen Teil der Gegend gearbeitet hat, so dass sie sehr glücklich war als sie einen neuen Job in einer grossartigen privaten Tierarztpraxis in North Square – in der Nähe des Duke Street Towers anfing.

[English Translation: Well, here’s a story for you: Sarah Perry was a veterinary nurse who had been working daily at an old zoo in a deserted district of the territory, so she was very happy to start a new job at a superb private practice in North Square near the Duke Street Tower.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Greg Hunter (under supervision of Deric McNish)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/04/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

English is the speaker’s second language, so pronunciation may reflect unfamiliarity with language, rather than speech patterns. Overall placement and resonance is forward, which is consistent with German. The liquid /ju/ is used in words like “duke” (djuk) and “tune” (tjun), which is consistent with Germans that studied with British speakers. /ɹ/ is inconsistent, occasionally appearing as /ɹ/ or /ɹʷ/, and sometimes being dropped completely. The “law” vowel (ɔ) appears in “morning” (mɔnɪŋ). The speaker tends to use the pure vowel /o/ in place of /oʊ/, and to use /ei/ in place of /ɛɪ/. Devoiced consonants are occasionally voiced in words such as “fleece” (fliz), “off” (ɒv), and “bird” (bɚt). Likewise, voiced consonants are diminished, such as “job” (jɒp), and “stressed” (strɛst).

COMMENTARY BY: Deric McNish

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/05/2017

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.

• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.