Ist das nicht quite common im BE? Weiß nicht ...

Waits for Ghol to turn up ... :-)

@David: how do you pronounce it?

I reckon the teacher might be right... but I can only guess from your description.

German schoolkids are usually taught that the /a/ in "cat" "sat" "mat" is pronounced "kätt". This is WRONG.
They learn that the /u/ found in "cut"/"butter"/"drug" is pronounced "katt" "batter" "dragg". This is WRONG.

The language used to sound slightly like this, but that was 50–60 years ago, and things have changed.

So I am guessing you are coming from the traditional background and pronounce "thankyou" as "thÄnkju", "handy" as hÄndi, "manager" as the German "Mänätscher". That is why you find the teacher's pronunciation so wrong, and your ears would curl up at the edges to hear me talk. I encounter it all the time.

Actually we have discussed this topic frequently: try this link and scroll down a bit -- related discussion

In brief: the short English 'a' is NOT like German "ä", it is NOT a mixture of 'a' and 'e' (which is taught in German schools), it does NOT sound like the 'a' in German "Handy" which is pronounced [händi]. I speak for British English, but our US regular Peter Czukor is adamant that this is equally true for US English too.

Spot on, Doris

@lady: Try these sound files (from the above link, recommended by Peter) -- they should help you listen to the difference.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?cat00001....

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?cut00001....

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?mad00001....

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?mud00001....

Here are some with BE, too..

http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-sounds-at.htm

I forgot to mention that the above links are American sound files. The BE pronunciation is even less like the "Ä" sound to my ears!

This page has some British English to listen to, under phonetic symbols.
You need the /ae/ sound, and the ^ (upside-down v).
http://www.oupchina.com.hk/dict/phonetic/home.html

@Archfarchnad: that's a good link. Both AE and BE for the "cat" sound.

@lady teddy: Ich kann Ghol <GB> voll und ganz bestätigen. Die Aussprache des Englischen, wie ich es vor 20-30 Jahren in der Schule gelernt habe, hat nicht viel mit dem zu tun, wie es in England wirklich ausgesprochen wird. Wenn heute eine korrektere Aussprache unterrichtet wird, kann ich das nur begrüßen.

Ich kenne eine Engländerin, die hier in Österreich die Lehramtsprüfung für Englisch machen wollte. Beim ersten Versuch ist sie in Phonetik durchgefallen.

(Allerdings muss ich eines zugeben: Es war gar nicht wegen ihrer Aussprache, sondern wegen ihrer mangelhaften Lautschrift)

The teacher is wrong. Cat is C - A - T ..... A wie Affe. CUT is something you do with a knife.

A friend of mine goes to English lessons in Hamburg where the teacher insists that 'birthday' is pronounced 'birsday'. Also, not correct.

..PS: and if I hear another German say "Härry Potter", "Mäd Mäx" or something similar I'll visit their teacher and cut their fäcking tongue off. ;-)

A thought suddenly struck me... is the school in Berlin? Pronounciation of 'a' as 'u' sounds a little Berlinerisch to me.

Leider spricht mein Computer nicht mit mir, so daß ich mir die Beispiele nicht anhören kann. Wie wird denn nun das /u/ in cut ausgesprochen? Mein Chef spricht es wie ein "flaches" ö. Ist das richtig?

'u' wie in Dt. Butter, Mutter, usw., d.H. "short and sweet".

By the way, in 'BBC' English the sound tends a little more to 'a'... just to confuse things. The problem with the vowel sounds is that they are determined by accent (American, Australian, London, BE Northern, etc.).... but from the previous 'cat' discussion.... I don't know any accent pronouncing it 'cut'.

@Bex: of course it is not a regional accent. As you say, the received pronunciation tends towards an 'a'.

I once had a slightly overweight German friend called "Tammy". I had to call her "Temmy", else she thought I was saying "Tummy" (which she pronounced "tammy").
This is because Germans learn to pronounce "cut" or "butter" or "drugs" something like we pronounce: cat/batter/drags. This is no doubt the reason for the lady's confusion. When she hears "cat" pronounced properly as /kat/ (not /kät/), she immediately recognises this exaggerated, antiquated, RP-similar "cut".
No wonder there is confusion!

If you have a high-speed internet link, you could view streamed TV to get more practice...

http://wwitv.com/portal.htm

@Doris: Ich sprech es wie in Ghols amerikanischen Audio-Files aus.

Auch wenn die Lehrer an meiner Schule meist zum BE tendieren, hegen sie keine Einwände gegen "cat", etc. auf die amerikanische Weise ausgesprochen. Nur manchmal wurde mir gesagt, ich solle "dance" und Ähnliches, wie Ghol es gesagt hat, aussprechen, dabei ist die amerikanische Weise ja genauso richtig.


@Ghol: I don't quite get you, you said:

German schoolkids are usually taught that the /a/ in "cat" "sat" "mat" is pronounced "kätt". This is WRONG.
They learn that the /u/ found in "cut"/"butter"/"drug" is pronounced "katt" "batter" "dragg". This is WRONG.

Why wrong? Or are you only referring to BE? I mean, "kätt" and all the other "phonetic spellings" are not exactly the way the Americans (die ganzen Dialekte etc. mal außen vor gelassen) pronounce it, you're right, but it comes kinda close to it and I guess there isn't a better way to spell the vowel's sound in German when the teachers are trying to show them how to pronounce the vowel in written language.

@David: yes, I am referring to BE! Which is what most schools teach in 5th grade. You are obviously coming from the AE angle.
Actually a better way of writing "cat" to teach the correct sound is: /katt/ as that is much closer than the kätt sound.

"Actually a better way of writing "cat" to teach the correct sound is: /katt/ as that is much closer than the kätt sound." I guess you mean BE again, but then you got me wrong, because I meant that theres not a better way to spell the pronounciation of the vowel in German than "kätt" referring to American English ... You're first post was kinda ambiguous, it seemed like you meant, "kätt" is generally wrong ...

I believe the best way to describe it to a German is by telling him to try to speak "keatt" very fast. From all I can tell, this comes closest to both British and American pronunciation.

What do you reckon, Ghol?

... kleine Ergänzung: Das "e" sollte dabei so gut wei verschluckt werden, aber ein ganz klein bisschen bleibt noch zu hören.

@David: I always refer to BE unless I state anything else.
Two points:
1. I guess almost all schools in Germany teach BE first of all. They mostly teach the wrong sound, as it is part of the language already (happy, Handy usw)

2. To me, you really sound too convinced that "kätt" sounds close to the English sound "cat". Peter Czukor is very strong in his condemnation of such as suggestion. If I am honest, your comments above make me suspect that your pronunciation of the vowel in "cat" suffers from a German influence. I may be wrong, but every native speaker of British English I know would not hesitate an instant to agree with my comments above about "kätt" being wrong. And if Peter would pop up we might find out how he would put it.

Before Ghol wrote that kätt (pronunciation) is wrong, I was going to write axactly the same thing. But I think that AE is closer to kätt than BE. When Germans say "ätt" it sounds to my BE ears like the past of eat - "ate". (again, BE here). In Dresden there's a modern media library called medien@age. It's meant to be pronounced "Medien-Etage" but it took me ages to work that out as I was pronouncing it "Medien at age". Completely different sound in BE!

I think the difference between BE cat and cut is really hard to hear for Germans, my husband still has trouble with it after 10 years. And I'm afraid to admit it but he's an English teacher :-( - but his pronunciation is pretty good really, bless. Still, our children are growing up with both languages and laugh their heads off when he says "bam" or "balm" instead of "bum".

I'm sorry, Ghol, but you're wrong. I'm just saying that it comes _close_ to the American pronounciation, that it's a way for the teachers to _approach_ the American pronounciation - I'm sure that my "cat"-sound doesn't sound like the German influnced one you suspect it to (feedback of different people/teachers, comparison to native speaker's pronounciation).

IMO: You should make it clear if you're talking about AE or BE (or ...) or both - your posts gave a more or less slight impression you think of the American pronounciation to be wrong or that you think the British way of pronounciation is _THE_ way of pronounciation ...

I sure hope my daughter's teachers don't teach her the pronUnciation "kätt" in school. Why shouldn't they try to get it right, if they say they are teaching BE? Why teach something which is a bit like "cat" but not quite?

@Archfarchnad: re medien@age: I AM German and I definitely would not have got it either. I'd have pronounced it exactly the same way and thought of what "age" - Alter - would have to do with it...

I think the cut/bum-sound resembles a bit to the German sound of the e at the end of some words, but rather half way towards a flat ö. It's really hard to describe how I hear it. But I have to emphasize that it was only in England that I have learned these vowels properly.
Many Germans, proud of their (supposed-to-be) AE, often tell me, my English sounds rather "stuck-up" (überkandidelt) to their ears. Most times I manage to refrain from giving answers such as "Und Dein/Ihr pseudo-amerikanischer-hammer-deutscher Akzent rollt mir die Fußnägel auf"... ;-) after all, I'm not a native, so I have no right to make fun of other non-natives' English.

The answer original question - does cat sound like cut - also depends of course on how you say "cut". Now if you are pronouncing it "Kutt".....

(smile)

Stef, I've been there ... Annoying, isn't it?

I would understand it to some extent if I pronounce words like Scanner or Manager the English way when talking German, but I received this reaction even when talking English!

Perhaps McDonald's and their Big Mäc are to blame. ;-)

I remember having to differentiate between

merry,
marry and
Mary.

Ever since I have known how to say /ae/ ...

@Uho: indeed, it is... but you know how it is... let's just get used to it... I won't deteriorate my pronunciation just because some kind of stupid compatriot of ours complains... ;-)
So my English does sound stuck-up. So what? ;-))

I don't worry when Germans correct my English, after all.

@Uho: sorry, I missed your comment.
No, I don't think so. The sound in "cat" is no longer a mix of "a" and "e".

@David: sorry if you felt I was being negative about AE, I wasn't. Nothing wrong with AE.
We are talking about the teaching of British English here.
My problem is that teachers don't use "kätt" to teach AE, but to teach British English!
And that nearly everyone thinks that "händi" and "häppi" is correct English!

If you would like to prove that you pronounce the sounds right, I will ne happy to send you my telephone number and we can chat about it ;-)

By the way, I ALWAYS speak as a Brit, for BE, and only speak for AE if I am sure of what is correct. And I listen to American English every day.

wonderful thread!

i wont comment on AE.

i believe there is no such thing as a BE as such. yorkshire people pronounce "cut" quite differently from Londoners, say. the regional variations are greater than there are regions! which one is right? all of them are.
in yorkshire, "cut" sounds more like the German "kutte", without the "e" sound.
45 years ago i started to learn english in northern germany, and all (german) english teachers sounded american, in retrospect.
at 13, i went on my first school exchange trip to rotherham. 10 years later i met a young lady in kent who is now my wife. at that time her newcastle friend asked her, from which part of yorkshire her new boyfriend - me, or I, as the posh say - came.

one day, we were about 17, we had an english teacher from liverpool who knew john lennon. a week later, suddenly we all understood the beatles' lyrics!

@Ghol: Since you live in an area where I assume a lot of Oberbayrisches Bairisch is spoken: To my ears the short "a" in "cat" sounds rather like the first "a" in the Bavarian dialect pronunciation of "Katzerl" ("Kätzchen") or of the proper name Kathi (Bavarian pronunciation again). Would you agree?

@Rob-by: could be. I will listen out!
However almost any "a" as in "Katharina" or "Carola" is more acceptable to BE ears than the umlauted version (should be a bit 'lighter'/'higher' and further forward though).

I think Northern German pronunciation comes pretty close. Imagine how "Katze" would be pronounced in a "Werner" film...

@Ghol: I'm sorry for the mix up there, but since no one said he/she was talking about BE or AE, I thought you were referring to English in general.

Ich werd auf das Angebot zurückkommen (; Wie heißt das nochmal auf English? "to come/get back at/on/to"?

@David: well, I admit I often sound a bit categorical. re Angebot: Maybe "I'll get back to you about your offer".

Oh, ok, good 2 know, thx! (;

Listen up! Yesterday I spoke with an english colleague who just came over from Manchester.

When I told him about the english teacher of my son and his pronounciation of cat and black...

Well, he told me that the only person he knows that talks like thatis his mother in law and she is a very old lady from the south of UK.

Thanks a lot but I surrender.

I think one side of the problem is that those English-German dictionaries which are often used by German teachers (e.g. Langenscheidt Der Große Muret-Sanders) are very conservative concerning pronunciation, and in their phonetic transscription show a pronunciation pattern that was common in the English educated classes some 50 years ago.

@Paul M

I can't find any substantial differences. Older dictionaries sometimes do not include American pronunciation, but the British pronunciation is very accurate and hardly ever differs from the 2003 Daniel Jones.

David, ein Kollege mit damals noch recht gering entwickelten Englisch-Kenntnissen schrieb mal einer Kollegin in England "I will come on you back." meaning "I will get back to you."

Die E-Mail machte natürlich erst mal die Runde ... :->

Ghol, after listening carefully to various examples from BE and AE using the links provided above I feel confirmed in my notion to explain it as I suggested before: "keatt". Das "e" ist kaum hörbar, aber dem einfachen deutschen a in "Katharina" fehlt der dem Englischen a eigene anfängliche dunkle Unterton.
Das ist auch kein "Mix" aus e und a, es ist wichtig, dass das (kaum hörbare) e vor dem Hauptton a kommt.

Or am I just confusing things?

Hey, just pretend you're all speaking South Äfrican English and you'll have no problems!

A Händy and Big Mäc will sound just right then!

Yeah, our English short 'a' isn't easy ... but it IS only in South Äfrica that it sounds the same as 'Mänätscher' usw, described by Ghol.

"But I think that AE is closer to kätt than BE."

One's own experience is very compelling, and sometimes it's hard to see past that. The best way I can illustrate this to you is by turning the tables a little:

David, do you agree or disagree with this statement:

"It's ok for Americans to pronounce Lüge like Liga because the u-umlaut sounds practically identical to the /i/ sound in Liga."

I suspect that you would strongly disagree with this statement.

Many speakers of English might say either that /ü/ and /i/ are indistinguishable, or that the difference is so tiny as to be irrelevant. (Linguistically speaking, they hear them as allophones of a single phoneme, thus not phonetically significant.)

The reason you disagree is because German makes a phonemic difference between the two sounds that is crucial for distinguising between the meaning of two words, which might be identical *except* for that difference, be it ever so small to American ears.

If an American defended his mispronunciation of u-umlaut and said to you that Lüge is "close" to Liga wouldn't you tell him that that didn't matter? Whether Lüge is "closer" to Liga than it is to Lager or Lecker or Lõcher is totally irrelevant--they are all sufficiently phonetically different to mean something different to a native, and that is all that counts. Close, far, who cares--they're *different*--and the difference in pronunciation must be maintained or a loss in meaning results.
[1/2]

The fact that you (apparently) hear AE /cat/ as "closer" to /kãtt/ than to /kut/ (or to /mix/ or to /pez/ ) is likewise totally irrelevant--to a native AE speaker, they are instantly recognizable as different phonemes, and the words as two completely different words. BE speakers hearing AE accents are not confused when they hear AE speakers pronounce these words in connected speech, where the mind makes an automatic adjustment for the foreign accent.

Sounds that are different phonemes in language A may be allophones (if they exist at all) in language B which makes it very difficult for B speakers to hear the A sounds properly.

If you ask a native speaker of English, they will say that the T in "top" and "stop" sound the same, but this is patently false. Native speakers are often surprised by the experimental proof of this: hold a tissue paper (or a candle) just in front of your lips, and pronounce the words "top" and "stop". The T in "top" is aspirated, and causes a puff of air which will move the tissue or the flame. The T in "stop" is unaspirated, and there will be very little movement. AE and BE make no distinction in aspirated or unaspriated T--they are allophones, that is, "the same sound" to native speakers.

Hindi, on the other hand, makes a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated T, and there are separate letters for them. Because Hindi speakers hear the difference, they can be used to indicate different meaning whereas in English they are allophones of the same phoneme.

What I am suggesting here, is that it is likely that you hear as essentially "the same sound" or very similar sounds, the /cat/ - /cut/ discussion we are having, whereas English speakers hear the AE pronunciation as very different. A German teacher must properly distinguish between /cat/ and /cut/ or the meaning is lost.
[2/2]

An excellent explanation, Peter!

Perhaps there is an easy solution for this dispute about the correct pronunciation of English: Let's simply add another variety of English to the collection of 'Englishes' that are already spread all-over the Earth (British English, Scottish English, Welsh English, Irish English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English...) - German English, i.e. English as pronounced by Germans. Then there will be no more mistakes made by Germans when speaking English... :-)

@Bex Fri Jan 16 10:17:08 2004: Härry Potter, Härry Potter, Härry Potterr!

I have followed this with much interest, but still don't know how you pronounce 'cat'. I call it cat rhymes with 'met, 'set' 'pet', but my mate who lives not 15 mile away,but on our North east coast speaks with the Scottish accent common in those parts(it's about twenty mile from scotland)says cat rhymes with 'mat', 'hat' 'sat'.
A Scottish friend tells of a German engineer on his ship. One day they were at their meal when he asked the German to 'pass that pitcher of milk'. To this the German replied 'Goddamn, I spend weeks learning to call a goddamn yug a jug and now you call a goddamn yug a pitcher' The moral of that story is why not call the goddamn cat a pussy - on seond thoughts,better not!

I'd say however you pronounce "cat", you are likely to pronounce bat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat and vat the same way. Take a look at..

http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=cat...

where you can discover that it rhymes with "wrestling mat" and many others.

Hallo!
Die allgemeine Meinung hier ist, daß sich die meisten Englischlehrer eine veraltete Aussprache lehren. Meine Erfahrungen in der Schule waren ein wenig anders (Gymnasium BaWü):
Mein erster Englischlehrer hatte seine Praktikumszeit in Schottland verbracht und achtete stark auf die richtige schottische Aussprache. Bewußt wurde mir das durch meinen Onkel aus Birmingham, der sich über diese harte Aussprache lustig machte und mir stattdessen seinen lokalen Dialekt beibringen wollte.
In der siebten Klasse dann die Lehrerin mit Praktikum in "Äimerika" in Nuiork.
Danach dann der Brighton-Fan, beim nächsten Lehrer weiß ich es nicht mehr und zum Schluß im Leistungskurs wieder der Schotte.
Ich sag mal einfach die Mischung machts, was dabei rauskommt, ist alles, aber nichts bestimmtes mehr.

@Archfarchnad No I den't telk like thet. It's just that word cat that I pronounce like met. Maybe I picked it up in my childhood. After all you can't call someone 'a cheeky wee caht' and grit your teeth at the same time, but you can if you call them a cheeky wee 'kett' or even a cheeky wee 'gett'.
Alas television is killing many of the local dialects and unifying the language.
Even the old Liverpudlian way of pronouncing words ending in 'ing' seems to have disappeared. I used to love to hear their goink, sellink, comink and the like. By the way, what does 'bag' rhyme with? Here it was once indistinguishable from beg. Go shopping here and you'll always be told 'there's yer wee receipt' and asked 'do ye want a wee bag/beg ?' When I wa with the Liverpool crowd, some called me jammy, not because I was lucky, but because I pronounced the word 'jam' not as 'gem' but as 'jahm'. I'll bet your sorry you asked.

I guess I've just never needed to call anyone a cheeky wee cat. Little git, yes - cat,no.

@innovator: We don't speak of "German English" nowadays, but of "Continental English". This kind of English is spoken by non-native speakers of English on the European continent, and you can hear it every day in television interviews on channels like MTV.

Listening to those speakers, you are sometimes surprised about their good command of the English vocabulary, but at the same time about the way they pronounce English words. You simply 'know' from listening that they are not English (or Scottish or Irish), even if they speak - as it were - fluently or rapidly.

Just to confuse things a wee bit more:
My first name is 'Ulrike' and when I introduce myself people tend to ask if it's spelled with an 'a' as in UlrikA. This has happened to me many times in the US as well as in GB.

Personally, I feel the 'a' in cat is pronounced not exactly like a German 'a' but not like an 'ae' either. Many Americans pronounce it closer to 'ae', where as many British pronounce it more like the German 'a'. The emphasis lies on 'LIKE'!

Ein Thread mit 56 Postings über die simple Frage, wie man "cat" auszusprechen hat! Nun ja.

Englisch ist in der Tat eine Sprache, die reich ist, sowohl an Dialekten als auch Soziolekten. Die Aussprache ein- und desselben Wortes kann enorm variieren. So führt z. B. der dtv-Atlas Englisch für das Wörtchen "home" u. a. die Varianten (hier jetzt in Deutscher Schreibweise) "jam", "aum", und "om" auf. Dazu kommt, daß sich die Aussprache im Lauf der Jahrhunderte radikal verändert hat.

Ähnlich wie im Deutschen hat es auch im Englischen Versuche einer Standardisierung gegeben. Das Ergebnis waren zwei Aussprachevarianten:

- Das Britisch Standard Englisch (kurz: "BSE" ;) und
- Die Received Pronouciation (kurz: "RP") für das amerikanische Englisch

Lange Zeit hat man sich sowohl im Sprachunterricht als auch in Rundfunk und Fernsehen am BSE bzw. RP orientiert. Auch die BBC hat weitgehend das BSE benutzt. Inzwischen sieht man die Sache etwas lockerer und selbst die BBC läßt Abweichungen zu. Die Masse der Muttersprachler hat eh nie ein reines BSE od RP gesprochen.

Wenn also heute mancher BSE im Sinne von "Bovine Spongiform English" interpretiert, ist das durchaus nachvollziehbar.

@Uho: I suddenly realised what you mean about the "ea" --> only in the American pronunciation. Yes, I hear it like that too. But not the British English. Sorry, I didn't see it straightaway.

@JGMcI: your NI accent can be rather "interesting"... I once had a friend from Newt'nards who used to say something like "hor-yü?" for "how are you".

@ domulti
"- Die Received Pronouciation (kurz: "RP") für das amerikanische Englisch"
hmm, ich habe von British Standard English noch nie gehört, aber RP ist definitiv der Standard für britisches und nicht amerikanisches English.

RP ist ein Sociolect, der sonst auf der Welt als Queen's oder Oxford English bekannt ist und von weniger als 10% der britischen Native Speaker vollständig beherrscht wird. Heutzutage wird selbst von Nachrichtensprechen nur noch eine angenäherte RP-Version gesprochen. Wörterbuch für RP: Daniel Jones.

Question for all: Ever encountered a person rhyming house with mice?

@Nowo: a friend of mine -- who later progressed to reading the news on television -- once phoned a radio talk-show pretending to be Prince Charles. He turned his cassette player on loud (brass band music) in the background and apologised profusely to the presenter for the "damn hicehold cavalry".


RP is no longer "definitiv" the standard reference. That went out many years ago, and people began to talk much more about BBC English. If there is a more recent trend, I don't know of it.

These days, the Queen of England is meant to speak Estuary English, so RP is now RIP...

Ups! Da hab ich mich vertan. Stimmt, RP ist Britisches Englisch. Beim Amerikanischen nennt sich das "General American" (GP). "BSE" bezieht sich eigentlich mehr auf das Ganze (Wortschatz, Grammatik, Wortgebrauch usw.) und ist im Gegensatz zu "ASE" (American Standard English) zu sehen.

Gestern war eh nicht mein Tag. (Nicht nur deshalb.)

*Much later*

Contributions 46 and 47 are spot on. The "position" of the cardinal vowels varies from accent to accent and there is even some overlap. What is important is the relative position.

For the record:
 
/æ/, wie in cat [kæˑt] = offenes etwas helles a, zwischen a und ä [ɛ]
/ʌ/, wie in cut [kʌtʰ] = „dunkles“ ungerundetes, mit weiter hinten im Mund liegender Zunge gebildetes a