My question for the day yesterday was "Is the alphabet the same?" Yes and no. The letters A -Z are there and are the same letters, except many of them are pronounced differently. They also have additional letters, the umlauts (letters with two dots over them) and the double S symbol that you have sometimes seen in the words for the day that I have had.
In the classes I am teaching, I am working with business men and women who have customers that speak English. As I said before, sometimes it is the common language between them, and sometimes the customer's native language is English. One of the things I have had to have each of my students do, though, is say the alphabet. In my class last night, I had the perfect example of why this was important. We had a new word that they were asking about, and one of the fellows asked me if it was spelled ... where he gave me the letters he thought might be the word. I knew what he was trying to say, but I told him that I was going to write exactly what I heard him spell. Certain letters, like A, E, I, W and Y are very tricky for them. Their pronunciation of A is AH. Their pronunciation of E is AY. Their pronunciation of I is EE. So when he spelled his word (files), he said F E L A S. To him, those were indeed the right letters, and since I knew what he was saying, I knew he had also spelled it correctly, but by showing him what I got on my end when he spelled it, I was able to emphasize how important it is to pronounce the alphabet correctly in the language with which you are working.
Both of my boys are taking German at the language school where I teach English. Ironically, today they also have to work with the alphabet - pronouncing it the German way. We have our song for the A B C's that all children can sing. They have a poem that children can also learn. I will put the original poem here with pronunciations of the words in parenthesis (remember ch is that cat sound), and then tell you what it means:
A B C D E
Mein Bauch tut mir so weh! (mine bouch tut meer zo vay)
F G H I J K
Es zwickt mich hier und da. (ess tsvikt meech heer und dah)
L M N O P Qu
Da rät ein Känguru: (dah reht ine kehn goo roo)
R S T U V W
Mit Zwieback und mit Tee (mit tsvee bahk und mit tay)
X Y Z
geht's bald wieder weg. (gayhts biald vee der vayg)
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A B C D E
My tummy hurts me so much!
F G H I J K
It pinches me here and there.
L M N O P Q
There a kangaroo gives me advice
R S T U V W
with sweet crackers and with tea
X Y Z
goes soon (the pain) again away
My question for today is "What does a typical telephone number in Germany look like?"
The word for today is going to be the pronunciation of the alphabet: A - ah, B - bay, C - tsay, D - day, E - ay, F - ef, G - gay, H - hah, I - ee, J - yaht, K - kah, L - el, M - ehm, N - ehn, O - oh, P - pay, Q - coo, R - air, S - ehs, T - tay, U - oo, V - fouw, W - vay, X - eeks, Y - upsilon (where the U is like in soup), Z - tseht. In addition, there are the special characters, the umlauts and the ess-tsett: ä - eh, ö - euhr kind like in fern, ü - euw (trumpet the lips and say the letter U), and ß - ess
