The best examples that come to mind are when ordering food. As examples:
• You speak English and Spanish and are ordering a burrito
• You speak Thai and English and are ordering Tom Yum
I imagine it could depend on numerous things:
• You primary language or ethnicity
• What sort of restaurant
• Who you’re dining with
• Who you’re ordering from
• and probably a lot more…
I’m a native English speaker living in Germany and if I’m speaking German, every word is coming out with a German accent. It makes Germans cringe, but if I switch back and forth, I completely lose my accent. That means that I pronounce, for example, Microsoft while speaking German with a long i, a trilled r, and a voiced s.
Speaking German with a German accent? What?
German has many English loanwords, which most Germans pronounce with an English speaking accent. I pronounce them with a German accent, as in the example given. I also pronounce “Song” in German with voiced s and a k at the end, for another example.
I’m German and I have no idea how to pronounce “Microsoft” with a German accent. I guess you could pronounce it like the German “mikro” at the beginning? But that’s not an accent, that’s translating half a word. And Song with a “k” at the end? That’s just not a word. Are you saying Zonk?
It’s called Auslautverhärtung, and it makes Germans cringe when I do it on a word like song, but if I want to use it correctly on a word like Verhärtung, I’ve got to use it on the word song.
Again, long i, trilled r, and voiced s. You can call it translation if you want.
There are proper ways to pronounce English loan words in German. See Handy, aka Hendi auf Deutsch.
Exactly. I don’t pronounce „handy” in German the same as I do in English. „Cool” is almost the same, but with a slightly different L, but those are both actually German words. I was thinking more about recent acquisitions that might not be actually eingedeutscht yet or proper nouns though. I basically pronounce English words like a German who has minimal English knowledge.
The German r isn’t trilled, though. Not every “hard” r is “trilled”, that’s a unique feature of a specific set of languages and regional accents, like Spanish.
Also, as a German I’d frown so hard at someone who pronounces “Microsoft” like that, even most Germans don’t speak like that. Can’t you at least pronounce it as if it was written “Maikroßoft” (with a German r and a sharp s), i.e. like most Germans do? “ai” and sharp s are common sounds in German.
I feel you on having difficulties switching between accents quickly, though. I definitely run into this issue when I try pronouncing English words with English r, w or all those diphtongs that English tends to use instead of the single vowel that’s written down.
German has three widespread r variants, including a trilled one (which is most common around me, but not standard Hochdeutsch), and even more less widespread ones. If you go to Herborn, you can even find native German speakers with a rhotic r that sounds just like the one I grew up with in the US.
I wouldn’t call these variants “widespread”, but fair enough.
Do the Germans around you actually pronounce “Microsoft” like that, with German i and voiced s?
The old ones do, but young people think I’m cringe. I personally find it way more cringe if I pronounce the rest of the sentence with a strong American accent though, so my friends can call me cringe and I’m okay with it. Regarding my other example, „der Song,“ I tend to just say „das lied” instead, because I recognize that pronouncing it like „der (Minne)sang“ with an o is wrong and hard to understand.
But why do you get an American accent when you pronounce “Microsoft” like a German who speaks English with a German accent? “ai” and sharp s are common sounds in German.
My brain just gets confused, and it automatically switches. I’d like to be able to go back and forth easily, but I can’t. It might come in time, but for now I just stick with the pronunciation that leads from the spelling and standard German pronunciation rules (somewhat tailored to the local dialect)