I've been studying German some in my spare time recently but there are some things that are troubling me.

The two non-ü umlauted-vowels have been cofusing me but I think I have it now. Are these correct?

ä for the most part is the same as an e.
ö is like the u as in "put".

The "ch" sound is also confusing me. For one thing, it's a little difficult to say it but this is compounded by the problem that these letters seem to make different sounds in different places. For example, "ich" seems to be pronounced with something like a sh (sch) sound or even with a sh sound. Then in a word like "ach" it's pronounced more toward the back of the mouth and a harder sound.

Help.

at this point I want to give our self-proclaimed expert in german and pronunciation derdrache the first shot. and I would like to ask anyone else in the forum to wait until either he or me have given an answer. don´t be afraid op, you will get a very helpful answer in the end.

derdrache it´s up to you, and your last activity in your profile will reveal if you evade this ..

ch - strong J sound
sch - shh
chs - x
eu -oi
äu -oi
ei - as in bie
ie - e sound

not sure if it's chs or something else which sounds like an x

mythbuster can you read?

BSK: Just help the OP out FFS.

Now my arbitrary $0.02: The nice thing about German pronunciation, from what I've been able to gather from my limited research, is that it is more or less pronounced as written, which becomes quite simple once you've learned all the details of pronunciation, not unlike Spanish.

static_void can you read?

I don't think DerDrache wants to have your showdown, I'm afraid. I'm going away for a week so I'd appreciate it if someone were to give an answer within the coming week.

I'm pretty sure I'm good with all the umlaut vowels but the ch still troubles me. From what I've seen, the ch is different with different vowels. For example, the ch in "ach" is more guttural and I don't think it's so difficult. However, ich type sounds as in unhöflich are softer and involve more the roof of the mouth. Does this vary from region to region? I don't know. This ch stuff is confusing.

I refer you to Zok's thread in M&A, I'm certainly not going to discuss this sort of thing publicly... though I will say that you are a MODERATOR, and are therefore obliged to help the posters in your forum. That's all I'm saying.

yes I agree and will do as promised.

as you might already know, the umlauts are vocals combined with an e. in former times they were just written next to each other, then the e was written above the other vocal until they simplified it with just 2 dots above the letter.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Umlautpunkte.png
to create a sound you got your tongue, jaw and lips. the phonetic effect of an ö is pretty simple. you use your lips and tongue to make a long ooooooooooooo. now you use your vocal cords to say a ten, but don´t change anything in your mouth. that´s all.
every umlaut is simply the mouth set up for the letter without the dots, and the vocal cords speaking an e like in ten. although ü is more like the english e and the german i.

ch is very different in many regoins, but that´s not part of learning high german. in the east the ch is more like ck and in the south like sch. in high german the preceding vocal indeed decides the sound of ch. usually it´s like using your mouth to speak a long german i like in see but, emitting a strong current of breath, hissing like a snake. by doing this the middle and the tip of your tongue touch the roof of your mouth like in licht. when you speak loch your tip of your tongue touches the bottom of your mouth, but the middle stays at the roof. and the same way you speak ach.
try to practise this and come back if you need more help.

well, he did ask for evidence it should not be deleted, but it doesn't belong in this thread. in order to save this thread and to keep this separate discussion going uncensored in another forum. please continue in b&m where all can see.

__________________
come join my bible study group: http://www.totse.com/community/group.php?groupid=9