{"id":1377,"date":"2018-06-13T03:25:19","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T07:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/?p=1377"},"modified":"2018-06-13T16:05:16","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T20:05:16","slug":"bairisch-language-progression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/2018\/06\/13\/bairisch-language-progression\/","title":{"rendered":"Bairisch: Language Progression"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I came to Germany already at a high level of German, my classes have been most useful for the details – I\u2019ve been increasing and internalizing my vocabulary, learning new ways to use grammar, and I\u2019ve had to work a lot on my pronunciation! One teacher in particular often corrects me on my pronunciation of Z\u2019s and S\u2019s. Even though German has mostly the same alphabet as English, that\u2019s no indicator of similar pronunciations.<\/span><\/p>\n

It can be tough to practice German out in the city when I speak with an American accent. Even if I speak in German to a cashier and in what I think is flawless German, they will often respond in English if I sound too foreign. They are just trying to be helpful, and yet it can feel condescending when I\u2019m trying to practice my German. So one thing I\u2019ve been focusing a lot on is putting on a German accent when I order. If I can get the intonation correct, I have a much better chance of improving and practicing my German. Sometimes I even pretend to have a more German-sounding name when I visit a place like Starbucks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another challenge in Munich has been the regional differences in speech that I never knew about before. It can be quite hard to understand the regional dialect, Bairisch, but here are three things I\u2019ve noticed:<\/span><\/p>\n