FSI German recordings

May 20, 2009 1:27 PM

FSI language courses: is this a particular accent, or just the tape? So I'm going through the Foreign Service Institue German program, available online here, and I'm wondering if the speakers on the audio portion have a particular accent or if their pronunciations pretty much the most common.

For instance, it sounds like in tape 1.1, when they pronounce Druben, they are actually saying "droon". Is this accurate and just a pronunciation rule that I've forgotten? Is it a poor recording? Do I have poor listening skills?

Please be patient with my ignorance

posted by Think_Long to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Best answer: Nope, they sound pretty standard "hochdeutsch" to me.
Ok, the guy saying "Guten Tag, Frau Kunze" maybe has a slight regional thing going on (he rolls his Rs for instance, which is unusual, but apart from that, still standard).

About the "drüben", he kinda swallows half of the word and says sth like "drübm", which is fairly common in spoken German (if somewhat colloquial). Definitely not regional though.

Hope this helps.
posted by ClarissaWAM at 1:54 PM on May 20, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks much, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't waayyyy off-center
posted by Think_Long at 1:55 PM on May 20, 2009

Slight disagreement - the female voice is much closer to hochdeutsch than the male one. The male speaker has a distinct accent (sounds South German to me, probably Bavarian or Franconian), much more noticeable in his continuous, fast speech, especially in the listening comprehension portions near the end. But yeah, it's not a really strong accent and it wouldn't sound "off" in all but the most formal situations.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 2:28 PM on May 20, 2009

It sounds like they are not professional speakers. The same way a newscaster sounds (usually) nice and clear, but some dope on the street doesn't speak as clearly.
posted by gjc at 5:54 PM on May 20, 2009