German has uvular fricatives!

[pne]

Hm, up till now I thought that German /x/ was [x]... but after listening to this page, I'm convinced that it's actually [X] (and that my /r/ is [R], not [G]).

(Also, my attempts at rhotic trills seem to be closer to an [R\] (uvular trill) than to an [r] (alveolar trill). Heh. My trills suck, and I blame my frenulum.)

Comments

Re: [C] vs [x]

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Sure, that's pretty obvious.

But I read that "Buch" and "ach" have different consonants, I think. I can't hear a difference between the two sounds though, but then again I can't hear the difference between [x] and [X] otherwise either, do I don't know if it's true.

Re: [C] vs [x]

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

I've only just started studying German, so it might be that I'm pronouncing things incorrectly, but I definitely hear (phonetically) different consonants in "Bücher" and "acht." Not as sure about "Buch."

Re: [C] vs [x]

[pne.livejournal.com]

I definitely hear (phonetically) different consonants in "Bücher" and "acht."

*nods* the first has the "ich-Laut" ([C]) and the second has the "ach-Laut" ([X]).

Briefly speaking, /x/ is [C] after front vowels such as /y/ and [X] after back vowels such as /a/.

Not as sure about "Buch."

It has the sound of /x/ after back vowels. However, it's true that I do pronounce it slightly more forward than the sound in "acht".

Incidentally, I also have [C] in my English, I think -- for me, "huge" /hju:dZ/ is roughly [Cu:dZ].

Re: [C] vs [x]

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

The first consonant in my "huge" is farther forward -- more like the Japanese ひ.

Buch vs ach

[pne.livejournal.com]

But I read that "Buch" and "ach" have different consonants, I think.

Hmm... *tries it out*

You may be right. I'm not sure the consonant in "Buch" is far enough forward to be [x], but it feels more forward to me than the sound in "ach", which seems a lot more uvular to me.