I took first-year German in sophomore year of high school from Professor John Rueping in 1963-64 - I had him for Algebra the previous year. I don't know where he was from, but he was definitely a native-born German. I suppose some would interpret his teaching method as abusive, but it just made us laugh - we recalled his teaching methods fondly at our 50-year class reunion in 2016. He died mid-year of that first year, and I had far gentler teachers after that.

But I learned a lot from Prof that first year, especially about pronunciation. I studied a lot of languages - Latin, German, Greek, and Spanish - and always was required to get the pronunciation down the first week of class.

Our choir director alway pushes me to write out phonetic pronunciation of the Latin songs we sing, and I hate doing that. It seems to me, that if you are going to sing in a language, you ought to learn the pronunciation so you don't need phonetic spelling. But I groan and type out phonetic spellings of Latin songs anyhow.

But for German, I don't know that phonetic spellings work. If you want it to sound right, you have to learn how the language sounds. Prof was very fussy about "explosive" sounds in German, particularly "Z." He'd start to form the sound and hold it all in, puffing up his face until he was ready to let go with "TZaygen!!!!: (zeigen) - and we'd all laugh whenever he did it.

I think that's probably the best way to learn pronunciation of any language - to exaggerate it to the point where it's exactly correct, and then to back off a bit when you're actually speaking or singing. But correct and distinct pronunciation is very important when you're singing, especially when it's in another language. But I still laugh whenever I think of Professor Rueping pronouncing "zeigen."

I'd suggest that you Google "German Pronunciation Guide" and use one of the many guides that are available.

-Joe-