Pronunciation Of German Lyrics

Subject: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 20 Sep 21 - 09:50 AM

I stumbled upon the German version of Walt Disney's "Sleeping Beauty", and specifically the German version of "The Gifts Of Beauty And Song", on Youtube, and there's something that struck my curiosity. How are the sung lyrics pronounced? Anyone from Germany who can write a pronunciation guide for me? The song is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOcq9rcvJ2w

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Sep 21 - 11:34 AM

Your request intrigued me, but no soap. I have studied German but can't understand a word of the songs.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 21 Sep 21 - 02:41 PM

If this is the classic feature-length Disney version,
then its title in German would be

Dornröschen,
or sometimes
Dornröschen und der Prinz.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 23 Sep 21 - 07:07 PM

@Leeneia Interestingly enough, you say that "princess" in German is "prinzessin". Yet when I hear those two women pronounce it, it seems to sound more like they say "prinzesschen" (approximately "prin tsess yen"), which leaves me confused, as I'm not sure which one they mean to say.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 23 Sep 21 - 07:42 PM

@keberoxu, yes, it is the Disney version.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 21 - 08:41 PM

"Prinzesschen" is the diminiutive form, "little princess".

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,John Bowden (not a typo!)
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 06:59 AM

Hi Annabelle,

The lyrics are shown here

I've transliterated the text to show how the words are pronounced, although sometimes it's not easy to show it in English - e.g. "ich" is neither "ish" nor "ik", but a soft ch sound - and the umlauts (erblühn, glühn etc) don't have exact equivalents in English - anyway, I hope it gives you some idea: I've capitalised the stressed syllables. I'm afraid it looks clumsy, but many sounds are approximate between the two languages.

Ich will Dir verleih'n
Haar wie gold'ner Sonnenschein
Lippen, die wie Rosen glüh'n
und auf ewig soll der Frühling erblüh'n


Ich vill deer fair-LINE
Har vee GOLLD-nuh ZONN-en-shine
LIPP-en dee vee ROSE-en bloon (very approximate!)
Unt owf AY-vig zoll der FROO-ling er-BLOON


Dann schenk’ ich ihr Gesang
mit Musik ihr Leben lang
die Nachtigall, der Troubadour
singet ihr Lieder voll Glück und Kultur

Dan shenk ich ear ge-ZANG
Mitt moo-ZEEK ear LAY-ben lang
Dee NAKT-i-gall, dare Troubadour (Same as English!)
ZING-et ear LEE-duh foll gluk unt kull-TOUR

Die Liebe immer siegt

Dee LEE-buh IM-muh zeegt

The literal translation in English:

I will give you
Hair like golden sunshine
Lips that glow like roses,
And may spring always bloom

Then I will give her song
With music her whole life long
The nightingale, the troubadour,
Will sing her songs full of happiness and culture

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 07:05 AM

Two more things:

- in verse 1, "ewig" has the stress on the second syllable (ayVIG) to make it clumsily fit the tune!

- I didn't translate "Die Liebe immer siegt", which means "Love always wins/is always victorious" - again, poetic word order, as it would normally be "Die Liebe siegt immer"

John

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 07:45 AM

Here's what the two women say for the spoken part, and this is where I'm confused. Tell me if I spelled this right. And, can somebody tell me how to approximately pronounce these phrases?
Flora (Erna Sellmer): Kleines prinzesschen! Meine gabe sei das geschenk der schönheit!
Fauna (Elfe Schneider): Süßes prinzesschen! Meine gabe seine stimme wie gold!

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,John Bowden (not a typo!)
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 08:53 AM

Hi,

Just a couple of spelling amendments - they say:

Flora (Erna Sellmer): Kleines Prinzesschen! Meine Gabe sei das geschenk der schönheit!

KLAIN-ess Prin-TSESS-shen! [Approximately!]. MY-nuh GAR-buh zie (rhymes with "lie"]

dass guh=SHENK dare SCHERN-hite

(Little Princess! My present shall be the gift of beauty)


Fauna (Elfe Schneider): Süßes Prinzesschen! Meine Gabe sei eine Stimme wie Gold!

ZOO-sess Prin-TSESS-shen! MY-nuh GAR-buh zie EYE-nuh sht-IMMUH vee gollt

(Sweet little Pricncess! My gift shall be a voice like gold)

Both "Gabe" and "Geschenk" mean "present"/"gift" - "Geschenk is the more general one (birthday/Christmas present etc., and Gabe is more a gift in the sense of talent/ability.

The subjunctive "sei" means "may (my gift) be...", but here really just "my gift will be..."

John

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 10:00 AM

@John I remember when my American Grandma Dorcas (yes, that's actually her name), who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket if she tried, would sing the original German version of Brahms Lullaby, I remember when she pronounced "morgen früh", it sounded to me like she sang, "Morgan free". So maybe "glüh'n" would be something like "Glean", and "erblüh'n" would be something like, "air bleen"?

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,John Bowden (not a typo!)
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 10:38 AM

Hi Annabelle,

There's a very short example of the three umlauted vowels in German (ä, ö and ü)
here

One way it's sometimes described is that you purse you lips as if saying "oo", and with your lips in that position try to say "ee" instead!

The sound is certainly not "ee" except in some dialects such as Berlin - interestingly, in the German version of "My Fair Lady", the equivalent of "The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain", the sentence which Higgins uses to get rid of Eliza's "RIne in Spine..." pronunciation, is "Es grünt so grün wenn Spaniens Blüten blüh'n" - literally "it blossoms so greenly when Spain's blossoms bloom". Eliza's Berlin pronunciation which he wants to eradicate is "es greent so green wenn Spaniens Bleeten bleehn" - very much like your Grandmother's pronunciation!

Here are Stefanie Schaefer and Christian Grygas at the "by Jove she's got it!" moment, and you get a good view of how Stefanie is forming the vowel!

here

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 11:54 AM

@John Even more interesting, when she'd sing the term "näglein", as in, "Mit näglein besteckt", it sounded like she sang "nog-line", as in a line of eggnog. When I heard my screenreader pronounce the same term, it sounded like "neckline". Now I'm confused!

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: Monique
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 01:08 PM

Annabelle, if you paste the German lyrics into Google translate and click on the small loudspeaker at the bottomw of the window you can hear them said and if you click again, they're said slowly.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 24 Sep 21 - 02:02 PM

@John Here's what I got from Google Translate. See if this looks right, compared to the one you posted.


Little princess! My gift be the gift of beauty!

I want to lend you
Hair like golden sunshine
Lips that glow like roses
and spring shall bloom forever

Sweet princess! My gift be a voice like gold!

Then I'll give her singing
with music all their lives
the nightingale, the troubadour
sing songs full of happiness and culture

Love always wins!

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 02 Oct 21 - 04:50 PM

I wonder what the third fairy was supposed to say in the German version.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Oct 21 - 09:26 PM

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-

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Oct 21 - 09:37 PM

Annabelle, wasn't the third fairy named "Annabella"? There was a wonderful hotel right across the street from Disneyland called the Annabella, but it closed and they're building a huge replacement on that prime property.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 03 Oct 21 - 05:02 PM

@Joe Offer I think the third fairy's name was Sonnenschein in the German version. I know she was Merryweather in the original English version. The third fairy was voiced by Aneliese Würtz (sp) in the German version, and Barbara Luddy in the English version.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: MudGuard
Date: 03 Oct 21 - 06:31 PM

In general, German is pronounced "as it is written".
I.e. the same letter or letter combination is (almost) always pronounced the same.

How to explain pronounciation in a language, where letters/letter combinations have many different ways of pronounciation?

Some examples:

"tough", "though", "thought", "trough", "thought", "thorough" all have the combination "ough" - but in each word it is pronounced differently;

or "read" vs. "read" - depending on whether it's present or past time;

or "north" vs. "word";

cu, MudGuard a/k/a Andreas (from Munich/Germany)

or "either" - depending on British/American/Australian English;

or ...

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Reinhard
Date: 03 Oct 21 - 10:46 PM

This came from Usenet, somewhere, sometime.

(Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization
headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ...
until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of
accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a
Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six
lines aloud. Try them yourself.)


ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
======================

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

-- Richard Lederer

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,snehalharshe
Date: 04 Oct 21 - 06:59 AM

The Germans have their place in the history of time, and when it comes to vocabulary, it follows exactly the exact same heritage. German Language Course in Pune at SevenMentor institute helps many Indians to fulfil their dreams.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 04 Oct 21 - 08:05 AM

@Reinhard That's an interesting poem, but it didn't lead me to what I was trying to pronounce. @Andreas, that would be amazing if I could meet you one day. It's interesting how Merryweather was known as "sonnenschein" (Sunshine) in the German version.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 04 Oct 21 - 08:16 AM

Even though this version is a fan dub, here's part of what Merryweather (Sonnenschein) says in the German version. I'm not sure what the first word is in the beginning of her part, what I can make out is, "Prinzesschen, meine gabe sei...". That's the part before Maleficent appears. At the 2:15 mark in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTgBDwUrydk

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 12:08 PM

@John Bowden When I heard Stefanie speak the words, I heard "Es groont so groon", but when I heard her start to sing the tune, I heard the "Es greent so green", maybe it's when she sings it in a high register. Kind of like how "Ah" turns into "uh" or "ooh", and "Ooh" sounds like "ah" or "oh" when sopranos sing really high. That's why I never liked opera, as high notes can be harsh on my ear.

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: GUEST,Annabelle
Date: 14 Nov 21 - 02:44 PM

@Joe Offer I could be mistaken, but doesn't "zeigen" mean "goat"? Or is that "ziegen"? I'm confused!

Subject: RE: Pronunciation Of German Lyrics
From: Reinhard
Date: 14 Nov 21 - 03:49 PM

"zeigen" means to show, "zeigen auf" means to point at. "Ziegen" are goats.

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