German speakers- help with useful phrases.
 

We are traveling to Austria this weekend and know no German. My guidebooks have a few useful words but I can't figure out how to pronounce them.

Can someone spell a few useful German words phonetically for me? Thank you, please, excuse me, hello, goodbye, etc. Just a few words to show we are trying and to be polite.

Thanks in advance!

Here is a link to a website with audio which should help.
http://german.about.com/library/anfang/blanfang01.htm

See also the substantial free sampler from Fodors Living Language, right here on this website - - http://www.fodors.com/language - - scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Best wishes,

Rex

Perfect! Thank you!

Useful phrases in German, Spanish, and French.

http://www.zompist.com/phrases.html

Whenever we have traveled in places where my wife knows little or none of the local language, we have settled on several key phrases:

1. How much is that?
2. That costs too much.
3. Where is the toilet?
4. Please
5. Thank you.

Maybe not the coolest phrases...but essential.

As you try out the pronunciation of German phrases keep in mind that in German they ennunciate all the letters, unlike English where we frequently "glide" the sounds together.

Unless you are in very small villages you will find most of the people there speak more English than we do German but a few well-place "please's" and "thank you's" will go a long way.

Please - Bitte schon
Thank You - Danke schon
(sorry I can't type umlauts)
Good Morning - Guten Morgan
Do you speak English? - Sprechen sie Englisch?

Enjoy Austria. It should be a great trip this time of year.

>(sorry I can't type umlauts)
Don't worry ;-)

schon means already
schön means nice/pretty

So Dankeschon would be "thanks already" while Dankeschön is what you meant to say. Those "dots" did completely change the meaning of the word. Type "schoen" and everybody will understand :-)

How do you type the umlauts?

If you don't have them on your keyboard and can't find out how to type them, use "ue" for ü, "ae" for ä, oe for ö, and ss for ß, perfect and easyly readable for everyone, German or not. :-)

ThaNKS, I just didn't want to get in trouble with the spelling police.

To type umlauts, hold down the Shift key, then hit the key with quotation marks on it and then the letter you want the umlaut over. If it's a capital letter, continue to hold down the Shift key while hitting the letter. If it's a lowercase letter, release the Shift key: Ü ü

One good tip to keep in mind with German is that V is pronounced like our F in German, and W is pronounced like our V.

Zwischen zwei Zweigen zwitschern zwei Schwalben

You should never leave home without this phrase

Südamerikaner sind wahre Ballkünstler und können oft beidfüßig dribbeln.

Also useful

<Zwischen zwei Zweigen zwitschern zwei Schwalben>

OK, Babel Fish translates it as follows:

"Between two branches twitter two swallows"

What the hay? ((a)) ((b))

Okay, I wasn't going to do this -- but here goes: "Ein Student in stulpen Stiefel stolpert ueber'n spitzen Stein; wenn er kam zur Steintor Strasse, stieg er in die Strassenbahn."
......also very useful. :)

Zwischen zweiundzwanzig schwankenden Zwetschgenzweigen schweben zweiundzwanzig zwitschernde Schwalben.

Zehn Ziegen ziehen zehn Zentner Zement zum Zahnarzt, zum zementieren zerbrochener Zähne

Now I know why that European keyboard I was using in Switzerland typed Z instead of other letters :)

Zwei schwarze schleimige Schlangen sitzen zwischen zwei spitzigen Steinen und zischen.

Ich sehe dich doch noch nicht auf dem Podium stehen.