German · Deutsch
English accent training for German speakers
German and English are close relatives, which means most consonants transfer cleanly and vocabulary feels familiar. The accent that remains comes from a handful of systematic differences — final devoicing, the /w/ gap, glottal stops, and the th sounds — plus a tendency to attack each word separately where English links them.
Because German speakers usually reach a high level quickly, these residual features become the whole accent. Fixing four or five of them moves the needle a long way.
The sounds German speakers get wrong most often
Final devoicing
German devoices final obstruents (Auslautverhärtung), so 'bed' becomes 'bet', 'have' becomes 'haff', 'is' becomes 'iss'.
Test yourself: bed / bet · dog / dock · have · is · leave / leaf
How to fix it: Keep the voice on through the final consonant and lengthen the vowel before it. English signals final voicing mainly through vowel length.
/w/ vs /v/
German w is /v/, so 'we' becomes 've' and 'wine' becomes 'vine'. Hypercorrection then turns 'very' into 'wery'.
Test yourself: we / ve · wine / vine · west / vest · very
How to fix it: /w/ has rounded lips and no teeth contact at all. /v/ has teeth on lip. Drill both directions so the correction does not overshoot.
/θ/ and /ð/
Th becomes /s/, /z/, /t/ or /d/: 'think' → 'sink', 'the' → 'ze' or 'de'.
Test yourself: think · three · the · that · brother
How to fix it: Tongue tip against the top teeth with continuous airflow. If the sound can be stopped abruptly, you produced a stop instead of a fricative.
Glottal stops
German inserts a glottal stop before word-initial vowels, so English 'an apple' comes out as two separate chunks instead of linking.
Test yourself: an apple · turn off · get out · in and out
How to fix it: Carry the final consonant of one word onto the vowel of the next: 'an apple' → 'a napple', 'turn off' → 'tur noff'.
/r/
German r is uvular or a vocalised schwa, so English 'red' picks up a back-of-throat quality and 'car' loses its r entirely in some varieties.
Test yourself: red · around · very · car · water
How to fix it: English /r/ is a tongue-tip glide with no throat involvement. Start from the 'er' in 'butter' and add the vowel after it.
/dʒ/ vs /j/
German j is /j/, so 'job' can become 'yob' and 'juice' can become 'yuice'.
Test yourself: job · juice · jump · yes · year
How to fix it: /dʒ/ begins with the tongue tip stuck to the ridge and pops off. Add a light /d/ in front while learning.
/æ/ vs /ɛ/
German ä sits between them, so 'bad' and 'bed', 'man' and 'men' merge.
Test yourself: bad / bed · man / men · sat / set · had / head
How to fix it: /æ/ drops the jaw much further and spreads the lips. Two fingers between the teeth for 'cat'.
Aspirated /p t k/ after /s/
German aspirates these consistently, including after /s/, so 'spin' and 'stop' get a puff English does not use there.
Test yourself: spin · stop · sky · speak · student
How to fix it: Paper-strip test: 'pin' should move it, 'spin' should barely move it at all.
Linking and melody
German and English are both stress-timed, so the fundamental rhythm transfers well. What does not transfer is linking. German separates words with glottal stops before vowels; English runs them together, moving final consonants onto following vowels and blurring the boundaries entirely.
The other difference is melodic range. English uses wider pitch movement, particularly on questions and on polite or tentative statements. A flatter German contour is often heard as more definitive than intended.
Practise connected speech in phrases, not words: 'What are you doing?' is really one long unit, roughly 'wattaya doin', with no gaps between the words at all.
A 10-minute daily practice routine
- Final-voicing pairs: bed/bet, have/half, prize/price. Stretch the vowel on the voiced one.
- W/V drills both directions: we/ve, wine/vine, very/wery.
- Linking practice: 'an apple', 'turn off', 'get out' as single words.
- Paper-strip aspiration test on 'pin' versus 'spin'.
Find out which of these apply to you
The 2-minute assessment records a short sample of your speech and scores it sound by sound, so you know which of the patterns above are actually costing you clarity — and which you have already solved.
Take the free assessment →Frequently asked questions
Why do German speakers say 'wery' for 'very'?
It is hypercorrection. German w is pronounced /v/, so learners are taught to swap it — and then over-apply the swap to words that genuinely start with /v/. Drilling both directions in the same session prevents it.
What is the glottal stop problem in German English?
German inserts a hard glottal onset before word-initial vowels, which chops English into separate words. English instead links across boundaries, so 'an apple' sounds like 'a napple'. Practising linking removes the staccato quality.
Which German English feature is most noticeable?
Final devoicing, because it changes words rather than just colouring them — 'bed' becoming 'bet' is a different word. Lengthening the vowel before a voiced final consonant fixes most of it.