4 ms·
The German word 'lachs' and the English word 'lox' are pronounced, essentially, identically.
by subpixel 7y ago
The German word 'lachs' and the English word 'lox' are pronounced, essentially, identically.
- tdeck 7y agoBut the German "ch" phoneme doesn't even exist in (American) English?
- asynchrony 7y agoIt's not pronounced from the throat like the German "ch" but otherwise it's as close as it gets.
- anyfoo 7y agoThere are (at least?) three different ways "ch" can be pronounced in German: Throaty as in "Buch", a slightly altered "sh" sound like in "Bücher", and just as plain "k", like in "Lachs".
- posterboy 7y agoI was very surprised to see wiktionaries phonetic transcription and sound sample of "Buch", apparently it is not throaty everywhere. It's a /k/ in all "-achs", e.g. "Dachs", "wachsen", "Flachs", exactly as in "bochs" the emulator (compare "boxen"), except across boundaries, e.g. "wachsam, wach-sam" (wakeful, at guard), or contractions, e.g. "[Meister seines].Faches/Fachs".
- anyfoo 7y agoIn this chase, "ch" is pronounced as "k", not as one of the two German ch-phonemes that don't exist in English.
- pianoben 7y agoUnsurprising, given the close relationship between Yiddish and German, and the fact that the English "lox" is literally the Yiddish word.
- housecarpenter 7y agoThe consonants are the same, but whether the vowels are the same depends on your accent. In most British accents the vowel in 'lox' is fairly distinct from that in German 'lachs'. (Or I should probably say 'would be', since it's not a word known to most British English speakers.)