Here's something like what I did a while back

on the other blog. As I said there, "Throw those "r"s back into your uvula and try to roll them there. If you can't, don't worry about it, most Germans can't either. I was taught to do it by a Danish girl named Merete." There're no o-umlauts here, so I don't need to throw in the valley-girl point.

Again: my pronunciations are based on the simplest, standard (Midwestern-) American English rules.]


I want to know if this sort of thing helps anybody learn and/or understand German better than they did before.

Johannes 3:16
yo-HON-ess dry:ZEKS-ayn
John 3:16

Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt,
ALL-zo hot Gote (not goat, make the 'o' real short) dee velt ge-LEEPT
[Prepositions are goofy. Try asking a Brit what time it is.]
For so has God the World loved,

dass er seinen eingeborenen Sohn gab,
doss air ZINE-en INE-ge-BORE-en-en zone gop,
that he his only-born son gave,

auf dass alle, die an ihn glauben,
owf doss ALL-a, dee on een GLOW-ben,
so [on] that all, that on him believe,

nicht verloren werden,
neesht fare-LOR-en VARE-den,
not lost become,

sondern das ewige Leben haben.
zone-dern (swallow the 'r' on this one--it's there, but barely) doss AY-vig-uh LAY-ben HOB-en.
but the eternal life have.

They capitalize all nouns in German, not just proper names, as we do. It's a terrible vice: it's what makes all those ungodly long sentences possible.

By the way, I made that into a song that I repeat over and over on my runs. I think it's kind of pretty. Maybe I'll do an audio-blog of it for you when I'm in good voice.

And, for anyone who's wondering, the poem I mentioned is on Bourgeois Philistines.