# German language and "th" pronounced as "zee" Is there no "th" at all in German? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 8, 2012, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144 "2012-04-08T02:19:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/1 "2012-04-08T02:19:40Z")
It’s one of the cliched ways for native english speakers to mimic a german accent. “You will give me zee location of zee plans” type thing. There was a segment on History Channel interviewing Albert Speer. He was speaking English and had what sounded to me like the stereotypical german accent. On the other hand, I was friends with a german exchange student in high school and I never noticed her saying “z” in place of “th” Is that particular quirk a product of the german language as a whole or is it a specific region of germany? Speer was from Heidelberg, my friend was from Hamburg FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/2 "2012-04-08T02:24:38Z")
I believe the answer is that there is no “th” (which, in English is actually two sounds, a voiced th and an unvoiced th). The Germanic languages used to have this as a feature, but all of them except for English and Icelandic lost it. E.g. compare German “du” with English “thou”, Dutch “de”, German “die”, “der”, and “das” vs English “the”, and German “danke” versus English “thanks”. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/3 "2012-04-08T03:03:59Z")
Different languages have different sets of phonemes, and the two English “th” sounds are missing in a lot of languages. However, a person whose first language in missing those sounds can learn how to say them, especially if they start learning English when relatively young. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/4 "2012-04-08T03:05:44Z")
German doesn’t have the sound – either sound, the voiced or unvoiced – but their modern English language education is pretty durn good, so youngsters are likely to be able to learn it. The voiced “th” sound (e.g. _the_, _this_) is often replaced with a voiced z sound. The unvoiced “th” sound (e.g. _thin_, _thank_, _Smith_) is often replaced with the voiceless s sound. I once heard some Austrians talking about a “Mr Smiss” instead of “Mr Smith”. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/5 "2012-04-08T03:41:32Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > German doesn’t have the sound – either sound, the voiced or unvoiced – but their modern English language education is pretty durn good, so youngsters are likely to be able to learn it. > > The voiced “th” sound (e.g. _the_, _this_) is often replaced with a voiced z sound. The unvoiced “th” sound (e.g. _thin_, _thank_, _Smith_) is often replaced with the voiceless s sound. I once heard some Austrians talking about a “Mr Smiss” instead of “Mr Smith”. And, as a point of reference, Polish and other Slavic languages tend to replace the voiced “th” with “d” and the unvoiced “th” with “t.” That sound tends to be one of the more difficult ones for foreign speakers (along with the alveolar approximant “r”), as it’s a relatively uncommon phoneme among world languages. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/6 "2012-04-08T03:53:00Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > Is that particular quirk a product of the german language as a whole . . . No, it’s a product of most non-English languages. Very few languages have the “th” sound(s). ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/7 "2012-04-08T04:23:06Z")
German up iuntil the mid-20th century had the _letter combination_ “th”, as in -thal, valley. It was changed, as a bit of spelling reform, to “t”, which is how it was always (in modern times) pronounced. ---
**Author:** ![EdwardLost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@EdwardLost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwardLost)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/8 "2012-04-08T04:34:49Z")
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_fricative) say, “Among the more than 60 languages with over 10 million speakers, only English, Standard Arabic, Castilian Spanish (i.e., as spoken in Spain only), Burmese, and Greek have the voiceless dental fricative.” That would be “th” as in “thin”. About the voiced “th”, Wikipedia says: The great majority of European and Asian languages, such as German, French, Persian, Japanese, and Chinese, lack this sound… As for Europe, there seems to be a great arc where this sound (and/or the unvoiced variant) is present. Most of mainland Europe lacks the sound; however, the “periphery” languages of Welsh, Elfdalian, English, Danish, some Italian dialects, Greek, and Albanian have this phoneme in their consonant inventories. Within Turkic languages, Bashkir and Turkmen have both voiced and voiceless dental fricatives among their consonants. Among Semitic languages, they are used in Standard Arabic. ---
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/9 "2012-04-08T08:38:37Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > German up until the mid-20th century had the _letter combination_ “th”, as in -thal, valley. It was changed, as a bit of spelling reform, to “t”, which is how it was always (in modern times) pronounced. Funny factoid about that: When they removed the “h” from all the other words, “Thron” (throne) remained the way it was because the Kaiser wouldn’t allow them to mess with it. In fact, “Thron” (like “Theater”) wasn’t changed because it’s a loanword from Greek, not because of royal prerogative. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/10 "2012-04-08T14:15:02Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > And, as a point of reference, Polish and other Slavic languages tend to replace the voiced “th” with “d”… True, dat! ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/11 "2012-04-09T18:05:24Z")
A German speaker pronounces a z as more of a tz or ts sound. Like the common American pronunciation of pizza. This is probably as close as German has to a th sound. But there is little of the leading t sound that gets voiced after a pause, as in at the start of a word. One can easily say pizza as peat-suh, but it takes more effort to say it as pea-tsuh. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/12 "2012-04-09T18:40:22Z")
I saw on “Band of Brothers” the soldiers using “thunder” as a password (as a recognition, I believe). It was never spelled out in the show, but perhaps it really was used in WWII because a German would give himself away even if he knew the word. True? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/13 "2012-04-09T19:32:30Z")
> [@EdwardLost](#): > > [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_fricative) say, “Among the more than 60 languages with over 10 million speakers, only English, Standard Arabic, Castilian Spanish (i.e., as spoken in Spain only), Burmese, and Greek have the voiceless dental fricative.” That would be “th” as in “thin”. I’m not going to try and correct Wikipedia, but for the Nth time: not everybody in Spain speaks the same dialect, the Z phoneme exists both in dialects with _ceceo_ and in dialects which differentiate Z and S, and both families exist in Spain and in our former colonies both, as do dialects with _seseo_ (no Z). ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/14 "2012-04-09T19:36:45Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > The voiced “th” sound (e.g. _the_, _this_) is often replaced with a voiced z sound. The unvoiced “th” sound (e.g. _thin_, _thank_, _Smith_) is often replaced with the voiceless s sound. I once had a friend from France who, when he spoke English, approximated these sounds with /v/ and /f/ — which sound a little comical to my ears. Kind of “babyish”. One time I told him, in the spirit of cheerful and constructive criticism, that it would be better to use /z/ and /s/ as approximations, but I think it was too late. His habit was already established. (Either that, or he didn’t give a damn what I thought on the matter, which is entirely possible.) ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/15 "2012-04-09T20:19:13Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > German up iuntil the mid-20th century had the _letter combination_ “th”, as in -thal, valley. It was changed, as a bit of spelling reform, to “t”, which is how it was always (in modern times) pronounced. Which is why “Neanderthal” is now spelled “Neandertal.” ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/16 "2012-04-09T20:44:42Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I saw on “Band of Brothers” the soldiers using “thunder” as a password (as a recognition, I believe). Shibboleth. So-called because of the passage in Judges: > [@](#): > > ``` > Gilead then cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever Ephraimite fugitives said, 'Let me cross,' the men of Gilead would ask, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he said, 'No,' they then said, 'Very well, say "Shibboleth" (שבלת).' If anyone said, "Sibboleth" (סבלת), because he could not pronounce it, then they would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell on this occasion. > —Judges 12:5-6, NJB > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/17 "2012-04-10T04:55:10Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > And, as a point of reference, Polish and other Slavic languages tend to replace the voiced “th” with “d” and the unvoiced “th” with “t.” That sound tends to be one of the more difficult ones for foreign speakers (along with the alveolar approximant “r”), as it’s a relatively uncommon phoneme among world languages. Additional fun fact: one of the more abstruse differences between France and Quebec is that the French tend to pronounce English unvoiced and voiced “th” as “s” and “z” while Quebecers tend to pronounce them as “t” and “d.” ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/18 "2012-04-10T05:15:38Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I saw on “Band of Brothers” the soldiers using “thunder” as a password (as a recognition, I believe). > > It was never spelled out in the show, but perhaps it really was used in WWII because a German would give himself away even if he knew the word. > > True? It might well have worked in some cases, but remember also that with practice it’s entirely possible to reproduce convincingly all the sounds of a foreign language, even if they don’t occur in your own language. Or failing that, you can reach the point where you still sound “foreign” without immediately betraying your country of origin specifically. Come to think of it the word _thunder_ has one or two additional phonemes that may be difficult for Germans learning English–the short “u”, and the rhotic final “r” (if the goal is to sound American). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/19 "2012-04-10T05:21:08Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Additional fun fact: one of the more abstruse differences between France and Quebec is that the French tend to pronounce English unvoiced and voiced “th” as “s” and “z” while Quebecers tend to pronounce them as “t” and “d.” Thanks. I do, nerdy lingual person that I am, find that interesting! ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144/20 "2012-04-10T05:23:12Z")
Conversely, many English speakers struggle with the “ch” sound in German or Dutch, as in “Bach”/“Loch” or the less guttural “Ich”. Japanese people have a hard time saying a straight “u” (pronounced “oo”), just as we cannot really pronounce their “u”, which is more in the middle between “u” and “ö”, not to mention the stereotypical “l”/“r” confusion. The list goes on endlessly. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/german-language-and-th-pronounced-as-zee-is-there-no-th-at-all-in-german/618144.md?page=2)