Speech and language therapy

Two adjectives on this list, stimmhaft and stimmlos, carry a rule that English speakers break without noticing. At the end of a word or syllable German does not allow a voiced obstruent: b, d, g, v and the voiced s are pronounced as their voiceless partners. Grammars call it die Auslautverhärtung. So Rad and Rat sound alike, Hund ends in a t, and Tag in a k, while the spelling keeps the voiced letter because it comes back as soon as an ending follows: Hunde, Tage. English does the opposite and keeps “bad” apart from “bat”. For a therapist this matters twice. A child who says Hunt is speaking correct German, not showing an articulation problem, and a learner who voices the final d is heard at once as foreign. These pages explain words and give no medical advice.