Usedom

Thank you Mark! I don't speak a shred of German. That said, I am especially interested in knowing how well travelers to Usedom might make their way around the area using English and perhaps common German and or Polish phrases that can be found in either travel books or online language sites? If I had one true wish, it would be the ability to learn different languages, but my brain just isn't wired that way. Thanks for anything else you might be able to add.

Many sincere thanks Mark for the information and links included. You have graciously provided me with sources to research more deeply.

RE: "my brain just isn't wired that way." In German I would respond, "unerhoert." (That's unheard of. )

Getting down the language is based on several factors. It's a matter of will-power, teaching method or instructor, determination, energy, time investment, (you cannot overlearn), goal orientation, etc that enables you not to just learn a foreign language but acquire it, ie writing it.

Some thirty years ago one of my ex-students ran into her American history a couple of weeks prior to graduation from the high school.

This student's origins was that of a simple refugee, Vietnamese-Chinese, as a kid her family managed to get out prior to the collapse in 1975. That teacher asked about her college plans (unthinkable if those were not to be included as part of her post high school life), if she had decided on what to major, etc. , etc.

She told him that her major would be " German " as she had already been accepted at SF State University. Taking on the German would language #5 since she was still having trouble, obviously, with English.

The teacher was utterly flabbergasted upon hearing her say German. She completed that intense major in the next 4 years at SF State and was about to go into the grad school program , MA in German in Stanford before the finances became an acute problem.

Good that you're visiting Usedom, I've only visited towns and cities in eastern Germany....Rheinsberg, Magdeburg, Weimar, Frankfurt an der Oder, Neustrelitz, etc, etc....all historically and culturally enlightening ....language-wise too.

As suggested , if you do go to Greifswald and are interested in the "Prussian East," the Pommern Museum is there. This is the museum on Pomerania, both Vorpommern (part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) and "Hinterpommern" (that part of the former Pomerania east of the Oder along the Baltic in Poland.

Thank you for your thoughts, Fred! It is always refreshing to hear the stories of accomplishment. I think it might be easier to say that "my brain isn't wired that way" than to admit that my determination for learning a new language is lacking. ;-)

If you go... it's 3 syllables, pronounced...

ooh-zeh-dome

Most helpful--thanks Russ!

Sadly, there is no equivalent sound in American English, exactly, or a perfect spelling that gets it just right; speakers will likely think "dom" rhymes with "mom" and "bomb" - which is roughly the same vowel sound as in German "Lahm." This will produce an even worse phonolgical result.

Maybe English "dumb" would be an alternative to "dome", one that is close and less of a "long" vowel and for this reason less offensive to the German ear.

I totally agree with your assessment, Russ, of the challenges that our everyday spelling presents when attempting to accurately represent pronunciation. I recently viewed a PBS show featuring Usedom as the primary setting and the island was pronounced a little bit differently by the each of the various characters. Some were from Poland, others from Usedom, Sweden, Denmark and America. On the whole, those native to Usedom pronounced the place name just as you suggested, whereas persons from other locales pronounced the word a little differently in each instance. Language is so beautiful and fluid. The one thing I think we can all agree upon is that Usedom is not pronounced "Use dumb" :-)

I would suggest instead of relying or falling back on American English equivalents to pronounce Usedom that you rely on the German pronunciation key.

Contrary to those opinions saying that German is difficult to pronounce or articulate for native anglophones, I find the opposite to be true in pronunciation and spelling. If you're a stickler with German grammar, you don't want to make spelling mistakes when writing long hand.

Contrary to those opinions saying that German is difficult to pronounce or articulate for native anglophones, I find the opposite to be true in pronunciation and spelling.

It's an easier language than some, certainly. Not difficult once you master it, Fred, but mastering German phonology is anything but easy. If using German sounds were so easy, I would not have had full professors of German who could spoke it fluently but with severe American-English accents.

That link of course pronounces USEDOM perfectly, MarkK. Thanks for posting it.

The problem for someone with zero exposure to German is simply that they will not automatically start using German sounds when trying out German words, even after hearing them repeatedly. The will rely on their native language sounds to hear and pronounce them instead for some extended period of time. (And sometimes, forever. Acquiring a second-language sound system is extremely complicated.)

The German vowel in the "-dom" part of Usedom is not identical to the vowel in "dome" or "dumb" (my suggestions) or "dom/mom/bomb." Neither is my suggested "ooh" for the "U" in Usedom. Americans will always dipthongize that phoneme. My suggestions are only approximations. But a good approximation helps the traveler who speaks no German to get what he needs, which is understood (by a German speaker, that is.)

"...but with severe American-English accents." Emphasis is on "severe," I think I was spared that at SF State, Russ, where my full professors in upper division were native speakers , Prussians (geographically) of the old school.

If you want to sound native, you need to account for regional variation. This is from the 1970s, but still relevant (and the variations / maps he uses include pre-WWII, but again, the accents are still mostly relevant): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btlGMBA2XO4

The times I 've been in Kiel (well worth a trip too) I heard people often greet each other with "moin moin."

but mastering German phonology is anything but easy

So what? As HowlinMad writes, there is a wide range of variation between Flensburg on the Danish border and Salurn in South Tyrol on the language border between German and Italian. Someone who speaks with an American accent is just adding another variety. My American son-in-law speaks very good German, but with a distinct American accent and some Franconian overtones that he owes to his wife - and I think that sounds very attractive, and he should not try to replace it with the plastic German that comes out of the television.

Mastering German pronunciation: for most, it's not at all essential for successful communication, as you point out in the case of your son-in-law, sla019. Clearly not a concern for the OP, either, who is maybe just concerned about getting out a few words that will be understood, which is not easy for any beginning language learner... getting close is the objective. My comments on mastery were aimed at Fred's claim that English speakers should find pronunciation and spelling easy...

Moin is regional, moin moin is used Germany-wide. So we sometimes use it up here. But a local will only say moin. Or the aforementioned Hummel Hummel here in Hamburg.