Ever since the holidays, I’ve been slammed with work from my graphic design business. My wife and I are also raising a beagle puppy, and, as a bonus, I caught a wicked cold this past weekend. In short, I had no time to write a proper blog post for you this week. Instead, I slapped a pair of my wife’s panties over my head (in a half-assed attempt to retain some form of anonymity) and recorded this video, wherein I attempt to speak the German language and point out one aspect I find particularly difficult to deal with — the guttural “R.”
Here’s the video. I hope you dig it. ***WARNING*** I think I dropped an F-bomb in there somewhere…
Thank you for watching and have an awesome day!
— OGM
Oh God, My Wife Is German. 
Feel better soon! ;) xoM
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Thank you, Margarita!
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Not so bad, really ;-) I hope I’m not the only one picking up on the fact that Möhren in fact are not rot sondern orange! Oh, and I’m just going to write the word Unterhose for the fun of it because I hope that it will bring some weird google searchers to your site :D Thühüß!!
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Haw haw! Thank you, Sandra!
How the hell have you been??
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Not so swell unfortunately. Do you remember 2016, the Year from Hell? Well, it came after us as well. Right until the 31st when the last minor catastrophe almost forced us to shut down our business. However, things have been looking up since then, so maybe we will resume a semblance of normalcy in our lives soon.
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Oh shit! Does your business have a website? Can I help promote it or anything?
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You are a star! Unfortunately, customers we do have. What we lack right now is a place to continue (working on it at the moment). I will take you up on the offer though if I need help, promise! Thanks so much for offering :)
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Of course. You’ve been with me from the start of this blogging journey. I’d like to give something back.
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It helps to pronounce the guttural “R” if you’re chewing gum so you have a lot of spit in the back of your throat.
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Is this B1 or A1?
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If I’d been on top of my German game when I recorded that video — like, speaking my absolute best — I’d be somewhere around B2 level.
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Hey you’re doing better than I am. I’m attempting to learn German from Duolingo. I can hear the cold in you… maybe you need more snot to do the rolling R? I just listen to Rammstein. Till can roll ’em out without even taking a extra breath. Love your blog. Love Germany. Also how did you find panties to fit your face so well ? Hope you feel better soon!
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Haw haw! Thank you, Yvonne. I think the panties are just too small for my face, so I’m essentially stretching the shit out of them. My wife is not amused.
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Hey Man!
Stumbled across your blog the other day, I’ve not stopped laughing at it ever since :) Great work.
I’ve been learning German myself and I came across a great video tutorial for the R sound, if you want to check it out. I do some work for language learning blogs so I find myself drowning in this stuff haha! You can check it out here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXvml2zZ0tE&feature=youtu.be&a).
I sometimes try to do the Spanish rolled R when I need a clearer pronunciation OR just pretend like I’m hacking up a fucking furball.
Get well soon!
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Sweet! Thanks man!
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Hey Stranger,
As far as the R pronunciation goes, just relax. I’m surrounded by Germans during the day, and I’ve rarely heard “Rot” spoken with a rolled R. OK, it’s not an Ami “are” sound, more like forcing air past the R when you say it (at least in the Ruhrgebiet), I’m sure it’s different in Bavaria and other regions where the dialects are different.
Ich wünsche dir gute Besserung!
Chris
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I’ll give that a try. Thank you for the tip, Bochums!
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I have the perfect solution for you. Just move to the Wetterau region of Hesse. They pronounce the “r” just like Americans do. Move there and you’ll feel like you are surrounded by Americans with perfect German whose ONLY mistake is mispronouncing the “r”
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I just realized that you should not move there since that would make you sound like the village idiot who is obviously a local (what with your perfect Wetterau “R”) but makes all these weird mistakes.
Joking aside, I think your German sounds quite good actually and if you just shortened the “r” sound a bit it should be near perfect.
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Why thank you, Freddy!
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Loved this video! Your German’s really good! I always get a bit of Britishness slip out of me when I speak German, but hey – accents are part of us I guess!
The “r” is a real tricky one. I remember when I lived in Hannover, I asked what the word for “two or more women from Hannover” would be… the answer is “Hannoveranerinnen”. It took me a long time before I could say that one! Then you get the sentence “Die Hannoveranerinnen sind Lehrerinnen”… why, German, why?!
Anyway, keep up the awesome posts! I enjoy reading :)
Dan
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Thank you Dan! I really appreciate your encouragement.
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Gute Besserung! :-)
I think your German pronounciation is excellent for your level, and it sounds to me like you already have a pretty good handle on the R – which really is a very tricky thing for US English speakers to get right. It’s just a question of hanging in there. Übung macht den Meister!
I also find that children’s books and TV programs are a great help when learning a language, and would like to recommend a favorite of mine (and a children’s classic) for that purpose: Das kleine Gespenst by Otfried Preußler.
BTW, I was very amused by the panties, and the off-hand, matter-of-fact way you mentioned that you were wearing them on your face. Just thought you should know that. ;-)
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Thank you, Sylvia! What a great comment; encouraging AND helpful.
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If you do read the book, I’d love to know what you think! Preußler also wrote a number of other lovely kids’ classics like Die kleine Hexe and the Räuber Hotzenplotz books. I’m sure your wife can tell you about them! :-)
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Personaly i think your German is very good and you don’t need to feel bad for it. Plus your in accent sound charming, atleast imho. So i hope you feel better soon and maybe you’ll find the courage to do another vid without panties on your face. Btw. what did your awesome german wife thought about you wearing her underwear? ;-)
Greetings form Oldenburg
Rey
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Thank you for the encouragement, Rey. And yeah, she thinks I’m ridiculous.
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I was super confused as to why your comment is dated tomorrow (still the 27th here) until I remembered you’re in Germany and probably set your blog time to German time.
That being said, I’m totally going to make my husband pronounce all those same things you did and film him because American accents are the best.
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Really? I always thought we sounded flat and kinda gross. :)
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Germany? can you pour again?
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For anonymity, it is critical to cover your eyes with sunglasses. That’s one of the critical measures used in face-recognition, distance between the eyes. Just sayin’… ;)
Nice work!
Cheers
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Try speaking German when you are German but can’t do the R anymore because you didn’t know that it was a ‘uvular’ sound and your uvula,was removed. Ugh….
Now I sound like I am hacking and coughing up a fur ball when I try.
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Good lord!
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I’m glad you’re okay though.
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Haha funny, good laugh to see how hard it is to pronounce these things as an native english speaker.
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That guttural “R” is tough, man. Are you German?
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