123456The German lenis consonants [b d ɡ z ʒ dʒ] are often pronounced without voice as [b̥ d̥ ɡ̊ z̥ ʒ̊ d̥ʒ̊]. In Southern German, the voiceless pronunciation prevails.
123Pronunciation of /r/ in German varies according to region and speaker. While older prescriptive pronunciation dictionaries allowed only [r], this pronunciation is nowadays found mainly in Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria, while in other regions the uvular pronunciation prevails, with the allophones [ʁ] and [ʀ]. In many regions except for Switzerland, the /r/ in the syllable coda is vocalized to [ɐ̯] after long vowels or after all vowels, and /ər/ is pronounced as [ɐ]
↑/x/ is realized as a uvular fricative [χ] after /a/, /aː/, and often /ʊ/, /ɔ/, and /aʊ/.
↑In many varieties of German except for Swiss Standard German, all initial vowels are preceded by [ʔ].
↑[e i o ø u y], the short versions of the long vowels [eː iː oː øː uː yː], are used in unstressed syllables before the accented syllable and occur only in loanwords. In native words, the accent is generally on the first syllable, and there are no syllables before the accent besides prepositional prefixes.
