Villages

To my dismay, there were some villages that were now only housing developments, nothing of the old village remained. In some of the photos you will see that in those villages most of the photos were taken while we drove through the area. The pronunciation of the village names are very different in German than in English. Being English speaking we tend to pronounce words as we see them.

First, I learned that there is no "th" in the German language and the letter "a" has a "ah" sound.

The umlaut (") over a vowel ä, ö, ü, äu are modified and the sign represents an e, now omitted.

Vowels are long when they are:
1. Doubled
2. i followed by e {ie}(long e sound)
3. e followed by i {ei} (long i sound)
5. Come before a single consonant that is followed by another vowel.

Vowels are short when they are:
1. Come before two or more consonants
2. In the endings el, er, and en
3. In prefixes such as be, ge, ver, zer
4. The letter "e" at the end of a word.

The letter "W" is given a v sound.

Village Name Pronunciations

Barsbek = Bahrs - bek (ah sound , short e)
Fahren = Fahr - en (ah sound, short e)
Fiefbergen = F - ief - bergen (long e, short e)
Flüggendorf = Flue- ggen - dorf (short u and e sound)
Gödersdorf = Goe - ders- dorf (short o and e sound)
Krokau = Kro - Kau (long o, short au sound)
Krummbek = Krum - bek ( short u, short e)
Laboe = La - boe (the oe sounds like the oe in shoe only drawn out)
Lutterbek = Lu - ter- bek (short u and short e)
Passade = Pa - ssad - e (ah, ah, short e)
Preetz = Pr - eet- z (long e, s sound)
Probsteierhagen = Prob - stei - er - hah - gen (long i, short e, ah, short e)
Schönberg = Sch - oen - berg (short o and e, soft g sound)
Schönberger Strand = Sch - oen - ber -ger Str - and (short o and e, ah sound)
Schönkirchen = Sch - oen - kir - chen (short o and e, kir is rolled at the back of the throat, short e)
Stakendorf = Stah - ken - dorf (ah sound)
Stein = St - ein (long i sound)
Tökendorf = Toek - en - dorf (short o and e sound)
Wendtorf = V - end - torf (W pronounced as V, short e)
Wisch = V - isch (W pronounced as V, short i sound like vish)