German Pronunciations

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McCuckerson

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I found this cool website where you can enter the German brewing words and it would provide a audio pronunciation of the word! Pretty cool because I have wondered how words like witbier, hefeweizen and so onn were pronounced. I also tried the standard swear words for fun - when am I going to grow up? Anyway its http://www.forvo.com

Enjoy! :mug:
 
Wait, so the Dutch word is witbier, which literally means "White Beer".

But Hefeweizen in German means "With Yeast"?

Yeah, I know they are similar beers, but...


Weizen is German for Wheat. Hefe is yeast. At least that's what my recollection of college German is telling me.
 
I typed in: "wort" which I assume is a German word.

I've always read that it is pronounced "wert". I have pretty much refused to pronounce it that way myself. This is America after all, and we speak English here so I use the English pronunciation. :)

However when I typed it into the above site it pronounced it: "vort".

I'm gonna just stick with "wort" unless I move to Germany someday.
 
The German word for wort is wuerze, so wort is already the English translation.
Try typing in wuerze. Calling it wert is a load of rubbish and incorrect, unless the root of this is the Bavarian pronunciation of Wuerze which MIGHT come close to the English Wert, but really only at a stretch and only with heavy dialect.

re: witbier vs weizen bier.

Hefeweizen literally means yeast wheat beer. It is also known as weissbier (white beer).
Witbier is Dutch for white beer, they are the same beer type on the whole. The main difference being that the Belgians sometimes add spicey adjuncts that the Germans would not put in their beers.



<edit> I just checked the website and it doesn't even have wuerze there, so it's a crappy site, cos wuerze also means seasoning or spice, and it should be there at least in that common German context.
 
Yes, the German for With Yeast would be, Mit Hefe, or something close to that. I knew that, just had a brain fart.

And the two beers may be similar, but if you can't taste the difference, there is something wrong with one of them!
 
wort comes from Old English "wyrt" meaning root, herb, or plant.


And the old english comes from Angel-Saechsisch (anglo-saxon) which is why the German is wuerze and where both words come from.

re hefe vs witbier.

Witbier is Dutch for white beer.
Weissbier is german for White beer, which is an alternative name for Hefeweizen.

I'm not arguing beer styles here, I'm talking foreign languages and etymologically it is the same thing.
 
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