When learning German, many people focus on individual sounds—how to pronounce the “r” or “ü”. But there’s much more to sounding natural than just getting the consonants and vowels right. As native speakers, we rely on rhythm, melody, linking, and subtle sound changes to give our speech a smooth, connected flow.
If you want to improve your German pronunciation, it’s essential to focus on these details.
In this video, we’ll break down a scene from the German Netflix series “Cassandra” to show you how native speakers link words, change and reduce sounds, and adjust their pitch naturally. These patterns—like assimilation (when sounds blend together) and reductions (when syllables are dropped)—are key to making your German sound more authentic.
Even if these terms sound unfamiliar, don’t worry. By the end of the video, you’ll know how to recognize them and apply what you’ve learned using a technique called shadowing. This method allows you to improve your German pronunciation by mimicking native speakers in real time using the lesson notes, helping you speak more fluently and naturally.
Ready to give it a try? Let’s dive in! Feel free to turn on subtitles in English, or read the English translation of the video transcript below.
Video transcript (English version)
Hello and welcome to Deutsch mit Benjamin! You want to speak German fluently, right? Then today let’s just watch a short scene from a German Netflix series. We're using the brand new Netflix series Cassandra, which has just been released and has been produced in Germany. And then we're going to do an in-depth analysis of this scene in terms of pronunciation and prosody so that you can see what makes the language sound so natural. You can then use my annotations for a shadowing practice, for example, to practice your pronunciation and fluency yourself.
Let's go!
[Scene]
Ich muss noch Junos Bett beziehen.
I still need to make Juno's bed.
Ich weiß nicht, David.
I don't know, David.
Sie sollte die ersten Nächte noch bei uns schlafen, //
She should sleep with us for the first few nights, //
zumindest bis die Albträume aufhören.
at least until the nightmares stop.
Ich glaube, sie braucht noch etwas Zeit.
I think she needs some more time.
Now I have divided everything into thought groups or rhythmic groups. There is exactly one group in each line. I have marked the syllable that has the primary stress in each group in bold and I use this pink line to indicate the intonation pattern.
Ich muss noch Junos Bett beziehen.
Of course, in the first thought group I noticed that the word "ich" wasn't pronounced at all. Then I realized that instead of the word "Bett", which would typically have the primary stress in neutral speech, in this case, it was the child’s name that was primarily stressed. With that, the father clearly expresses that other beds— probably the parents’ beds—had already been made earlier. When he said "beziehen," he dropped the schwa sound. So he didn't say [bəˈt͡siːhən] with three syllables, but [bəˈt͡siːn] with two syllables. Also, he said the entire sentence, or rather the entire thought group, without pausing.
In German, if one word ends with a consonant and the next word begins with a consonant, the two words are typically linked together. That’s exactly what he does here.
As a result, we see two assimilations, which means that the sounds adjust to each other. Because of the voiceless [s], [b] also becomes voiceless and instead of [bɛt bəˈt͡siːn] he only says [bɛt̚b̥əˈt͡siːn]. So, the [t] at the end of "Bett" is barely audible, that is, he places his tongue behind his upper teeth, where a true [t] would be pronounced, but he doesn’t release it audibly. That's because of the [b] at the beginning of "beziehen", because that's also a plosive—and:
When two plosives come together in German, only the second one is audibly released. Both plosives will be voiceless.
Junos Bett beziehen – [ˈd̥ʒ̥uːnos bɛt bəˈt͡siːhən] would be unnatural over-articulation (in everyday speech).
Instead, we say it like he does: [ˈd̥ʒ̥uːnosb̥ɛt̚b̥əˈt͡siːn]
Tip: Improve Your German Pronunciation Of Assimilations By Practicing Them On Their Own
You can practice this particular assimilation by saying: [sb̥ɛt̚b̥ə], [sb̥ɛt̚b̥əˈt͡siːn], [ˈd̥ʒ̥uːnosb̥ɛt̚b̥əˈt͡siːn].
Let’s listen to it three times so you can use it for your shadowing practice.
Ich weiß nicht, David.
Here we got something typical of German: You may have heard that stressed syllables are always pronounced at a higher pitch. In German, that’s not necessarily true. Here, we have a great example where the stressed syllable is spoken at a noticeably lower pitch.
In German, we also have something called "final-obstruent devoicing". That's why the final d in "David" is pronounced as [t].
Instead of [nɪçt], she says [nɪç], and again, she doesn’t pause between the words, which leads to further assimilations. In "ich weiß," the [ç] sound makes the [v] voiceless. So it's not [ɪʝˈvaɪ̯s], but [ɪçˈv̥aɪ̯s]. And because "nicht" ends with the Ich-Laut, it makes the [d] at the beginning of "David" voiceless as well. So it's not something like [nɪʝˈdaːvɪt], but [nɪçˈd̥aːvɪt].
Sie sollte die ersten Nächte noch bei uns schlafen, //
Once again, the primary stress has a downward melody, and the vowel is [ʊ] as in "Bus", not [uː] as in "Schule".
In German, vowels usually don’t get longer or otherwise changed just because the syllable is stressed.
So it's not [baɪ̯ ˈʔuːns], but [baɪ̯ ˈʔʊns].
Note the glottal stop here. Since the word begins with a vowel and is stressed, this glottal stop must be pronounced here. So now we can't say [baɪ̯ ͜ˈuːns]—we can't link the words now. Here we have to say [baɪ̯ ˈʔuːns]. We see the same thing in the phrase "die ersten Nächte." We can't say [di ͜ˌɛɐ̯stn̩ˈnɛçtə], instead, it’s [diˌʔɛɐ̯stn̩ˈnɛçtə].
Notice that she doesn't say [ˈɛɐ̯stən], but [ˈɛɐ̯stn̩]. So she drops the schwa and as a result again, the plosive /t/ is not pronounced as a true [t], but is released nasally due to the nasal consonant [n]. By the way, this is called regressive assimilation because the nasal consonant [n]— the second one—affects the consonant before it—in this case [t]. This is one of the cases in which regressive assimilation occurs in German, i.e. where the second consonant affects the one before it.
We see another progressive assimilation between "noch" and "bei": Here the first sound (that is the Ach-Laut) affects the next sound (that is the [b] at the beginning of “bei”). So this [b] also becomes voiceless because of the voiceless Ach-Laut.
"noch bei uns schlafen"—no pausing between "uns" and "schlafen", so it's "uns schlafen" [ˈʊnsʃlaːfn̩], [sʃ].
And of course "schlafen" is said without the schwa, so it's not [ˈʃlaːfən], but [ʃlaːfn̩].
The [iː] vowel in the words "sie" and "die"—that's the tense [iː] vowel—and it's usually long if we were to say these words on their own: [ziː], [diː]. Here, as is often the case in a sentence, these words are not stressed and therefore the vowel is significantly shorter.
If there’s anything in this video that feels too complicated or if there’s something you want me to explain in more detail, just drop a comment below and I’ll try to make a video on that specific topic or aspect.
zumindest bis die Albträume aufhören.
The myth that stressed syllables in German are always spoken at a higher pitch—I think I’ve once and for all debunked that myth with this video. So it's incorrect. Because here too we definitely hear that the pitch goes down within the primary stress.
Let's stick with the word "Albträume": She doesn't say [ˈalptʁ̥ɔɪ̯mə], but [ˈalp̚tʁ̥ɔɪ̯mə].
"bis die Albträume aufhören"—right here, we have two plosives again, just like we saw earlier with "Bett beziehen". Back then, it was [t] at the end of "Bett" and [b] at the start of "beziehen". And now it’s [p] at the end of the syllable "Alp-" and [t] at the start of the next syllable, "-träu-". In cases like these, only the second plosive is audibly released—so [ˈalp̚tʁ̥ɔɪ̯mə]. While the lips do close for the [p̚], that closure of the lips is not audibly released. Only [t] is what gets audibly released. And since that [t] is voiceless, it affects the following sound—the R. That also becomes voiceless, so it's not [ˈalb̚dʁɔɪ̯mə] or something like that, but [ˈalp̚tʁ̥ɔɪ̯mə], [tʁ̥]—voiceless.
When she says the word "zumindest", she pronounces the first syllable with [ʊ], i.e. not [t͡su] but [t͡sʊ]. In the last syllable of this word I hear a vowel that is further to the front than the schwa we might expect there, it's [ɪ]—the unstressed [ɪ] as in "bitte" vowel, or as in the "-min-" syllable right before it and in the word "bis" right after. [ˈmɪndɪsb̥ɪs], [t͡sʊˈmɪndɪsb̥ɪs]. Furthermore, she actually says the word completely without [t]. This isn’t just a case of two plosives meeting as discussed before— that we have two plosives—[t] and [b]—that come together but here [t] has been completely dropped. This is because it’s between an [s] and another plosive here. Of course, in the first three words, we see progressive assimilations again, where a voiceless consonant also makes the next one voiceless.
Also note how she pronounces the word "aufhören". The [f] consonant has this strong sound of the air flowing out so the H is basically silent: [ˈaʊ̯føɐ̯n]. And of course we notice that she only says two syllables. We hear that instead of [ˈaʊ̯fhøːʁən] she says [ˈaʊ̯føɐ̯n]. So she drops the schwa in the ending again, which now means that the letter R appears within one syllable directly after the [ø] vowel and in those cases, the R is pronounced with a vowel sound called a-Schwa. This creates a diphthong that consists of [ø] and [ɐ] (a-Schwa): [øɐ̯], [ˈaʊ̯føɐ̯n].
Ich glaube, sie braucht noch etwas Zeit.
Big surprise: The primary stress "Zeit" has been pronounced at a lower pitch here too. Careful, though! Of course that's not always the case. In this scene, we’ve seen many examples where stressed syllables were pronounced with a lower pitch, but as I said: that is not always the case. In German, you’ll find plenty of cases where stressed syllables rise in pitch, too.
Let's go to the beginning of this group. In "ich glaube" I hear a progressive assimilation again, and that is where the Ich-Laut, which is a voiceless consonant, makes the following [g] consonant voiceless too. She doesn't say [ɪʝˈglaʊ̯bə], but [ɪçˈg̥laʊ̯bə].
The vowel in the word "sie" has been shortened here again because the word is not stressed here either. However, it is still a tense vowel, i.e. [i], it's not an unstressed vowel, i.e. it does not become [ɪ].
Then of course no pauses between words. There’s something interesting happening between the words "noch" and "etwas" here. "etwas" starts with a vowel, but since it's not stressed, there’s no need for a glottal stop here. She doesn't use one. She doesn't say [nɔx ʔɛtv̥as ˈt͡saɪ̯t], but only [nɔxɛtv̥as ˈt͡saɪ̯t].
Unstressed words and syllables that start with a vowel can be pronounced with or without a glottal stop in German.
Within the word "etwas" there’s progressive assimilation, where the [t] turns the following [v] consonant into a voiceless sound. So it's not [ˈɛdvas], but [ˈɛtv̥as].
She also doesn’t say [ˈbʁaʊ̯χt nɔχ], but [ˈbʁaʊ̯χtⁿ͜nɔχ], just like with the word [ˈɛɐ̯stn̩], we have this regressive assimilation here, where the nasal [n] affects the [t], now even between two words, causing the [t] to be released through the nose.
As I said before, if this kind of assimilation is hard for you, try practicing just the assimilation on its own, by saying [ziˈbʁaʊ̯χ tⁿnɔχ], [tⁿnɔχ], [ziˈbʁaʊ̯χ tⁿnɔχ], [ziˌbʁaʊ̯χ tⁿnɔχɛtv̥asˈt͡saɪ̯t].
What information was new for you today? What’s your key takeaway from this video?
Let me know in the comments! Thanks for watching / reading.
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