Those who are approaching now the language have certainly come to know the letter ß, a unique trademark of the german alphabet.

How many of you, seeing this letter for the first time have thought: these Germans, they have a funny way of writing the “b” !
I don’t really know exactly when, but loooong time before taking on German at DeutschAkademie (preliminary remark needed to avoid pissing off my teacher!) I kind of understand that ß was NOT a joyful variant of our “b”. Such a sudden revelation at that time crashed my (very poor) dictionary of written German.

Few words and how I was pronouncing them b.ß. (before the discovery of ß)

– Strabe
– Scheibe (bad word!)
– Liebe Grübe (which in italian sounds terribly familiar to a popular gingerhead TV host with an inflatable lifeboat in the place of her lips – see picture)
– Küben (no idea it was a kiss, sounded more like “cubes”)

 

filippo