Intonation in german: merely a question of euphony?

Abstract

This article presents basic concepts of German intonation and discusses the importance of intonation for the teaching of German as a foreign language, particularly in Brazil. For native speakers of Portuguese studying German, intonation is probably more challenging than the phonetics of individual sounds. The article describes the German system of tones, tone movements, and accents on the level of utterance, as well as their contributions to the meaning of utterances, illustrated for declarative and interrogative sentences. The concluding chapter provides classroom intonation exercises.