Hey, Klaus! A "German" question

[George K]

I'm watching "Das Boot."

It's wonderful by the way, totally faithful to the original movie, though with different characters and plot lines.

But I digress....

One of the U-Boats has the designation "U-822."

The sailors pronounce it as

"U - Acht Zwo Zwo" as opposed to "U - Acht Zwei Zwei."

Why is that?

[Klaus]

It's a common vernacular variant of "zwei". I think it's purpose is to make it more distinct from "drei", which can easily be confused with "zwei" if the pronunciation is a little sloppy.

You mean you watch the original movie? Or the new series? I saw that season 2 is out, but sadly I have no access to it.

[George K]

@Klaus said in Hey, Klaus! A "German" question:

It's a common vernacular variant of "zwei". I think it's purpose is to make it more distinct from "drei", which can easily be confused with "zwei" if the pronunciation is a little sloppy.

You mean you watch the original movie? Or the new series? I saw that season 2 is out, but sadly I have no access to it.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense.

[Copper]

We do that in English too, for pilots and controllers.

Not much difference except maybe for Tree and Niner.

[kluurs]

Tangentally related to how I passed German in high school. I could make der, die and das all sound identical if mumbled quickly.

[George K]

@kluurs said in Hey, Klaus! A "German" question:

Tangentally related to how I passed German in high school. I could make der, die and das all sound identical if mumbled quickly.