How do I give my character a German accent?

Question

So I'm writing a novel and one character is german. I want him to have a german accent but am not so sure how to do it. How do I give my character's dialogue a german accent? ( I mean, besides changing w's to v's). Hope that made sense.

"Don't give him a "cherman" accent. How would you speak in German? You would act it out, doing as best you can. So, answering you in English, a German would try to craft his her pronunciation of English words as best he she could to make them sound as best as possible like English words. There would be hard sounds for Germans to make. Maybe especially certain vowels, not consonants. "R" will be a little hard to pronounce: Try not to trill the r's, while making it plain that you should like to. "

So how do I spell that out when typing? XP
I mean, I could just type his dialogue in normal english, but the point I want to make to the readers is that he has a (strong) german accent..*sigh* thanks for the help though! :)

Answer 1

I am from Germany :)

To make him/her REALLY stereotype:
W --> V (Whatever = Vhatever)
TH --> S (This is the... = Sis is Se only solution)

German sentence structure is also different compared to english, so I would change that as well (kinda like Yoda in Star Wars).

So in German we say something like:
Ich habe ein Auto gesehen. (I have seen a car)
I have a car seen

Unfortunately I cannot tell you a general rule when this change occurs, it depends on the context... You should find a German teacher or somebody from Germany who can translate some sentences into "typical German".

Other than that I can only give you this link to a hilarious TV ad from Germany about a guy's first day at work:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=German+Coast+Guard&search=Search

ÜberlebensRRRRadar (survival RRRadar) :-D

One more advice: Do not rely on non-German people mimicking a german accent. I have heard this very often, but most of the time it is not correct and WAY too exaggerated.

Answer 2

Don't give him a "cherman" accent. How would you speak in German? You would act it out, doing as best you can. So, answering you in English, a German would try to craft his her pronunciation of English words as best he she could to make them sound as best as possible like English words. There would be hard sounds for Germans to make. Maybe especially certain vowels, not consonants. "R" will be a little hard to pronounce: Try not to trill the r's, while making it plain that you should like to.

Answer 3

Change all the "th"s to "z"...like "zeh" instead of "the". Also, if you change some of the short "i"s (as in sit) to the sound of the long e (such as in beat and seed), like "zees" instead of "this". And all the "a"s to "ah"s.