Front rounded vowels (<ü> and <ö>) in German

For somebody speaking a language lacking them, front rounded in a foreign language to be learnt often present an obstacle. For instance, speakers of English learning German (and likewise speakers of certain other languages, and likewise if they learn certain other languages such as French) experience difficulties in pronouncing the sounds [y: ~ ʏ] = <ü> and [ø: ~ œ] = <ö>. The most common workaround is to replace these front vowels by their back counterparts, i.e. by [u] and [o], resp. This leads to pronunciations such as [zu:s] for süß ‘sweet’ and [ho:lə] for Höhle ‘cave’.

First of all, front rounded vowels are not difficult to learn. Just try these methods:

1. For [y]:
• Pronounce [i] and while keeping your tongue where it is, round your lips as for [u].
• Pronounce [u] and while keeping your lips rounded, slide your tongue forward into the position for [i].
2. For [ø]:
• Pronounce [e] and while keeping your tongue where it is, round your lips as for [o].
• Pronounce [o] and while keeping your lips rounded, slide your tongue forward into the position for [e].

Second, as long as you require a workaround, there is a better one. Native speakers never replace [y] by [u] nor [ø] by [o]; these sounds are not phonetically similar to the German ear. Your tendency to make just these replacements is probably based on the spelling of these sounds: you just ignore the diacritic < ̈> that appears on the vowel letters. Such a procedure has nothing to do with the sounds. Instead, in German [y] is similar to [i], and [ø] is similar to [e]:

• In certain dialects like Silesian and cognate languages like Yiddish, [y] and [ø] do not occur and are, instead, replaced by [i] and [e], resp. There [zi:s] and [he:lə] are the standard pronunciations of süß and Höhle. Even speakers of (more) standard German tend to know this and understand such pronunciations much more easily than [zu:s] and [ho:lə].
• Even in Standard German poetry, [y] rhymes with [i], and [ø] rhymes with [e]. Here is a well-known songline to prove it: Ne volle halbe Stunde hat er nach ihm gespürt; aber dennoch hat sich Bolle ganz köstlich amüsiert.

Sum total:

• the workaround for [y] is [i], not [u];
• the workaround for [ø] is [e], not [o].