[Swizec]

> as the letter "c" should make the "ch" sound

What’s the ch sound? My intuition from German class is that ch represents a throaty hhhh. Somehow that got spoiled into k in most English words.

Every c in Pacific Ocean is pronounced differently. C is a silly letter.

[1718627440]

> My intuition from German class is that ch represents a throaty hhhh

If you mean the standard German from Germany, there a two variants. At the end of a syllable it is like you described (kind of throaty hhhh). For the beginning of syllables think of sh and open your mouth.

[microtherion]

> My intuition from German class is that ch represents a throaty hhhh

It varies between dialects. Swiss German speakers tend to stick out to Germans because we pronounce the ch in a much scratchier way than is accepted in Standard German.