German Alphabet and Pronunciation (ä, ö, ü, ß)
After this lesson you can spell your name out loud and pronounce the four letters English does not have.
German Alphabet and Pronunciation (ä, ö, ü, ß)
German spelling is honest: a letter makes the same sound almost every time. Learn which letter makes which sound and you can read a word you have never seen out loud.
German spelling is honest: a letter makes the same sound almost every time. Learn which letter makes which sound and you can read a word you have never seen out loud.
w
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Wasser (vasser)
English v
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Kulturnotiz
German has a spelling alphabet used constantly on the phone and at counters — A wie Anton, B wie Berta, M wie Martha. If you are giving your name or a reference number, you will hear it, and using it yourself marks you out immediately as someone who has done this before. And in Switzerland the ß simply does not exist: Strasse, gross, weiss. It is not a typo.
Common questions
+How many letters does German have?
The same 26 as English, plus ä, ö, ü and ß — thirty characters in total, though the four extras are not counted as separate letters in the alphabet itself.
+What do I do if I cannot type umlauts?
Write ae, oe, ue and ss. These are the accepted substitutions and every German reader understands them — Maerz for März, Strasse for Straße.
+When is ß used and when ss?
ß after a long vowel or diphthong (Straße, weiß); ss after a short one (Fluss, muss). And never in Switzerland, which dropped the letter entirely.
+Is German spelling really phonetic?
Very nearly. Once you know which letters make which sounds, you can read any German word aloud correctly — including one you have never seen. This is the one place German is genuinely easier than English.