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German · Sounds and spelling · A1

The German alphabet: 26 letters, three umlauts and ß

German uses the same 26 letters as English, plus four extra: ä, ö, ü (vowels with two dots, called an umlaut) and ß, a sharp “ss”. German spelling is much more regular than English: once you know how each letter and letter pair sounds, you can read almost any word aloud correctly.

1All 26 letters, with names and sounds 2Ä, ö, ü and ß 3Letter groups: sch, ch, ei, ie, eu 4Spelling a word aloud
26 + 4 LETTERS A B C D E F G H IJ K L M N O P Q RS T U V W X Y Z Ä Ö Ü ß The four extra letters sit to the right of L and P on a German keyboard.
Ä, ö and ü are not separate letters in the alphabet; dictionaries file them with a, o and u. ß never starts a word, so it has no common capital form.

All 26 letters, with names and sounds

Each letter has a name, used when spelling aloud, and a sound, used when reading. Pronunciations are in English-style syllables with the stressed syllable in capitals. Letters marked red sound different from English and are worth extra attention. Press any card to hear its example word.

Three letters cause most of the surprises: w sounds like English v, v usually sounds like f, and z sounds like “ts”. So Volkswagen is FOLKS-vah-gen. Word stress and vowel length are covered in German pronunciation.

Ä, ö, ü and ß

The two dots of the umlaut change the vowel’s sound by moving the tongue forward in the mouth. Umlauts matter for meaning: they often mark a plural or a comparison. If you cannot type them, write the vowel followed by e: ä = ae, ö = oe, ü = ue, and ß = ss.

ä Like the e in English bed, or longer, like “air” without the r.
ö Say “ay” and round your lips. Close to the vowel in British “bird”.
ü Say “ee” and round your lips as for “oo”.
ß A sharp “ss”, used after long vowels and ei, au, eu. Called Eszett (ess-TSET).
MAKING Ü IN TWO MOVES 1 · say “ee”lips spread, tongue high and forward 2 · round the lipsas for “oo”, without moving the tongue ü the same trick turns “eh” into ö
English has no ü or ö, but you already make both halves of each sound. The tongue does “ee” (or “eh” for ö) while the lips do “oo”. French tu uses the same ü sound.

Letter groups with one sound

Several letter groups always spell one sound. Learning them is the quickest way to read German fluently. The two vowel pairs ei and ie are easy to mix up; the trick is that German says the second letter’s English name: ei sounds like “eye”, ie like “ee”.

GroupSoundExample
sch “sh” as in ship SchuleSHOO-luh · school
ch A soft hiss after e, i; a throaty sound after a, o, u ich · Buchikh · bookh · I · book
ck “k”, after a short vowel Glückglük · luck, happiness
ei “eye” meinmine · my
ie “ee” LiebeLEE-buh · love
eu / äu “oy” as in boy heute · HäuserHOY-tuh · HOY-zuh · today · houses
au “ow” as in how Fraufrow · woman, Mrs
sp / st “shp” / “sht” at the start of a word Sport · Stadtshport · shtaht · sport · city
pf p and f together, quickly Pferdpfehrt · horse

Ch has two sounds depending on the vowel before it, a soft hiss after e and i and a throaty sound after a, o and u. Both are taught step by step in German pronunciation.

Spelling a word aloud

You will spell your name on the phone, at a hotel and at every office counter. This exchange shows the questions you will hear. Every word is glossed, given its English meaning underneath, so you can see how the sentence is built.

Clerk
WiehowistisIhryourName?name
vee ist eer NAH-muh “What’s your name?”
Why: Ihr with a capital I is the polite “your”, used with strangers and at work.
You
MeinmyNamenameistisWright.Wright
mine NAH-muh ist RITE “My name is Wright.”
Why: Mein: ei sounds like “eye”, so “mine”.
Clerk
Wiehowschreibtwritesmanonedas?that
vee shripet mahn dahs “How do you spell that?”
Why: Man means “one” or “people in general”: “how does one write that?”
You
WWRRIIGGHHT.T
vay, air, ee, gay, hah, tay “W – R – I – G – H – T.”
Why: Use the German letter names. W is “vay”, so English speakers often mishear their own initials at first.
Clerk
Nochstilleinmal,oncebitte.please
nokh INE-mahl, BIT-uh “Once more, please.”
Why: Noch einmal: “once again”. Bitte means please, and also “you’re welcome”.

For email addresses: @ is at (said as in English) or Klammeraffe (“bracket monkey”), a dot is Punkt and a hyphen is Bindestrich. Numbers for phone calls are in the course map on the German hub.

Where to go next

Next guideGerman pronunciationLong and short vowels, ch, the German r and word stress. Next guideDer, die, dasThe three genders, and why every noun has a capital letter. Next guideThe present tenseHow verbs change for ich, du, er and the rest. Course mapGerman hubThe full course map from A1 to C2.