A1 · The finishing touches
What the spelling tells you about the sound
Straße, sie, viel, Bücher
German spelling is nearly regular, so a written word says how it is pronounced — once eight rules are known.
German spelling maps onto sound far more consistently than English does. A word read aloud correctly the first time is the normal case, not a lucky one, and the rules that make it so are few enough to list.
Vowel length is written rather than guessed. A doubled vowel (Saal), an h after it (fahren, ihn) or an ie (viel) marks it long; a doubled consonant after it (Mutter, kommen) marks it short. And ß follows a long vowel while ss follows a short one: Straße against Fluss.
Four letters carry no English equivalent. The umlauts ä, ö, ü are separate sounds and not decorations — schon and schön are different words, as are Mutter and Mütter. Where a keyboard has no umlaut, the accepted substitutes are ae, oe, ue and ss, never the bare vowel.
Die Form
| lang: Doppelvokal, h, ie | Saal, fahren, viel |
| kurz: Doppelkonsonant | Mutter, kommen, Bett |
| ß nach langem Vokal | Straße, groß, heißen |
| ss nach kurzem Vokal | Fluss, dass, müssen |
| sp, st am Anfang | gesprochen wie schp, scht |
| Auslaut | Hund klingt wie Hunt |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
A doubled consonant means the vowel before it is short.
kommen, Mutter, bitteto come, mother, please
ß follows a long vowel or a diphthong, ss a short one.
Straße, aber: Flussstreet, but: river
sp and st at the start of a word are spoken schp and scht.
Sport, Straße, Stundesport, street, hour
b, d and g at the end of a word are spoken like p, t and k.
Hund, Tag, halbdog, day, half
Genauer hingesehen
The letters that are not English
The three umlauts are separate vowels. Ü is made by saying i with rounded lips, ö by saying e the same way, and ä is close to the vowel in English "bed". None of the three exists in English, which is why they need practising rather than approximating.
ß is not a letter with a sound of its own: it is a sharp s, identical to ss, and it exists only to show that the vowel before it is long. It has no capital in ordinary use, so a word in capitals is written STRASSE. Swiss German has abolished it entirely and writes Strasse, which is correct in Switzerland and nowhere else.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
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the word is borrowed
it often keeps its original pronunciation.
das Restaurant, der Chefthe restaurant, the boss
German did not respell most recent borrowings: Restaurant, Computer, Jeans.
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v appears in a German word
it is spoken like f.
Vater, vielfather, much
Vater, viel, vor — the v sound of English appears in German only in borrowed words like Vase.
Woran man es erkennt
- ß
- ss
- ie
- h
- ä
- ö
- ü
- sp
- st
Beispielsätze
Die Straße ist gesperrt.The road is closed.
Der Fluss ist breit.The river is wide.
Sie fährt viel zu schnell.She is driving far too fast.
Wir müssen früher aufstehen.We have to get up earlier.
Der Hund liegt im Garten.The dog is lying in the garden.
Noch 6 Beispielsätze
Er heißt Weiß.His name is Weiß.
Ich weiß es nicht.I do not know.
Die Bücher stehen im Regal.The books are on the shelf.
Sprich bitte lauter.Please speak up.
Das Rad ist kaputt.The bike is broken.
Sie hat schöne Augen.She has beautiful eyes.
Besonderheiten (2)
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The umlaut is a grammatical signal
Umlauts are not random: they mark a plural (<z>Buch → Bücher</z>), a comparative (<z>alt → älter</z>), a subjunctive (<z>war → wäre</z>) and a diminutive (<z>Haus → Häuschen</z>). Seeing one appear is usually a grammatical change, not a different word.
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ei and ie are opposites
German <z>ei</z> is pronounced like English "eye" and <z>ie</z> like English "ee": <z>Wein</z> and <z>wie</z>. The rule is that the second letter names the sound, and it is the single most useful reading rule in the language — <z>Bier</z>, <z>Zeit</z>, <z>viel</z>, <z>heißen</z> all follow it.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
Dropping the umlaut changes the word rather than merely simplifying it: schwul and schwül are two different adjectives, and Mutter and Mütter are singular and plural. Where a keyboard has no umlaut, German writes ue: Muenchen. That is accepted everywhere; the bare vowel is not.
A doubled consonant shortens the vowel in front of it.
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