This first lesson will give you an overview of how German is pronounced. German pronunciation is very regular, hence it makes sense to explain all the rules. For this reason, this first lesson will be more extensive than the rest. You don't need to learn all this by heart, just read it for a basic idea of what German should sound like and then refer to it whenever you're unsure of how something should be pronounced.
For the purpose of examples of various sounds and letters, I shall be using the following words and phrases, most of which you will find useful to know:
| Hallo! | Hello! universal greeting |
| Guten Morgen! | Good morning! |
| Guten Tag! | literally: "good day", greeting used throughout the day, more formal than "Hallo" |
| Guten Abend! | Good evening! |
| Gute Nacht! | Good night! only used when taking leave of somebody, assuming that somebody will go to bed now |
| Auf Wiedersehen! | exact counterpart of "Au revoir"; formal |
| Tschüss! | Bye! less formal than "Auf Wiedersehen" |
| Danke | Thanks |
| Bitte | Please; Here you are; You're welcome - used on a variety of occasions: when asking somebody to do something, when giving him something and as reply to "Danke". |
| Wie geht es Ihnen? | How are you? formal; literally means 'how goes it you?' and the 'you' is formal, like French 'vous' |
| Wie geht es dir (heute)? | How are you (today)? informal; the 'you' is like French 'tu' |
| Gut | good, well |
| Nicht so gut | not so good/well |
| Ich kann nicht klagen | I cannot complain - I'm quite well |
| Störe ich? | literally: Am I disturbing?; said e. g. when you go somewhere and you'd like to talk to somebody but you're not sure whether he's occupied |
| Sprechen Sie Englisch? | Do you speak English? |
| Deutsch | German |
| Französisch | French |
| Ja | Yes |
| Nein | No |
| Prost! | Cheers! said when having a drink together; shortened form of Latin 'prosit' |
| Quatsch! | Nonsense! |
| Entschuldigung! | Excuse me; I'm sorry - literally: "apology". Said both when trying to get somebody's attention and when you have made a mistake. NOT said when somebody tells you about something that you didn't have any influence on, e. g. when somebody in his family died. |
| Texas | Texas |
| New York | New York |
| Mythos | myth |
| Computer | computer |
| Caesar | Caesar |
| Vater | father |
| Vase | vase |
German uses the same alphabet as English, with the following additions: ß, ä, ö and ü. The sound of the letters is not always the same as in English though. It is mainly the vowels and the r that sound different. Since German didn't undergo the vowel shift that makes English vowels so different and French and Spanish didn't undergo that shift either, it is always better in cases of doubt to assume that a German vowel is pronounced like a French or Spanish one, rather than an English vowel.
Here's a list of all vowels and vowels combinations, an explanation of how
they sound and a sample:
| Spelling | Sound | Example(s) |
| a | like a in "father" or French "il a" | Hallo, Guten Tag, Guten Abend, Gute Nacht, Ja, Ich kann nicht klagen, Französisch, Quatsch, Texas, Vater, Vase |
| ai or ei | ai and ei both sound the same, though ei is the more common spelling. The sound is like the y in English "my". | Nein |
| au | like ow in "how" or ou in "house". | Auf Wiedersehen |
| e | as in French, e can convey three different sounds, though many people are unaware of that. The three sounds can be found in the French phrase "mais menez": 1st somewhat like the a in "and", 2nd like the a in "about", 3rd, and most difficult for an English speaker, a clear e sound that is part of "hay" - but "hay" has an additional y sound at the end. | Guten Morgen, Gute Nacht, Auf Wiedersehen, Wie geht es dir heute, Sprechen Sie Englisch, Entschuldigung, Texas |
| eu or äu | like oy in "boy" | Wie geht es dir heute, Deutsch |
| i | like i in "in" or ee in "meet", depending on length. | Wie geht es dir heute, Nicht so gut, Ich kann nicht klagen, Entschuldigung |
| ie | always a long i sound like ee in "meet" | Auf Wiedersehen, Wie geht es Ihnen |
| o | as in French, there are two variations: open o like in "porte" or closed o like in "eau". | Nicht so gut, Prost, New York, Mythos |
| u | like ou in French | Guten Tag, Gut, Entschuldigung |
| ä | this sound is like the first e in French "mère". In crosswords or the like, ä is always spelled ae, so whenever a foreign-borrowed word contains an ae, it's pronounced with the same sound (native German words don't contain the combination ae) | Caesar |
| ö | either like French eu as in "beurre" or like French "eux". Spelled oe in crosswords and the like. | Störe ich, Französisch |
| ü | like u in French. Spelled ue in crosswords and the like | Tschüss |
| y | very rare in German words. It's usually pronounced as in the language from which the word was borrowed, e. g. in "Baby"(borrowed from English) it's pronounced as i, whereas in "Mythos"(borrowed from Greek) it's pronounced as ü. In case of doubt, pronounce as ü. | Mythos |
Now for the consonants. Fortunately most of them are like in English. I will
just provide explanations for those that are different or may be different.
| Spelling | Sound | Example(s) |
| c | very rare, mostly in foreign words, where it may sound as k or ts. In most cases where there is a c in Englisch words, it has been replaced by a k in German words. | Computer, Caesar |
| ch | in this combination, c is very common. ch is pronounced in two different ways, neither of which exist in French or English (unless you count the Scottish way of saying "loch"). If ch is preceded by a "light" vowel such as e or i or by a consonant, it is pronounced as in "Störe ich" or "Sprechen Sie Englisch". If ch is preceded by a "dark" vowel such as a, o or u, it is pronounced as in "Gute Nacht". | Störe ich, Sprechen Sie Englisch, Gute Nacht |
| ck | "kk" doesn't look nice to a German eye, so whenever that would have to be written, we spell "ck" instead. No change of sound. | |
| g | g is always pronounced as in the English word "garden", never as in "gentle" | Guten Morgen, Wie geht es Ihnen, Gut |
| h | two cases: either h is preceded by a vowel or not. If it is preceded by a vowel, it can't be heard and instead prolongs the vowel. If it is not preceded by a vowel, it can always be heard (unlike in French). | Hallo, Auf Wiedersehen, Wie geht es Ihnen, Wie geht es dir heute |
| j | pronounced like y in "year". | Ja |
| qu | pronounced as a combination of English c and v (which would be k and w in German). | Quatsch |
| r | pronunciation varies depending on the region and the speaker. It may be frontal, lingual (rolled) or uvular. In no case does it fuse with the vowel as in English "her"; it's always pronounced as a clear r. | Guten Morgen, Auf Wiedersehen, Störe ich, Sprechen Sie Englisch, Französisch, Prost, Caesar, Vater |
| s | pronounced like s in "rose", that is, a sound that English speakers would usually write as a z. When it is not followed by a vowel, it is pronounced like an English s. | Auf Wiedersehen, Nicht so gut, Prost, Texas, Mythos, Caesar, Vase |
| v | in words of Romance origin, it is pronounced as in English. In words of Germanic origin, it is pronounced as f. | Vater, Vase |
| w | always pronounced like an English v. | Auf Wiedersehen |
| y | very uncommon as a consonant, too, limited to foreign words and always pronounced as in English. | New York |
| z | pronounced like ts as in "cats". Practise to say this combination as the beginning of a word. The c in Caesar has the same sound, actually Caesar would have to be written as "Zäsar" in phonetic German. | Caesar |
| ß or ss | pronounced like an English s. In crosswords, ss replaces ß, but ss also exists in normal spelling. | Tschüss |
| sch | pronounced exactly like "sh" in English | Entschuldigung, Sprechen Sie Englisch, Deutsch, Französisch |
| sp | when sp occurs as a combination within a word (not at the end of a word or when two words are combined to form a compound), it is pronounced as a combination of sh and p | Sprechen Sie Englisch |
| st | when sp occurs as a combination within a word (not at the end of a word or when two words are combined to form a compound), it is pronounced as a combination of sh and t | Störe ich, Prost (no sh + t combination in Prost) |