Lesson 2: Pronunciation and the alphabet
Grammar:
Letters in German are not much different from English. Some pronunciations are different though:
- c is pronounced as in pots or can
- g is pronounced as in great
- i is pronounced as in freedom, not as in I
- j is pronounced as in young
- u is pronounced as in today
- w is pronounced as very
- z is pronounced as pots
When you are saying the alphabet, some letters get weird. J is pronounced jot, V is fow, Y is epsilon. So when spelling in German, don’t forget those. Listen to the full alphabet here.
Some letters are not in the alphabet, namely (listen to them here):
- ä
- ö
- ü
- ß (pronounced ‘s’)
Note: the ¨ is called ‘Umlaut’ in German, and can be replaced by an e after the letter. So instead of ä, it’s ae, ö becomes oe and ü ue.
There are some special combinations:
- sch is pronounced ‘s’ as in sure or ‘sh’ as in shut
- sp and st are pronounced chp and cht
Don’t have not enough? Visit Wikipedia for more exceptions in German.
Exercises and new words:
Pronounce the following words:
- Das Jahr (-e) = year
- Das Beispiel (-e) = example
- Der Mensch (-en) = human being
- Der Tag (-e) = day
- Die Frage (-n) = question
Solutions