The German alphabet

Lesson outline

1.Learn the German alphabet
2.German alphabets with pronunciation
3.German special characters
4.German Spelling
5.How to type German characters
6.German alphabet song
7.Exercises
7.1.Learn how to pronounce the German Alphabet: Part 2
7.2.Learn how to pronounce the German Alphabet: Part 1

Learn the German alphabet

Knowing the alphabet is very important when learning a new language. It plays a big role during the learning process in multiple ways. Once you are familiar with the German alphabet and its pronunciation, learning the German language won't be that difficult for you anymore.

The German alpabet is not as complicated as it probably seems. The German alphabet consists in 26 letters, those letters are the same as in English. However the German alphabet has four extra letters, that I will explain to you in the following part.

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German alphabets with pronunciation

It's time to look at the alphabtet in more details. In the following list you can not only learn how to pronounce the german letters, also there are some examples. Remember to practice the pronunciation in order to maximise your skills and knowledge.

German letters	Pronunciation	German word with translation
a	ah	Arm (arm)
b	beh	Bruder (brother)
c	tseh	Celsius (celsius)
d	deh	Dienstag (Tuesday)
e	eh	essen (to eat)
f	eff	Familie (family)
g	geh	Gold (gold)
h	hah	Haus (house)
i	ih	Idee (idea)
j	yott	Januar (january)
k	kah	Kaffee (coffee)
l	ell	Lampe (lamp)
m	emm	Mann (man)
n	enn	Nase (nose)
o	oh	Ozean (ocean)
p	peh	Pause (pause)
q	kuh	Quelle (source)
r	err	Regen (rain)
s	ess	schön (pretty)
t	teh	Telefon (telephone)
u	uh	Uhr (clock)
v	fau	Vater (father)
w	veh	Wilkommen (welcome)
x	iks	Xylophon (xylophone)
y	ypsilon	Yoga (yoga)
z	tzett	Zeitung (newspaper)

Here you can listen to the pronounciation of the whole alphabe:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z

Quick reminder

The W sounds like V in English
The V sounds like F in English

German special characters

In German we have four special characters (Sonderzeichen):

Sonderzeichen	Approximate Sound in English	Example
ä	like the "e" in melon	ängstlich, ähnlich, Mädchen
ö	like the "i" in girl	Löwe, Möwe, Österreich
ü	no comparable sound in English	müde, Übung, Rübe
ß	double "s" sound (sharp s)	Straße, heiß, Spaß

German Spelling

Diphthongs are combinations of two vowels (gliding vowels). Some of them sound very similar:

Diphthonge	Approximate Sound in English	Example
ai	like	Mai
äu, eu	boy	Bäume, deutsch
au	house	Daumen

There are several consonant combinations in the german language:

Consonant combination	Approximate Sound in English	Example
ch	hue	Bach
sch	shoe	Schuh
sp	sh + p	Spaß
st	sh + t	Stange

How to type German characters

Most of you probably don't have a German keyboard. For the exercises, that are spread through all our chapters, it is really important that you know how to type the German special characters:

For all the combinations you have to press the ALT key while typing.

0196 for Ä
0228 for ä
0214 for Ö
0246 for ö
0220 for Ü
0252 for ü
0223 for ß

German alphabet song

You still have problems pronouncing the German alphabet? Listening to the following video will help you learning the pronounciation of the German alphabet!

I hope you have enjoyed this lesson! It's now your time to shine! Go and test yourself with our fun and engaging short exercises. See you soon!