Alphabet & Pronunciation

German uses the same 26 basic letters as English, plus four additional characters: the three umlauts ä, ö and ü, and the ß (Eszett or sharp S). Most people therefore count 30 characters in total. The umlauts and the ß are not decorations — they change meaning, so schon (already) and schön (beautiful) are two different words.

The ß is called Eszett or scharfes S and is pronounced like the double S in miss — a sharp, unvoiced S sound. It is never a B, even though it looks a little like one. You hear it in Straße (street) and in ich heiße (my name is). It always follows a long vowel or a diphthong.

Each umlaut has its own sound. Ä is close to the E in bed, as in Mädchen (girl). Ö resembles the ER in her said without the R, as in schön (beautiful). Ü is like the EW in few with rounded lips, as in über (over). Umlauts are separate sounds, so never replace them with ae, oe or ue when speaking.

German simply assigns different sounds to those two letters than English does. W is pronounced like the English V, so Wasser sounds like vasser. V is usually pronounced like an English F, so Vater sounds like fater. Once you swap those two sounds in your head, a large part of German pronunciation becomes predictable.

The combination sch is one sound, like the English SH in Schule (school). At the beginning of a word or syllable, sp and st are pronounced as shp and sht, which is why sprechen sounds like shprechen and Straße like shtraße. In the middle or at the end of a word they keep their plain S sound.