German Pronunciation Guide: Vowels &

Consonants

Short vowels: A stressed vowel followed by two consonants is usually

pronounced short (Bett, hacken, kann, selber), but long vowels in a root form
remain long even if inflected to be followed by two consonants (groß – größte
or leben – gelebt). The vowel preceding CK is always short (Bock, locken, Lücke,
trocken).
Long vowels: A vowel followed by a silent H or doubled is pronounced long
(fahren, wohnen, Boot, Seele, Stuhl). A vowel is usually long if its syllable is not
closed by a consonant (ja, so, ha-ben, o-ben) or followed by a single consonant
(gut, kam, rot, schon). The combination IE is usually pronounced as a long i
(sieben, tief, viel). Unstressed vowels except E at the end of a word are usually
pronounced long (Schere, Sofa, Vati).
Pronunciation of individual German vowels is as follows:
 A: The German short A is pronounced like the U in “hut” only more open
and tense. The German long A is pronounced like the A in “father”.

Examples:

Short A alle, kann, Land, Stadt

Long A Abend, Jahr, haben, nach

 E: The German short E is pronounced like the E in “get” or in “men”. The

German long E is pronounced like the A in “laid” but longer and without
gliding. In some words, the E is doubled to show that it is long. Many
German words end with a final E or ER. The final E, as well as E in a final ER,
is hardly voiced. It is pronounced similar to the final A in the English word
“idea”.

Examples:

Short E echt, Elch, fertig, Kette

Long E Lehrer, leer, legen, Reh

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 I: The short i (capitalized I not L) is pronounced like the I in “mitten”. The
German long I is pronounced like the EE in “seed” but without gliding.
Sometimes the letter I is followed by the letter E to indicate that it is long.

Examples:

Short I Bild, Gipfel, ich, richtig

Long I ihnen, Titel, wider/wieder

 Note: The combination IE is almost always pronounced as a long I, but in the

word Familie the IE is pronounced as two separate vowels.
 O: The short O is pronounced like the O in “knot” or in “hot” if you are
British. The long O is pronounced like the O in “so” but with the lips more
rounded and without gliding.

Examples:

Short O bockig, toll, Tochter, Woche

Long O Boden, Ober, rot, Wohl

 U: The short U is pronounced like the OO in “foot”. The long U is

pronounced like the OO in “pool” or “stool” but with the lips more rounded
and without gliding.

Examples:

Short U Luft, lustig, unter, Wunsch

Long U Buch, Kur, ruhig, Ufer

 Ä: The German long and short Ä are usually pronounced like the German
long and short E although some native speakers may pronounce them
somewhat differently.

Examples:

Short Ä Bänder, hätte, Lärm, Sänger

Long Ä Mädchen, Käse, täglich, zählen

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 Ö: There are no English equivalents for the German long or short Ö. They
are pronounced like a German E with the lips rounded.

Examples:

Short Ö Hölle, können, Löffel, öffnen

Long Ö böse, krönen, Kröte, Löwe

 Ü: There are no English equivalents for the German short or long Ü either.
They are pronounced like a German i with the lips rounded. Or better, the
EW of the word “yew” said in disgust with the lips rounded but tensed and
no gliding.

Examples:

Short Ü dünn, drücken, Münze, tüchtig

Long Ü fühlen, Tür, Lüge, über

German Diphthongs
German diphthongs are usually shorter and tenser (less glide) than English
diphthongs.
 EI, AI, AY, EY are all pronounced like the English word “eye” or the Y in
“by” or “my” or the i in “dine” or “mine”.
 AU is pronounced like the OU in “house” or the OW in “brow” or “crown”.
 EU, ÄU are pronounced like the OY in “annoy” or “boy” or “Troy”.
Careful: English speakers tend to confuse the diphthong EI (pronounced “eye”)
with IE (pronounced “ee”).

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German Consonants
Most German consonants are pronounced much as they are in English. The
exceptions are C, J, L, Q, R, S, V, W, and Z.
 B: This letter is pronounced as it is in English, except a final B is
pronounced more like a P. The word halb (“half”) is pronounced as if it
were spelled halp.
 C: Except in the ligatures CH and SCH, the letter C is not a genuine German
letter and is used only in borrowed foreign words. Pronunciation tends to
follow the original source language. Many of the borrowed words come
from French. Therefore, the CH in words like Chance, Chef, Chauvinist, etc.
is pronounced like the CH in champagne. The Words Chat, Cheeseburger or
checken, which were borrowed from English, are pronounced like in
English. The initial CH in words like Chor, Christ and Chromatik is
pronounced like a K.
 CH: This letter is pronounced as a rasping sound made in the back of the
mouth something like clearing the throat before you spit. The Scots use
this sound to pronounce “loch” (as in Loch Ness). CH is pronounced this
way. Here are some examples: machen, Buch, Sache, ach!
 CHS is a separated KS sound as in the English word “vixen”. Examples
include sechs, wachsen, Fuchs, Ochse.
 CK is pronounced K. The preceding vowel is always short.
 D: This letter is pronounced as it is in English, except a final D is
pronounced more like a T. The word Rad (“wheel”) is pronounced as if it
were spelled Rat.
 G: This letter is pronounced like it usually is in English (“good” or “green”).
 IG: The suffix IG (used to convert a noun into an adjective) can be
pronounced in various ways. The Westphalians pronounce it as if it were
spelled ICH (see CH above). The Rhinelanders pronounce it as if it were
spelled ISCH. Others pronounce it like the IG in “pig.” Take your choice.
 J: This letter is pronounced like the English initial Y in “yes”.
 L: The German L is pronounced somewhat different than the English. Try
curling the tip of your tongue up to touch just behind the top front teeth
and keep the back part of the tongue lower as you pronounce it.
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 NG: The German N is pronounced as in English, but English speakers have a
tendency to insert an extra G following an NG sound if another syllable
follows. The Germans pronounce the word länger as läng-er, not läng-ger.
 PF: This letter combination is pronounced very nearly like a simple F, but
not quite. It is more like the PF in “stepfather”. The P becomes a little
explosive puff before the F. Examples include Pferd, Pfarre, Pfeffer, Pfütze.
 Q: As in English, Q is always followed by U in German words. The
combination QU is pronounced KW (except in the borrowed word
“queue”). Examples are quälen, quer, Quelle, Quatsch!.
 R: Most North Germans tend to swallow their final R’s to the point of
nonexistence (like Bostonians or New Zealanders who pronounce “car” as
cah). South Germans, Swiss German speakers and Austrians almost tongue
trill their R’s like a Scotch “burr”.
 S: A single S at the beginning of or in the middle of a word is pronounced
like the English Z. At the end of a word an S is pronounced as it is in
English. A double S (ss) is pronounced like the English S although it may be
broken into separate syllables (was-ser). A double S following a long vowel
is often represented by an eszett (ß).
Note: There has been a highly controversial reform of German spelling in
1996 in which the use of eszetts (ß) has been changed. The usages given in
this course refer to German as it has existed for nearly the last hundred
years because many people still use eszetts in the old way.
 SCH: represents the sound SH as in “ship”, “shoe”, “shred” or “shadow”.
 SP and ST: when at the beginning of a word or following verb prefixes they
are pronounced SCHP or SCHT. In the body or at the end of a word they are
pronounced as they would be in English. Examples for SP include Spachtel,
Spur, spinnen, versprechen pronounced SCHP but Haspel, Raspel or Wespe
pronounced SP. Regarding the combination ST, in the words Storch, Stoß,
Stuhl, Sturm it is pronounced as SCHT but in the words Dienstag, Gäste,
Kasten or Kunst it is ST.
 V: This letter is pronounced like F except in a few borrowed words (Vase,
Verb, Veranda) in which it is pronounced like in English.
 W: This letter is pronounced like V in English.

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  Z: This letter is pronounced like TS in “sits” or “tsunami”. Examples are
Herz, plötzlich, Zimmer, zerbrechen.

German Syllables and Stress

German syllables begin with a consonant if one is present and divide before
single consonants or between double consonants. Each syllable is pronounced
clearly and distinctly, often separated by a glottal stop. There is no slurring
together of syllables or liaison between words (if you are trying to sound
sober). Typically, the first syllable of a word is stressed. The main exceptions to
this rule are inseparable verb prefixes such as be-, er-, ent-, miss-, ver-, wider-,
zer-, and ge- which prefixes past participles. Separable verb prefixes are
stressed when attached to the verb. Compound nouns have a secondary stress
on their component parts. Words of foreign origin such as The’ater and
Exekuti’on bring their foreign stress with them.