BLL German/A1/Pronunciation

Bite-sized language lessons for German - Level A1 - Pronunciation

This is 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 page will be more extensive and structured differently than the rest of the lessons. 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:

Words and phrases as pronunciation examples
German	listen	English
Hallo!	OGG	Hello! universal greeting
Guten Morgen!	OGG	Good morning!
Guten Tag!	OGG	literally: "good day", greeting used throughout the day, more formal than "Hallo"
Guten Abend!	OGG	Good evening!
Gute Nacht!	OGG	Good night! only used when taking leave of somebody, assuming that somebody will go to bed now
Auf Wiedersehen!	OGG	Goodbye! exact counterpart of the French "Au revoir"; formal
Tschüss!		Bye! less formal than "Auf Wiedersehen"
Danke / Danke schön	OGG	Thanks
Bitte / Bitte sehr	OGG	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?	OGG	How are you? formal; literally means 'how goes it you?'
Wie geht es dir (heute)?	OGG	How are you (today)? informal
Gut	OGG	good, well
Nicht so gut	OGG	not so good/well
Ich kann nicht klagen.	OGG	I cannot complain. I'm quite well.
Störe ich?	OGG	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?	OGG	Do you speak English?
Deutsch	OGG	German
Französisch	OGG	French
Ja	OGG	Yes
Nein	OGG	No
Prost!		Cheers! said when having a drink together; shortened form of Latin 'prosit'
Quatsch!	OGG	Nonsense!
Entschuldigung!	OGG	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	OGG	myth
Computer	OGG	computer
Caesar	OGG	Caesar
Vater	OGG	father
Vase	OGG	vase

In order to hear one of these words and phrases pronounced, just click on it. This also applies to the latter parts of this lesson, when the same words will be used to illustrate all aspects of German pronunciation.

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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.

Vowels and vowel combinations

Here's a list of all vowels and vowels combinations, an explanation of how they sound and a sample:

Consonants and consonant combinations

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. If you are still unsure about a consonant that is not listed, just consult the list of sample words. Every consonant appears there at some place.