You have learned the German alphabet and are pretty good a spelling words, but how do you pronounce the letters when they are part of words (and not part of the alphabet)?
My video (which is part from my online course The German ABC – a complete guide to German pronunciation explains in great details how you pronounce the vowels (a,e,i,o,u). You can hear the sound the letters make and there are short listening exercises, too.
But in case you also like to see things written down, here is the text:
The ‘a’ sound is long when
- it is followed by a single consonant that would belong to the next syllable if separated (Magen)
- it is doubled (Staat)
- it is followed by an h (Jahr)
The ‘a’ is short when
- it is followed by a double consonant (nass)
- it is followed by two or more different consonants (Stadt)
- it appears in a common one-syllable word followed by a single consonant (ab)
- There are some exceptions, e.g. foreign words, but these rules will apply in most situations. (And anyway, you know by now, that the German grammar has lots of exceptions, right 😉)
The ‘e’ sound is long when
- it is followed by a single consonant that would belong to the next syllable if separated (Weg)
- it is doubled (Beet)
- it is followed by an h (Ehre)
The ‘e’ is short when
- it is followed by a double consonant (Bett)
- it is followed by two or more different consonants (Westen)
- it appears in a common one-syllable word followed by a single consonant (er)
‘e’ at the end of a word usually gets pronounced, but it’s a short ‘e’. There is no ‘silent e’. (Ente, Bohne, Frage)
‘e’ in the final ‘en of a word doesn’t get pronounced. (Wir trinken einen schwarzen Tee.)
The ‘i’ sound is long when
- it is followed by a single consonant that would belong to the next syllable if separated (Igel)
- it is followed by an h (ihre)
The ‘i’ is short when
- it is followed by a double consonant (Bitte)
- it is followed by two or more different consonants (Winter)
- it appears in a common one-syllable word followed by a single consonant (in)
The ‘o’ sound is long when
- it is followed by a single consonant that would belong to the next syllable if separated (Vogel)
- it is doubled (Boot)
- it is followed by an h (Ohren)
The ‘o’ is short when
- it is followed by a double consonant (kommen)
- it is followed by two or more different consonants (optimal)
- it appears in a common one-syllable word followed by a single consonant (ob)
The ‘u’ sound is long when
- it is followed by a single consonant that would belong to the next syllable if separated (Beruf)
- it is followed by an h (Uhr)
The ‘u’ vowel doesn’t get doubled, but can appear double in compound nouns, where the first ‘u’ is the last letter from a part of the noun, and the second ‘u’ is the first letter from the next part. (Anschauung, Trauung, Bauunternehmen)
To really hear the differences, watch the video, and if you want to learn more about how the German letters sound (either as part of the alphabet or as part of words) check out my online course The German ABC – a complete guide to German pronunciation To get 10% off, use the coupon code BLOGPOST.
Did you enjoy the tongue twisters? Here they are again for you to practise 😉
Herr von Hagen darf ich’s wagen, sie zu fragen, welchen Kragen sie getragen, als sie lagen krank am Magen in der Stadt zu Kopenhagen.
Das Weinfass, das Frau Weber leerte, verheerte ihre Leberwerte.
Oma kocht Opa Kohl. Opa kocht Oma Kohl. Doch Opa kocht Oma Rosenkohl. Oma dagegen kocht Opa Rotkohl.
Wenn um Rumkugeln Rumkugeln herumkugeln, kugeln um Rumkugeln Rumkugeln herum.
