GERMAN PRONUNCIATION

Pronouncing German

German spelling is phonetic (unlike English!); you can nearly always pronounce a word or name correctly from seeing it written. Only a handful of sounds have no close English equivalent: unstressed e, umlauted o or u, ch, and r. In the chart below, the pronunciation is given for all vowels and for consonants and consonant combinations whose sound can be strange or unexpected.

As a rule the stress falls on the first syllable. The principal exceptions are words beginning with certain unstressed prefixes (be-, ge-, emp-, ent-, er-, ver-, zer-), as in Verbot or Gestapo. In words of foreign origin, like Kultur or Präsident, the stress usually falls at the end.

All German nouns are capitalized, even in middle of a sentence. Vowels with the double dot (called an Umlaut) over them can be written instead with an e after the vowel: thus ae is equivalent to ä, Fuehrer is equivalent to Führer, and so on. In proper names there is a preferred spelling: Goebbels (not Göbbels), Göring (not Goering)

VOWEL SOUNDS
In German a vowel is long if it is doubled; or if it is followed by a single consonant;
or if it is followed by a silent h.

	a long a short	Like a in "father", differing only in how long they are held. F Aachen, Papen (long); Halle, Ranke (short).
	e, ä, ae long	Like a in "gate". F Speer, Klee, Raeder.
	e, ä, ae short	Like e in "met". F Breslau, Kästner.
	e unstressed	A rather indeterminate sound, something like the u in "fur". F Gestapo, Moltke.
	i long	Like u in "beet".
	i short	Like i in "hit".
	o long	Like o in "joke". F Oder, Kohl.
	o short	Like a very short aw as in "pawn" said quickly. F Bonn.
	ö, oe long	Said by rounding one's lips as if to say oh and then, holding one's mouth in that position, saying a as in "gate". F Göring, Goethe, Röhm.
	ö, oe short	Said by rounding one's lips as if to say aw as in "pawn" and then, holding one's mouth in that position, saying e as in "met". F Goebbels, Döblin.
	u long	Like oo in "shoot". F Ruhr, Buchenwald.
	u short	Like u in "put". F Bund.
	ü, ue long	Said by rounding one's lips as if to say oo as in "shoot" and then, holding one's mouth in that position, saying ee as in "beet". F Führer, Brüning.
	ü, ue short	Said by rounding one's lips as if to say u as in "put" and then, holding one's mouth in that position, saying i as in "hit". F Düsseldorf, Müller.
	y	Usually serves the function of an i, as in English. F Meyer, Kautsky. When y is the only vowel in a syllable, in names or in words of Greek origin, it is pronounced like German ü. F Thyssen.
	au	Like ou in "house". F Braun, Hauptmann.
	ei, ey, ai, ay	Like i in "bike". F Reich, Weimar, Mainz, Ley.
	eu, äu, aeu	Like oi in "oil". F Freud, Neurath.
	ie	Same as German long i, that is, like ee in "beet". F Kiel, Dietrich.

CONSONANTS

	b	As in English, except at the end of a word or syllable where it sounds like p. F Leeb, Liebknecht.
	c	Before a, o or ö, u or ü, or another consonant, pronounced like k; before e, i, y or ä, pronounced like ts.
	ch	After a, o, u and au, a hard guttural sound formed at the back of the mouth. F Bach, Dachau. After other vowels and diphthongs and all consonants, a soft and breathy sound formed at the front of the mouth. F Reich, Eichmann, Brecht.
	chs	Like English x.
	ck	Like k, just as in English.
	d	As in English, except at the end of a word or syllable where it sounds like t. F Marienbad, Bund.
	dt	Like t. F Brandt, Arendt.
	g	Always hard as in "good", never soft as in "gym". F Hegel. At the end of a word -ig is pronounced like German ich. F Danzig. A final g may also sound like k or hard ch. F Reichstag. See also ng, below.
	gn	Pronounce both letters, even at the beginning of a word. F Gneist.
	h	At the beginning of a word or syllable the h is sounded. F Hamburg. Also used to lengthen a vowel; the h itself is then silent. F Mahler, Brahms. (See also ch, above.)
	j	Like English y as in "yes". F Jung, Junker, Jaspers.
	kn	Pronounce both letters, even at the beginning of a word. F Knecht.
	ng	Always like ng in "singer" (never as in "finger" or "ginger"). F Tübingen.
	pf	Pronounce both letters, even at the beginning of a word. F Pfeffer.
	qu	Like kv (not kw). F Quessel.
	r	Guttural; similar to the French r but quite unlike the American r, the Russian r, or the Spanish r. At the end of an unaccented syllable, however, it is very inconspicuous and not unlike the American r. F Hitler.
	s	Normally like English s, even at the end of a word or syllable. Before a vowel it is pronounced like English z. F Haase, Sombart. (See also sp and st.)
	sp	At the start of a word or syllable, pronounced like English shp. F Speer, Spengler.
	st	At the start of a word or syllable, pronounced like English sht. F Gestapo, Stauffenberg.
	sch	Like English sh.
	th	Like t (the h is silent). F Beethoven, Barth.
	tz	Like ts.
	v	Pronounced like f. F Volk, Vaterland.
	w	Like English v. F Weber, Weimar, Wehrmacht. In -ow at the end of a name the w may be silent or (if the name is Slavic) it may sound like f.
	z	Like ts, even at the beginning of a word. F Zietz, Danzig.