13 More Pronunciation of German Sounds

13  More Pronunciation of German Sounds 

As promised, this time I want to give you some idea how German pronunciation works as it is quite different from English so I will show you some German words and attempt to write an approximate pronunciation alongside. I will also give you the meaning of each word and in square brackets written in italics how we might say each word in English. e.g.  Bank = bank [bunk]. Remember, though, once you learn these basic pronunciations, German is very consistent in its spelling and much much better than English.

First I need to tell you also that with the vowels in German, they can be both long and short. By that I mean that the vowel can have a shorter or longer sound just like in English, e.g.  beg (short) or be (long). Short vowels are often followed by a double letter in German, e.g. Bett = bed [bet]

Let's get the vowels out of the way first as they are very important and their diphthongs (combined vowels) as well. Also I will use the ch  sound mentioned in the last blog and written as ch.

a   (u / ah)  Katze = cat [kutser - short], Bach= stream [bar ch - long]... (Johann Sebastian Pond ???)
ä   (air)      Bär = bear [same as English),  Männer = men [menner], Pläne = plans [plairner]
au  (ow)    Sau = sow / fem. pig [zow],  faul = lazy [fowl],  Maus = mouse [mow ss]
äu  (oy)     Läufer = runner [loy fer], Allgäu = region Sth Germany [ull goy]

e   (e / ee)  nett = nice [net], Reh = deer [ray],  segeln = sail [zay geln], Tee = tea [tay]
eu  (oy)     Heu = hay [hoy],  Deutsch = German [doy tch],  neun = nine [noyn]
ei   (eye)    Ei = egg [eye],  fein = fine [fine],  nein = no [nine]

i   ( i / ee )  Zinn = tin [tsinn], Lid = (eye)lid [leet], Biss = bite [bis],  Schi = ski [she]
ie  (ee)       sie = she [zee],  vier = four [fear]

o   (o/oh )  Koch = cook [ko ch],  Sohn = son [zoh n]
ö   (ur)      Mörder = murderer [murder],  böse = evil bur zer]

u   (ooh)   Buch = book [booh ch],  Schuh = shoe [shooh]
ü   (ue)     kühl = cool

OK, more sounds later. You will have noticed lots of words I have used above are very similar to their English equivalents. These are called cognates. Reason is .... the Anglo Saxons brought German to England and settled there. There were 3 major influences on the original English, these being Latin, German and French. All three languages gave us many many words we know today.

Berlin - Checkpoint Charlie