Chapter 4 of 17 · Explore the German path
Optional reference · Chapter 4 of 17
Find a letter and its sound
Open this when a letter or a letter pair stops you. It holds every letter that says something an English reader would not expect, the five steady vowels, and thirteen pairs that make one sound.
≈ 5 min of reading · Practise at your own pace
What’s in this chapter
- Open this when a letter or a letter pair stops you; the next step does not need any of it.
- The first card set covers every letter whose sound differs from English, with a memory hook where a natural one exists.
- The second covers the five vowels, which are pure and never slide.
- The third covers the letter pairs, including the four that only matter at the start or end of a word.
- The last two blocks are the words whose spelling and sound disagree — the ones worth reading twice.
You do not need this section to finish the lesson. Open it when a letter or a letter pair stops you: find the letter, take the sound, and go straight back to the story. Nothing here is meant to be memorised in one sitting.
The nine letters that differ from English
Nine letters do not say what an English reader expects. Find the one that stopped you, take its sound, and go back to the story.
- wv, as in “very” — never the English wThe car, VW, is “fow-VAY” in German: the w says v.WasserVAS-uh“water”
- vf, as in “father” — except in borrowed words like Vase and November, where it says vVolkswagen starts with the f of “folks”.VaterFAH-tuh“father”
- jy, as in “yes”English kept one German j: the j in “hallelujah” is a y too.jayah“yes”
- zts, as at the end of “cats” — at the start of a word tooTake the ts off the end of “cats” and move it to the front.zehntsayn“ten”
- ss in front of a vowelz, as in “zoo” — but a double ss is always the plain English sSonneZON-uh“sun”
- ßscharfes Sa sharp s. One letter, not a capital BIt is a double-s written as one letter, so it can never start a word.weißvice“white”
- äe, as in “bed”; stretched long it is the vowel in “air”, and many Germans say it as a plain “ay”The two dots are a shrunken e sitting on the a — ä was once written ae, and it says e.Bärbair“bear”
- öthe vowel in British “her”, with no r in it: “ur”Say the e of “bed”, freeze your tongue there, then round your lips as if for “oh”. The tongue must not move.schönshurn“beautiful”
- üsay “ee” and round your lips: “ew”Say “ee”, freeze your tongue there, then round your lips as if for “oo”. The tongue must not move.Türtewr“door”
Learn these nine and you have learned German spelling. Every other letter reads roughly as it looks.
The five vowels, one steady sound each
A vowel is a sound like the a in cat or the ee in see. German holds each one steady instead of letting it slide.
- aah, as in “father” (short: as in “cup”)Tagtahk“day”
- eay, as in “may” (short: as in “bed”); a weak “uh” at the end of a wordSchneeshnay“snow”
- iee, as in “machine” (short: as in “sit”)wirveer“we”
- ooh, as in “note”, but never slidingMondmohnt“moon”
- uoo, as in “boot” (short: as in “put”)Hundhoont“dog”
Each is a single sound that does not slide. English “oh” drifts towards “ooh” while you say it; German o stays where it started. A vowel is long when it is doubled, followed by an h, or followed by one consonant, and short when two consonants follow — but you need to know the two lengths exist, not the rule.
Thirteen letter pairs and what they say
Some letters stand together and make a single sound. Look up the group that stopped you rather than guessing from the letters on their own.
- eithe sound in “my”: “y” or “-ine”ei says the letter it ends with: I. Look at mein and hear “mine”.meinmine“my”
- iea long “ee”Same trick: ie ends in e, so it says E.wievee“how”
- au“ow”, as in “cow”German Maus is English mouse, with the same “ow” in the middle.Baumbowm“tree”
- eu“oy”, as in “boy”Europa is “oy-ROH-pa” — the continent tells you the sound.neunnoyn“nine”
- äu“oy” as well — the same sound, a different spellingäu is au with the dots on: Haus “howss” becomes Häuser “HOY-zuh”.HäuserHOY-zuh“houses”
- chafter a, o, u, aua scrape at the back of the throat: “kh”Begin to say a k, then stop the back of the tongue just short of touching and let air scrape through. Say the composer, Bach.Nachtnahkht“night”
- chafter e, i, ä, ö, ü and after a consonanta soft hiss at the front, like the h in a whispered “huge”Put the tongue where it goes for the y of “yes” and blow instead of voicing: a hissing cat, not a scraping throat.ichich“I”
- chsa plain “ks”Fuchsfooks“fox”
- sch“sh”, as in “ship”English borrowed it whole in schnapps and schnitzel.Schneeshnay“snow”
- sp-at the start of a word“shp”German Sport is “shport”.spätshpayt“late”
- st-at the start of a word“sht”Same rule one letter over: Stop is “shtop”.StundeSHTOON-duh“hour”
- tschthe “ch” of English “church”Deutsch ends with it.Tschüstshewss“bye”
- -igat the end of a wordthe soft front hiss: “-ich”, not “-ig”In standard pronunciation a final -ig ends like ich, not like “pig”; southern speakers do say “-ik”.traurigTROW-rich“sad”
These are not new letters. They are ordinary letters standing next to each other, which German reads as one sound.
Words whose spelling and sound disagree
These words are read differently from the way they look to an English eye. Say the pronunciation on the right, then look back at the spelling.
The two ch sounds, decided entirely by the vowel in front
German has two different ch sounds, and you never have to choose. The letter in front of the ch decides which one you say.