German Alphabets For Dummies
Hallo Freunds (Hello Friends)! It is a comparatively easy task to learn German, due to its similarity with English and its characters. With few exceptions in German Alphabets to remember are as follows:
• Gender
• Few words like ä, ü, ö, ß
• Pronunciation
Learning German is not difficult because of its easy pronunciations, as it is similar to English.
Vowels
Vowels can be pronounced short or long and they both have different meanings for example ‘sheep’ and ‘ship’. The same rule applies to German pronunciation.
Consonants
The set of German alphabets ‘ch’ and ‘r’ are spoken very differently as compared to English. The sound of ‘kh’ as in ‘khan’ is produced when speaking ‘ch’. The examples are Nacht (night, na.kht) and Ich (I, ikh).
On the other hand the German alphabet ‘r’ is pronounced as ‘r.gh’ very softly. For example Radio (r.gh.di.o) & Reich (rich, r.gh.aikh)
Reading and Writing German Alphabets
There are no silent alphabets in German language as a common case while speaking English language. For example Knie (knee, k.nee) please note, K is not silent here. Another example, in word Toilettte (Toilet, to.a.le.te) letter E is still pronounced with sound ‘aye’.
The German Alphabet ß stands for ss, few the examples are: Straßenbahn (tram, shtrah.ssen.bahn) or Weißwein (white wine, vaiss.vain) or in Straße (road, shtrah.sse)
Alphabet ü is pronounced as e.yu not as ee neither as oo, but something in between as in tune. The examples are, fünf (five, fe.yu.nf) or kiss (küss, ke.yu.ss) or Grün (Green, gre.yun)
Alphabet ö is pronounced as er. The examples are örtliche (local, ert.li.khe) or schön (beautiful, sh.er.n) or Knöpfe (button, knerp.fe) or möchte (like, merkh.te)
Alphabet ä is pronounced as ay. The examples are Ähnlich (Similar, ayn.likh) or Alltäglich (Everyday, al.tayk.likh) or Anhänger (Supporters, an.hayng.er)
Alphabets sp and st at the beginning of the word are pronounced like shp and sht. For example, Spiegel (mirror, shpee.gel) or Speziell (Special, shpe.tsyel) or for ‘sh’, stadt (Town, shtat) or Stark (Strong, shtark)
Additionally the words starting from letter v are pronounced as f. Example, Verkehr (Traffic, fer.kair) or Vater (Father, fah.ter) or Verrückt (Crazy, fer.rukt)
Similarly if the word is ending with alphabets d is pronounced as t, g as k and b as p. The examples are, Raub (Robbery, rowp) or Urlaub (Holiday, oor.lowp) or Und (and, unt) or Tausend (Thousand, tow.zent) or Traurig (Sad, traow.rik) or Vertrag (Contract, fer.trhk)
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