German is spelled far more regularly than English. Once you know the patterns on this page you can read almost any German word aloud correctly — and when you hear a new word, you can usually guess how it is spelled.
Every vocabulary card shows its pronunciation between slashes, like /ʃøːn/ for schön. That is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and this guide teaches the sounds and the symbols together. Press 🔊 next to any example to hear it.
If you only remember five things, make it these. Each one is covered in more detail further down.
German vowels come in long and short versions, and the difference changes the meaning. A vowel is usually short before a double consonant and long before a single one, or when followed by h, or written double.
They are made by rounding your lips while your tongue says a different vowel. Getting them right matters: schon and schön are different words.
It is a breathy rasp — further back after a, o and u, further forward everywhere else.
Before a vowel, r is made at the back of the throat. After a vowel, it softens into a short 'uh'. Neither is the English r.
At the end of a word, b, d and g are pronounced p, t and k.
German vowels are 'pure': they hold one sound from start to finish, without the glide English adds (English 'go' slides into 'oo'; German o does not). Long vowels are written several ways — doubled (Boot), followed by h (Bahn), or before a single consonant (Name). A double consonant after a vowel means the vowel is short (Mann, kommen). The card always tells you: ː after a vowel means long.
Long: like the a in 'father'. Short: the same sound, cut short.
Long: like 'ay' in 'say', but held steady — no slide into 'ee'. Short: like the e in 'bed'.
A weak 'uh', like the a in 'about'. Most endings in -e sound like this.
In -en after a consonant the e often disappears entirely and the n makes the syllable on its own; the cards write that n̩, as in /ˈaːbn̩t/ for Abend.
Long (ie, or i before one consonant): like 'ee' in 'see'. Short: like the i in 'sit'.
Long: like the o in 'go', but pure — round your lips and don't let it slide into 'oo'. Short: like the o in 'off', kept short.
Long: like 'oo' in 'food'. Short: like the u in 'put'.
At the end of a word, -er is not 'er' at all: it is a short, open 'uh', close to the a in 'sofa'. Vater sounds roughly like 'FAH-tuh'.
The two dots change the vowel completely, and often change the meaning too — many plurals are made with an umlaut. Where umlauts can't be typed, Germans write ae, oe and ue instead: Müller becomes Mueller.
Like the e in 'bed'. Long ä is the same sound, held longer.
No English equivalent. Say 'ay' as in 'say', keep your tongue exactly there, and round your lips as if to say 'oo'. Short ö is more open — close to the vowel of 'her' without the r, with rounded lips.
No English equivalent. Say 'ee', keep your tongue exactly there, and round your lips tightly as for 'oo'. If it comes out as 'oo', your tongue has moved back.
Each pair differs only by the umlaut.
Three combinations glide from one vowel to another. The card marks the glide with a small arch under the second vowel: /aɪ̯/.
Like 'eye'.
Like 'ow' in 'how'.
Like 'oy' in 'boy'.
ei says 'eye' and ie says 'ee' — the second letter tells you the sound. English speakers mix these up more than anything else in German spelling.
Most German consonants sound as you would expect. These are the ones that don't.
The 'ach' sound: a rasp at the back of the mouth, like the ch in Scottish 'loch'. Not k.
The 'ich' sound: softer and further forward. Whisper the h at the start of 'huge' and hold it — that hiss is it. Not 'sh'.
At the end of a word, -ig ends in the soft ich sound.
Made at the back of the throat, close to a gentle gargle — like the French r. Never the English r with the tongue curled back.
A rolled r, made with the tip of the tongue, is also heard in the south and in Austria, and is perfectly correct.
After a vowel at the end of a syllable, r turns into a short 'uh' that merges with the vowel before it. Don't sound it as a consonant.
Like English v.
Usually like English f.
In words borrowed from other languages it is v, as in Vase and Klavier.
Like the ts in 'cats' — even at the start of a word.
Like English z.
A sharp s, as in 'see'. ß (called Eszett) is written after a long vowel or a vowel pair, ss after a short vowel.
Like 'sh' in 'ship'.
At the start of a word, or of a word inside a compound, sp and st are 'shp' and 'sht'. Elsewhere they are as in English.
Like the y in 'yes'.
Pronounced at the start of a word or syllable. After a vowel it is silent, and only shows that the vowel is long.
Always as in 'singer' — never with the hard g of 'finger', not even in the German word Finger.
Both letters, in one push: p straight into f.
Like 'kv'.
At the end of a word or syllable, b, d and g lose their voice and are pronounced p, t and k. The spelling doesn't change — the card shows you the sound. Add an ending and the letter is back to its usual sound: Tag ends in k, but Tage has a real g.
Like p.
Like t.
Like k (except in -ig, which ends in the ich sound).
On the cards, the mark ˈ comes just before the stressed syllable: /ˈmyːdə/. Words of one syllable have no mark. Most German words follow a few simple rules.
Native German words are usually stressed on their first syllable.
be-, ge-, er-, ver-, zer-, ent- and emp- are always weak; the stress falls on the syllable after them.
Prefixes that can split off from their verb — an-, auf-, aus-, mit-, zurück- and many more — take the stress.
Words taken from French, Latin and other languages are often stressed near the end.
A German word or syllable that begins with a vowel starts with a tiny catch in the throat — the same break you make in 'uh-oh'. So German words don't run into each other the way English ones do: ein Apfel stays two separate words, never 'einapfel'. Inside a word, the card marks this catch with ʔ, as in /foːɐ̯ˈʔap/ for vorab.
Listen for the small break before each vowel.
Most IPA letters mean what you would guess from English. These are the symbols on the vocabulary cards that don't, with where each one is explained above.
The vowel before it is long. /ʃtaːt/ is Staat; /ʃtat/ is Stadt.
The syllable after it is stressed.
A weak 'uh' — unstressed e (see Vowels).
The short 'uh' of -er, and of r after a vowel (see Vowels and Consonants).
An n that makes a syllable by itself, with no vowel: -en said as just n.
The German r, at the back of the throat (see Consonants).
The soft ich sound.
The ach sound — not the English x.
'sh', written sch — and the s of sp- and st-.
'ng' as in 'singer'.
The catch before a vowel (see A fresh start before vowels).
ü, long and short — not the English y.
ö, long and short.
The short e, i, o and u, as in 'bed', 'sit', 'off' and 'put'.
The vowel pairs ei, au and eu. The arch under a vowel means it glides into its neighbor instead of making its own syllable.
As in English 'zoo', 'van' and 'yes' — written s, w and j in German.
Play an example, say it straight back, and play it again. Copy the rhythm and the vowel lengths as much as the individual sounds.
In any lesson, the pronunciation settings let you slow the audio down without changing its pitch. Slow speed is the easiest way to hear vowel length and the ch sounds.
The role-play in each lesson has you speak your character's lines aloud. Sounds you can make on their own become natural only once you can make them inside a sentence.