Sounds and spelling · GCSE German

Vowels and umlauts

Vowels are pure. A vowel is usually long before h or a single consonant (fahren, Sohn, gut) and short before a double consonant (Mutter, Bett, kommen).
ä sounds like the e in "bed" (Mädchen). ö is like "er" with rounded lips (schön, Österreich). ü is like "ee" with rounded lips (für, über, müde).
An umlaut can change the meaning: schon (already) and schön (beautiful), Mutter (mother) and Mütter (mothers).

ei sounds like the English word "eye": mein, drei, Bein. ie sounds like "ee": die, vier, spielen. Tip: say the second letter's English name (ei → i → "eye"; ie → e → "ee").
eu and äu sound like the "oy" in boy: neun, heute, Häuser. au sounds like the "ow" in cow: Haus, Frau, auch.

w sounds like English v: Wasser, wohnen. v usually sounds like English f: Vater, viel, vier (but like v in some borrowed words, such as Klavier).
z sounds like "ts": zehn, Zug, Zeit. j sounds like English y: ja, jung, Juli.
s before a vowel sounds like z: sehr, Sonne, sagen. At the start of a word, sp and st sound like "shp" and "sht": Sport, spielen, Straße, Stadt.
sch sounds like "sh": Schule, schön. ch after a, o, u or au is a throaty sound, as in "loch" (Buch, acht, auch); after other letters it is a soft, whispered sound (ich, nicht, Mädchen). -ig at the end sounds like "ich": billig, zwanzig.
ß sounds like "ss": Straße, groß, heißen. At the end of a word, b, d and g sound like p, t and k: gelb, Hund, Tag.
Letters are rarely silent: say the k in Knie, the p in Pferd and the final -e in Schule (shoo-leh).

All nouns start with a capital letter: der Hund, die Stadt, das Leben. Capitals help you spot nouns when reading.
Stress usually falls on the first syllable (Mutter, Bruder), but not on the prefixes be-, ver-, ge- and er- (besuchen, vergessen, gegessen).
Long compound nouns are built from smaller words: Handschuh (hand + shoe = glove), Krankenhaus (sick + house = hospital), Kühlschrank (cool + cupboard = fridge).