Previous ➥ Lesson 1 ➥ Next

German Alphabet and Pronunciation of German Words

☰ List of all topics in the level A1

Level A1 Introduction Unit 1 Alphabet and pronunciation Unit 2 Diphthongs and constant combinations Unit 3 German nouns and their genders Unit 4 Articles in the nominative case Unit 5 Pronouns in the nominative case Unit 6 Verb sein in present Unit 7 Verb sein in imperfect Unit 8 Verb haben Unit 9 Present tense Unit 10 Modal Verbs Unit 11 Nominalization of verbs Unit 12 Adjective endings in nominative case Unit 13 Making plural nouns Unit 14 Numbers in German Unit 15 Accusative case Unit 16 Pronouns in accusative case Unit 17 Prepositions with accusative case Unit 18 Questions with interrogative pronouns Unit 19 Asking questions without interrogative pronouns

This unit contains the following topics:

1. German alphabet
2. How to correctly pronounce German words?

The initial stage of learning the German language involves familiarizing oneself with the alphabet and practicing accurate pronunciation, even without understanding the meanings of the words. The initial lessons in the A1 level course primarily focus on mastering the correct pronunciation of German. The primary objective of this lesson centers around developing proficiency in German pronunciation. By the end of this lesson, you will have the capacity to achieve the following:

1. Precisely pronounce each letter in the German alphabet.
2. Capably read and accurately pronounce simple German words.

At this stage, the primary emphasis remains on the development of pronunciation skills in the context of learning the German language.

German alphabet

German alphabet has 26 normal letters, from A to Z. Some of them sound similar to their English counterparts but most of them have different pronunciations. However, there are four extra letters, of which three are umlauts (Ä, Ö, Ü) and one is the ligature (ß). ß is only written in lowercase. Whenever ß has to be used in the capital form, it is written as SS, for example, DIE STRASSE (the street) in capital letters, and die Straße in lowercase.

The following video introduces the pronunciation of all the letters in the German alphabet.

Practice

Try to pronounce each letter and then compare it with the given sound. Learning German letters in their own pronunciations is important before jumping onto the next section (i.e. How to pronounce German words).

How to pronounce German words?

At the initial stage of the German learning journey, the most crucial task involves mastering the pronunciations of German letters. This step is paramount because attempting to articulate German words using the English alphabet often leads to inaccuracies.

Below are some German words that bear a resemblance in written form to their English counterparts, yet their pronunciation differs significantly.

German is an easy-to-read language, as the words are pronounced just as they are spelled. In the initial phases of learning this language, we dissect words into distinct components and practice their pronunciations individually. Subsequently, we merge these components to create the entire word. For more guidance, please refer to the video below, which delves into the specifics of learning German pronunciation.

Practice

Now, you should attempt to articulate the given German vocabulary terms, subsequently evaluating them against their corresponding audio clips. These are the same words used in the above video. We recommend refraining from skipping practice sessions in this course and being patient. Proceed to the subsequent lesson only once you have attained a thorough grasp of the current one.

Vocabulary building

➥ Next Lesson

⌃