pronunciationguide.info

German

German is the single most important language for classical radio announcers to get right. It's easier than it looks: no letters are silent, the rules are fairly consistent, and some of the more peculiar vowel sounds (the umlauts, in particular) resemble sounds that are familiar from British English. Note that not just proper nouns but ALL nouns are capitalized.

Diacritics

German uses the umlaut to alter the sounds of the vowels a, o and u: ä, ö and ü are distinctly different sounds than their un-umlauted relatives. One occasionally sees them printed in alternative spelling as ae, oe and ue, especially when someone has had trouble figuring out how to print an umlaut. The German alphabet also uses one extra consonant: the letter ß is called "es-tset", and is pronounced like an ordinary English s. One sometimes sees it printed as ss.

Vowels

As in English, German vowels generally have both long and short variants, and would-be long vowels are often shortened when they precede multiple consonants (e.g. Schmidt = shmit, not shmeet). Likewise, would-be short vowels are lengthened by doubling of the vowel (e.g. Staat = shtaht, Boot = boht, See = zay), or by the letter "h" placed after the vowel (e.g. Mahler = mah-ler, ohne = oh-nuh). Don't ever pronounce ee or oo the English way in a German word. Also take note of the German final e: it's not silent, but it is very short.

a	ah, short and long a are basically the same
ä, ae	somewhere between ay as in "say" and eh, e.g. Götterdämerung = gö-ter-dehm-mer-oong
e (long)	ay, as in "say"
e (short)	eh, like the e in "bend";
e (final)	uh, an unstressed schwa, like the a in "Emma" but shorter (e.g. Alle = ahl-luh ); NEVER pronounce a final e as ay, as you would in Spanish or Italian!
i (long)	ee
i (short)	ih, like the i in "if"
o (long)	oh
o (short)	aw, as in "awe" but slightly rounder, more like the vowel in the British pronunciation of "thought"
ö, oe	ö: something like the French "eu" or the British "ur" in the word "burn", e.g. Schoenberg = Schönberg = shön-berg
u (long)	oo, as in "root"
u (short)	u as in "put" or oo as in "book"
ü, ue	ü: like the French u, or something like ee but with rounded lips; e.g. von Bülow = fon büh-loh
y	ü, same sound as ü

Diphthongs

These sounds are always the same. Do not confuse ie with ei, unless you want to annoy many people.

ai, ay	iy, like the word "eye"
au	ow
äu	oy (e.g. Tannhäuser = tahn-hoy-zer )
ei, ey	iy, like the word "eye", e.g. Leiden = liy-den, Hermann Prey = hehr-mahn priy
eu	oy
ie	ee, e.g. Lieder = lee-der

Other vowel combinations

ae, oe, ue	alternate spellings for ä, ö and ü
aa, ee, oo	long versions of a, e and o

All other combinations of vowels are meant to be pronounced as separate syllables (e.g. in Theo Adam, Theo = tay-oh, and Mozarteum = moh-tsar-tay-oom).

Consonants

Two rules you should know but can get away with not following: r is swallowed at ends of syllables as in British English (it colors the preceding vowel but is not pronounced), and voiced consonants at ends of syllables become voiceless (d becomes t, etc.).

c [+a,o,u]	k
c [+i,e]	ts
ch [after a,o,u]	kh, slightly gutteral but not as heavy as you think; can be approximated as k or in some cases h; e.g. Verklärte Nacht = fer-klehr-tuh nahkht
ch [after e,i,ä,ö,ü]	sch: similar to both sh and a slightly gutteral h; usually best approximated as sh, e.g. Dichterliebe = disch-ter-lee-buh
g	g, almost always hard, as in "goat"; occasionally zh, but only in borrowed French words (e.g. Etage = ay-tah-zhuh)
-ig (final)	isch, like "ich" (see ch above); e.g. Ewigkeit = ay-visch-kiyt
j	y, e.g. Johann = yo-hahn
ng	ng as in "singer", usually NOT like the n-g in "finger": e.g. Nibelungen = nee-buh-lung-en , not nee-buh-luN-Gen!
qu	kv, e.g. Konsequent = kon-zeh-kvent
r	r: slightly gutteral trill, similar to French (e.g. Die Walküre = dee vahl-kür-uh ), but for most purposes a light American r will do
s (normally)	z, e.g. Siegfried = zeeg-freed
s (final)	s, e.g. Das Rheingold = dahs riyn-gold
ss	s
ß	s (equivalent to ss; this letter is called "es-tset")
sch	sh, always (do not confuse with Italian), e.g. Schubert = shoo-bert
sp, st	shp, sht at beginning of a syllable, e.g. Stadt = shtaht, Harfenspieler = harf-en-shpeel-er; otherwise just like English, e.g. beste = best-uh
th	t, e.g. Bayreuth = biy-royt ; not like English!
v	f, except in some French and English borrowings
w (except final -ow)	v, e.g. Volkswagen = folks-vahgen
-ow (final)	oh, e.g. Flotow = flaw-toh , von Bülow = fon büh-loh
z	ts

Stress

The vast majority of German words are stressed on the first syllable. This rule fails most commonly in the following cases:

Words that begin with certain short prefixes, the most common being ge-, be-, ver-, zer-, er- and ent-, are stressed on the syllable after this prefix, e.g. geteilt = ge-tiylt, betreten = be-tray-ten. Achtung: a few fairly common words begin with a ge- that is NOT grammatically a prefix, and therefore doesn't follow the above rule, e.g. gehen = gay-en (the verb "to go"), and gestern = gehs-turn
In most words that contain the syllable ier (e.g. studieren, reserviert, regierende), this syllable is stressed. Many of these are Latin-derived verb forms with recognizable cognates in English.
Occasionally you'll run across a word that has its stress on the last syllable; most of these are Latinate words which have cognates in French (and often also in English). One important example is Musik = moo-zeek. Those who know German well learn to recognize such words automatically, others are safest assuming stress on the first syllable when in doubt.

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