How to Pronounce German Vowels
Learn the Pronunciation of Umlauts and Other German Sounds
Nov 19, 2008
A vowel is a stand-alone sound that is produced without stopping vocalization. In other words, a vowel is pronounced using one uninterrupted breath of air without closing the mouth or throat. All other letters that are not vowels are called consonants; they are produced by stopping the air flow once or more. Practice will help when pronouncing German consonants and vowels.
In German, there are
- 5 pure vowels: a, e, i, o, u
- 3 umlauts: ä, ö, ü
- 6 diphthongs (vowel combinations): ai, au, äu, ei, eu, ie
- 1 consonant used as a vowel: y
Long and Short Vowels
Each vowel has a short and a long form, depending on which consonant follows. As a rule of thumb: an h, a consonant, or another vowel will stretch the preceding vowel; two consonants will shorten it. For example, Schal (shawl) and Wiese (meadow) have long vowels; Schall (echo) and Hund (dog) short ones. Are the vowels in the following words long or short? Wall, Mehl, Eule, Hit, mies, Sonne, Mühle (solution below).
The good news about German vowels is that their pronunciation does not depend on the consonant(s) following them and therefore, doesn’t change. This is different from English where ou can be equivalent to the German au (e.g., house – Haus) but also like oh in thought. In German, au will always be au and o always o (though the latter can be long or short): Haus, Maul, Sonne, Mohn.
Pronunciation of Simple German Vowels
Many German vowel sounds have an equivalent in English; therefore it makes sense to practice whole words clarifying word pronunciation rather than only the sound.
a (short): Gast as in must
a (long): Mahl as in lager
e (short): Essen as in lesson
Sonne as in ago; always short at the end of a word
e (long): geht as in late (one sound, without moving tongue or lips)
i (short): mit as in hit
i, ie (long): ihn, Wiese as in cheese
o (short): Post as in lost
o (long): Los as in rose (one sound, without moving tongue or lips)
u (short): Nuss as in put
u (long): gut as in moon
Pronunciation of German Umlaute and Diphthongs
Notice that diphthongs are always long and that some of them (like ai and ei and äu and eu) sound exactly the same, they are only spelled differently. A common mistake is to mix up ei and ie but they are two different diphthongs with distinctly different pronunciation. Note that y is equivalent to ü in pronunciation.
ä (short): Geschäft as in left
ä (long): wäre as in bad
ai, ei (long): Mais or Reis as in my
au (long): Haus as in house
äu, eu (long): Häuser, Leute as in boy
ö (short): Köln as in early (with a more rounded mouth)
ö (long): böse as in burn (with a more rounded mouth)
ü (short):Mütze (like saying ee with rounded lips)
ü, y (long): üben, Typ as in French rue
The history and usage of German umlauts is complex. But don’t despair if they are difficult to pronounce at first. Übung macht den Meister – practice makes perfect. To create the umlaut accent marks and to type German umlauts fast, use Word keyboard shortcuts.
(solution to the question above: short, long, long, short, long, short, long)
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