German Alphabet Letter Names and When to Write ß or ss

What are the German letter names?

The names below come from Wiktionary, written in IPA. To hear them, Deutsch im Blick has a recording of the whole alphabet with sample words for each letter. This page hasn't checked that recording letter by letter, so use it to get the sounds in your ear, not as a test.

A few notes on the chart:

• The ʔ at the start of some names is part of Wiktionary's transcription. Listen to the recording for how those names begin.
• V is written by its name, Vau, which is how Wiktionary spells it.
• Ä: Wiktionary's entry for the letter gives its own vowel, /ɛː/, and also "A Umlaut," among other ways to say it.
• Ö and Ü have no name listed in the sources this page used. Saying the vowel itself, the way Wiktionary names Ä, is this site's House routine. For how to round your lips for those vowels, see German pronunciation, and listen to the alphabet recording linked above. A tutor can tell you what they say.
• ß is called Eszett or scharfes S.

Say the chart in rows of five. Read a row, cover it, and say it back.

Which letter names don't match English?

This site picked seven that are far from the English name of the same letter. Say those most often. They aren't the only ones: A, C, G, H, K, Q, R and U differ from English too, so check every name against the chart above.

E and I are the pair to watch. Spell a word that has both, like Brief, using the German names from the chart, and keep them apart: B, R, I, E, F.

Where it varies: Wiktionary gives J as /jeː/ and Q as /kveː/ in Austria. If you're learning for Austria, use those two.

The names are not the same as the sounds the letters make in words. W is named /veː/, and Deutsch im Blick says German w also sounds like English v, but V is named Vau and in most cases sounds like f. Deutsch im Blick notes there are exceptions, so look up a word with v before you say it. For the sounds, see German pronunciation.

How do Ä, Ö, Ü and ß work in writing?

Each one is its own letter. Deutsch im Blick says umlauts can change a word's meaning, as in schon (already) and schön (pretty), so don't drop the dots. If a computer program or an e-mail server can't handle them, it says to write ae, oe, ue in their place.

ß is where spelling gets tricky. Deutsch im Blick says it sounds a lot like English s. Grimm Grammar gives the rule from the 1996 spelling reform: after a long vowel or a diphthong, write ß. After a short vowel, write ss. That rule only picks between ß and ss. It doesn't turn every s into one of them. Wiktionary spells das and was with one s after a short vowel, and Haus and Eis with one s after a diphthong. Das and dass are two different words. So when you're unsure, look the word up.

Say these three, and listen for the vowel before the s:

• Ich gehe zu Fuß. (Corpus translation: I will go on foot. Gehe is present tense.) Wiktionary gives Fuß a long u, /fuːs/.
• Draußen ist es dunkel. (It's dark outside.) The ß follows au.
• Der Fluss ist breit. (The river is wide.) Wiktionary gives Fluss a short u, /flʊs/.

Three more limits. In Switzerland, Deutsch im Blick says, you write ss instead of ß. Older texts still use ß after short vowels: daß for today's dass, or ißt for isst. And a capital form, ẞ, exists. Wiktionary calls it uncommon and says it turns up in some text set in all capitals. Deutsch im Blick says ß only comes in lowercase, which is older advice.

How do you spell a word out loud?

Say each letter's name, one at a time. Two questions you'll hear: Wie schreibt man das? (How do you spell it?) and Kannst du es buchstabieren? (Can you spell it?) Say both now.

German writes every noun with a capital letter, Grimm Grammar notes, so a noun always starts with a capital when you spell it. Fluss starts with a capital F.

On the phone, letters get lost. The Foreign Service Institute's 1961 German course gives a spelling table with a word for each letter, and it spells the name Wiegand this way:

The table has words for Ä, Ö, Ü, Ch and Sch too, and none for ß. It's from 1961, so treat its words as practice, not as the list someone on a German phone line uses today. This page didn't check a current list. The same course also has a list of names to spell, among them Prokosch, Qualitz, Vechta, Marxgrün and Räderloh. They're useful because they hit the hard names: Q, V, X and the umlauts.

How does the week run?

One part of the alphabet a day, then spelling. The order and the minutes are this site's House routine, untested with learners. The timer runs only while you're saying something.

Each day opens with a Cold Say-Back with nothing in front of you, then a check: yesterday's letters on days 2 to 5, your name spelled cold on day 6, and the whole alphabet on day 7, as in the picture. Day 1 has nothing to say back, so those minutes go to the new letters.

Spend the last 7 of a 20-minute day spelling words from this page out loud, letter by letter. If you're following how to learn German instead, letters come every few days, and on 5 or 10 Spoken Minutes you take two of the four letter steps at once: A to I with J to R, then S to Z with Ä, Ö, Ü and ß. Days 5 to 7 still go one at a time.

On day 5, spell your own name and your town. Then ask yourself the question a stranger would: Wie buchstabiert man Ihren Nachnamen? (How do you spell your family name?) Answer it out loud.

Log the minutes in the Mile Log. Once the names come easily, move to the sounds with the minimal pairs tool, and see how to learn German for where the alphabet fits in your first two weeks.

Tomorrow, before you look at anything, say A to I out loud from memory as your Cold Say-Back. Then check them against the chart, especially E and I. Spelling your family name comes on day 5.