German Pronunciation: Ch, Umlauts, and Final Consonants

This page follows the standard German of Germany, and it marks regional differences where its sources do. It has no recordings of its own, so use the links below to hear each sound.

Which sounds should you practice first?

Go in this order. Spend your first two weeks on rows 1 to 3, the vowels and the r, then take one row at a time. The order is this site's House routine, because a start has to be somewhere. FSI's 1961 course gives one warning for all of it: don't expect German letters to carry the sounds you know from English.

This page has no audio. To hear German speakers, try the pronunciation pages of Deutsch im Blick, which have audio for umlauts, consonants such as w and z, r and ch and final consonants. Some single words on Wiktionary have recordings too. This page hasn't checked those recordings sound by sound, so use them to get used to the sounds, not as a test.

How do you make ö and ü?

FSI gives a recipe you can do without a teacher. Put your tongue where it goes for German e, then round your lips, and you get ö. For ü, start from the tongue of German i and round the same way. Keep the tongue still while the lips change (House routine).

Try each pair out loud, plain word first.

Umlauts can also change a word's meaning. Deutsch im Blick pairs schon /ʃoːn/ (already) with schön /ʃøːn/ (pretty), and zahlen (to pay) with zählen (to count). A keyboard without these letters can use ae, oe, ue.

Say these: Sind sie Brüder? (Are they brothers?) and Das Wetter ist schön. (The weather is beautiful.)

Should a German vowel stay still?

Yes, on the long ones. FSI compares English "gate" with German geht. Your tongue moves during the English vowel and stays in one place during the German one. So hold the vowel steady to its end. Then practice length, because it can be all that separates two words.

Spelling gives hints, not rules. FSI says short vowels are usually followed by two or more consonants, and long vowels usually by one. It also says these spellings always mean a long vowel: ie, ih, eh, ee, ah, aa, oh, oo, uh, öh, üh. Treat that as a strong hint too. Wiktionary gives a long ie in vier but a short i in vierzehn and vierzig.

Which ch do you use?

Look at what comes right before it. Deutsch im Blick puts front vowels and consonants on one side and a, o and u on the other. FSI's drills put au with the back group.

Read the last column across as pairs, so you hear the change.

A few spellings don't follow the vowel before them. Wiktionary gives a plain ks for chs, as in sechs and wachsen. The ending -chen, which makes a small version of something, takes the ich-sound even after au, as in Frauchen. Kuchen (cake) isn't that ending. Wiktionary gives it the ach-sound.

Two words that start with ch, China and Chemie, get the ich-sound in the standard. Wiktionary gives China a k in Austria, southern Germany and Switzerland, and Chemie a k in Austria and Bavaria. That's a note on those two words, not a rule for every word that starts with ch.

FSI also singles out ch against k as a hard contrast, and it drills pairs such as Akt and acht, so try those too. Keep the air moving on the ch.

Now say a sentence with both sounds: Ich konnte die ganze Nacht nicht schlafen. (I couldn't sleep all night.) Then a shorter one: Ich möchte nicht tanzen. (I don't feel like dancing.) Or a long ü before an ich-sound: Bücher kennen keine Grenzen. (Books have no borders.)

Where it varies: the ending -ig splits by region. Wiktionary gives König as /ˈkøː.nɪç/, with /ˈkøː.nɪk/ for Austria and southern Germany. The two course books differ the same way: FSI drills König with the ich-sound, and Deutsch im Blick lists billig with a final k. That ich-sound or k only comes at the end. Add an ending that starts with a vowel and the g is a plain g again: Wiktionary gives Könige as /ˈkøː.nɪ.ɡə/. In Swiss German dialects, Deutsch im Blick says ch stays the back sound everywhere, so ich sounds different there.

What happens to b, d and g at the end?

They lose their voice. At the end of a word or syllable, b comes out as p, d as t, and g as k. The ending -ig is the exception. In the German of Germany this page follows, it takes the ich-sound, as in König, and Austria and southern Germany say k, as the ch section shows. Deutsch im Blick suggests a test: put your hand on your throat, say b and then p, and feel the buzz stop.

Compare Tage /ˈtaːɡə/ (days) with Tag /taːk/ (day). FSI adds that this also happens in the middle of words, right before a voiceless sound, so gibt says "gip-t" and bleibt says "bleip-t." The final s stays voiceless too. Spelling won't warn you, since the d in und looks like any other d.

Say this one and listen for a t at the end of Hund and und, and a k at the end of weg: Der Hund trank Wasser und ging weg. (The dog drank water and went away.) Trank is spelled with a k anyway, and ging ends in the ng sound below, with no k. FSI points out one more English habit to drop. The ng in Finger is a single sound, with no g after it, like English "singer" and not "finger."

What is the German r doing?

It depends on where it sits, how fast the speaker talks, and where the speaker is from. Deutsch im Blick describes three versions in standard German.

FSI describes the first one as slight friction between the back of the tongue and the soft palate, close to the sound in nach. It says the r after a vowel doesn't sound like an English r. Keep it light. If your throat feels scratchy, stop for the day.

For clusters like the one in drei, FSI suggests putting in a vowel first, "darei," then shrinking the vowel away. Try Ich reise oft. (I travel often.) and then Mein Vater ist im Garten. (My father's in the garden.), which has two r types in a row.

Where it varies: Deutsch im Blick notes that Swiss German uses a rolled r, with the tongue touching the roof of the mouth. If you plan to live somewhere specific, copy the speakers there.

Which letters mislead English readers?

These look friendly and aren't. Say each word in the figure, then the sentences below.

Try Es hat vier Wochen gedauert. (It took four weeks.), Das wird mindestens zehn Minuten dauern. (It'll take at least ten minutes.), Die Straße ist ziemlich holprig. (The road is fairly bumpy.) and Die Stadt schlief. (The town slept.)

How do you practice this each day?

Pick one row from the order at the top and stay on it for the day. On day 1 there's nothing to say back yet, so those minutes go to word pairs. The splits are a House routine, untested with learners, and the timer runs only while you're making sound. Log the minutes in the Mile Log.

Use the minimal pairs tool for more word pairs, and the German alphabet week if the letter names still trip you up. When single words feel steady, say along with short audio. German cases gives you more sentences, and how to learn German shows where sounds fit in your first two weeks.

Tomorrow, before you listen to anything, do a Cold Say-Back: say schon, schön, Nacht, Nächte, Tage, Tag from memory. Then check yourself against this page: which ch goes after which vowel, where a final g turns into k, and why -ig doesn't.