The German alphabet is very similar to that of English but it has four letters that English does not have: ä, ö, ü and ß.
In English, to make the pronunciation and spelling of a word clear, we say "B as in burger" but in German they use names to spell and those names are fixed.
Letter | Pronunciation | Word |
---|---|---|
a | [a:] | Anton |
b | [be:] | Berta |
c | [tse:] | Cäsar |
d | [de:] | Dora |
e | [e:] | Emil |
f | [εf] | Friedrich |
g | [ge:] | Gustav |
h | [ha:] | Heinrich |
i | [i:] | Ida |
j | [jοt] | Julius |
k | [ka:] | Kaufmann |
l | [εl] | Ludwig |
m | [εm] | Martha |
n | [εn] | Nordpol |
o | [o:] | Otto |
p | [pe:] | Paula |
q | [ku:] | Quelle |
r | [εr:] | Richard |
s | [εs] | Samuel |
t | [te:] | Theodor |
u | [u:] | Ulrich |
v | [fau:] | Viktor |
w | [ve:] | Wilhelm |
x | [iks] | Xanthippe |
y | [ypsilεn] | Ypsilon |
z | [tsεt] | Zacharias |
ä | A-Umlaut | Ärger |
ö | O-Umlaut | Ökonom |
ü | U-Umlaut | Übermut |
ß | Eszett or scharfes S | -- |
It is very useful to know how to say the following in German: Punctuation signs, different parenthesis and some symbols frequently used such as the at sign and asterisk.
Zeichen | sign | |
---|---|---|
. | der Punkt | point |
, | das Komma | comma |
; | das Semikolon | semicolon |
: | der Doppelpunkt das Kolon | colon |
... | die Auslassungspunkte | ellipsis |
? | das Fragezeichen | question mark |
! | das Ausrufezeichen | exclamation mark |
" | das Anführungzeichen | quotation marks |
' | der Apostroph | apostrophe |
das Leerzeichen | space | |
( ) ( ) | die (runde) Klammern die linke Klammer die Klammer auf die rechte Klammer die Klammer zu | parentheses the left parentheses opening parentheses the right parentheses closing parentheses |
[ ] | die eckigen Klammern | square brackets |
< > | die spitzen Klammern | inequality signs |
{ } | die geschweiften Klammern die geschwungenen Klammern | curly brackets |
/ | der Schrägstrich | slash |
\ | der umgekehrte Schrägstrich | backslash |
_ | der Unterstrich | understrike |
- | der Viertelgeviertstrich | hyphen |
| | der senkrechte Strich | pipe |
@ | das At-Zeichen | at sign |
# | das Rautenzeichen | number sign |
& | das Et-Zeichen das Kaufmannsund | ampersand |
~ | die Tilde | tilde |
* | das Sternchen der Asteriskus | asterisk |
´ | der Akut | acute accent |
The typographical sign hyphen "-" is called the following in German:
der Viertelgeviertstrich
The same typographical sign has a different name depending on its function:
When putting a text in Germany and in Austria in quotation marks, it is preferable to use the symbol „ (Anführungszeichen unten) when starting an expression and the symbol ” (Anführungszeichen oben) when finishing it.
Descartes sagte: „Ich denke, also bin ich”
Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am"
As you can see that the quotation marks in German start on the bottom and finish on top, compared to the top only in English
Less often, the single quotation marks are also used:
Descartes sagte: ‚Ich denke, also bin ich‘
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