Speak To The World


About German Consonants Chart

Would like to know what are the consonants when it comes to German language? In articulatory phonetics, a German consonant is a speech sound that is articulated by using complete or perhaps partial closure within the vocal tract. The term consonant can also be employed to make reference to a letter of the German alphabet that denotes a consonant sound. Learn More





German Consonants Chart

German Language Words

Learn German Language Online

)

German Consonants in Alphabet

Note:Consonants are pronounced quite strongly (except perhaps the 'r').
blike 'b' in "bed"
clike 'ts' in "bits" before 'i' and 'e'; like 'k' in "kid" else
dlike 'd' in "dog"
flike 'ph' in "phone"
glike 'g' in "go" (never as in "giraffe")
hlike 'h' in "help"
jlike 'y' in "yoga"
klike 'c' in "cat"
llike 'l' in "love"
mlike 'm' in "mother"
nlike 'n' in "nice"
plike 'p' in "pig"
qlike 'q' in "quest" (always with "u")
rlike 'r' in "arm", like 'r' in "feather". Terminal Rs are almost silent but with the hit of an "r" sound. Rs beginning a word or syllable are pronounced from the back of the throat, almost as in French. In southern Germany (Bavaria), Austria and in Switzerland, the "r" is rolled as in Spanish in all position except the initial.
slike 'z' in "haze"
tlike 't' in "top"
vlike 'f' in "father", or like "v" in "victory"
wlike 'v' in "victory", never like 'wh' in "whisky"
xlike 'cks' in "kicks"
zlike 'ts' in "bits"
ßlike 's' in "was"

German Diphthongs in Alphabet

Please note:These combinations are not always used as diphthongs. At syllable boundaries and sometimes even in a syllable, they are spoken as separate vowels (e.g. soeben — zoh-AY-ben)
aulike 'ow' in "how"
aetranscription for 'ä' if not available on a keyboard or in URLs
ahlike 'a' in "bar", longer than 'a'.
äulike 'oy' in "boy"
eilike 'i' in "wine"
eulike 'oy' in "boy"
ehlong 'e'
ielike 'ee' in "week", longer than 'i'.
iehlike 'ee' in "week", longer than 'i', fundamentally no difference to 'ie'.
oetranscription for 'ö' if not available on a keyboard or in URLs
ohlike 'oo' in "food", longer than 'o'.
uetranscription for 'ü' if not available on a keyboard or in URLs
uhlike 'ou' in "youth", longer than 'u'.
ch after 'a', 'o', 'u' and 'au'like 'ch' in Scottish "loch", spoken in the throat, like 'j' in Spanish
ch after 'e', 'ä', 'i', 'ei', 'eu', 'äu', 'ü' and 'ö', or after a consonantlike 'h' in "huge"
ch at the beginning of a wordlike 'ch' in "character"
cklike 'ck' in "blocking"
nglike both 'ng' in "singing", never like 'ng' in "finger"
phlike 'f' in "fish"
schlike 'sh' in "sheep"
sp at the beginning of a wordlike 'shp' in "fish pool"
sslike 's' in "ship", in contrast to 'ß', makes the preceding vowel shorter. Also used as transcription for 'ß' in URL or on foreign keyboards.
st at the beginning of a wordlike 'sht' in "ashtray"

Select the hyperlinks directly below to find out a list of useful German travel phrases that are structured by category. For every travel phrase in German, you will notice the English translation.


Recent Comments
    Archives