The German alphabet has twenty-six basic letters, like the Latin alphabet. We can find them in two variants: uppercase and lowercase. German uses five basic vowels: -A, -E, -I, -O, and -U (uppercase) and -a, -e, -i, -o, and -u (lowercase). It also uses twenty-one basic consonants: -B, -C, -D, -F, -G, -H, -J, -K, -L, -M, -N, -P, -Q, -R, -S, -T, -V, -W, -X, -Y, and -Z (uppercase), and -b, -c, -d, -f, -g, -h, -j, -k, -l, -m, -n, -p, -q, -r, -s, -t, -v, -w, -x, -y, and -z (lowercase).
Letters in the German Alphabet:
| Upper Case |
Lower Case |
Name |
| A |
a |
ah |
| B |
b |
bay |
| C |
c |
tsay |
| D |
d |
day |
| E |
e |
ay |
| F |
f |
eff |
| G |
g |
gay |
| H |
h |
haa |
| I |
i |
eeh |
| J |
j |
vot |
| K |
k |
kah |
| L |
l |
ell |
| M |
m |
em |
| N |
n |
en |
| O |
o |
oh |
| P |
p |
pay |
| Q |
q |
koo |
| R |
r |
er |
| S |
s |
es |
| T |
t |
tay |
| U |
u |
ooh |
| V |
v |
fow |
| W |
w |
vay |
| X |
x |
ix |
| Y |
y |
uep-si-lohn |
| Z |
z |
tset |
The German language additionally uses three letters with diacritics and one ligature. We call the diacritic letters Umlaute (”umlauts”), while we call the ligature Eszett (sharp-s).
| Upper Case |
Lower Case |
Name |
| Ä |
ä |
ä similar to the e in melon |
| Ö |
ö |
ö similar to the i in girl |
| Ü |
ü |
ü no equivalent in English |
| ẞ |
ß |
ß double s sound |
The German language uses three diacritic letters in uppercase and lowercase: -Ä, -Ö, and -Ü (uppercase), and -ä, -ö, and -ü (lowercase). Although these letters represent distinct sounds in the German phonology, Germans usually do not consider them part of the alphabet. When asked to say the alphabet, Germans will just count the twenty-six cardinal Latin letters and will name the umlauts only when asked to do so explicitly.
-ä, -ö, and -ü originated as -a, -o, and -u with a superscripted -e, which in German handwriting was written as two vertical dashes. Those dashes have degenerated to dots. This led to their current writing as cardinal letters plus superscripted dots: -a + ¨= -ä; -o + ¨= -ö, and -u + ¨= -ü.
In case it is not possible to use the umlauts, when using a restricted character set (because keyboards other than the German keyboard don’t display the umlauts), transcribe the umlauts -Ä, -Ö, -Ü, -ä, -ö, and -ü as -Ae, -Oe, -Ue, -ae, -oe, and -ue (base vowel plus -e).
However, avoid any such transcription when possible because vowel combinations of “-a + -e,” “-o + -e,” or “-u + -e” don’t necessarily mean that it always is a transcription of -ä, -ö, or -ü. For example, look at das neue Haus (”the new house”). Neue is spelled “-n-e-u-e,” which could be back-transcribed as “-n-e-ü.” Technically, the second -e has no connection with the -u at all: neue means neu (”new”), while the -e at the end indicates the neutral singular form. So neü doesn’t exist in German.
The other extra letter of the German alphabet is the sharp -s, which we call Eszett and write as ß. The Eszett looks similar to the lowercase Greek “beta”, but the curve is not closed at the bottom (ß). Eszett only exists in a lowercase version because it can never occur at the beginning of a word or sentence.
When using a restricted character set, we can convert Eszett (ß) to -ss. For example, you can convert Fuß, spelled -F-u-ß (meaning “foot”), to Fuss (-F-u-s-s). This rule also applies when you must capitalize entire words. For example, Fußball (”soccer”) is capitalized FUSSBALL, using -SS.
The German spelling reform of 1996 led to a reduced usage of Eszett in Germany and Austria. Nowadays, ß replaces -ss only after long vowels and diphthongs.
There is no general agreement on where these umlauts occur in the sorting sequence. Telephone directories treat them by replacing them with the base vowel followed by an -e, whereas dictionaries sort each umlauted vowel as a separate letter after the base vowel. As an example from a telephone book, Ärzte (”doctors”) occurs after Adressenverlage but before Anlagenbauer (because -Ae replaces -Ä). In a dictionary, Ärzte and all other words starting with -Ä occur after Arzt and all other words starting with -A. We sort the sharp -s Eszett (ß) as though it were -ss in both phone directories and dictionaries.
The Germans consider some of the letters of the German alphabet to be rare letters. -q, for example, is a rare letter. It only appears in the sequence -qu, as in Quark (”cottage cheese”). Other letters, like -x and -y, occur almost exclusively in loan words (especially of Greek heritage) and not in native German words. We use -c in combination with -h or -s-h as -ch or -sch.
Another peculiarity of the German writing system is the rule that the first letter of any German noun is always capitalized, even in the middle of the sentence.
For Example:
- Peter spielt Ball auf der Straße.
“Peter plays with a ball on the street.”
We capitalize the nouns Ball (”ball”) and Straße (”street”) even though they don’t appear at the beginning of the sentence and are not considered proper nouns.
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A language’s alphabet is its building blocks. Trying to learn how to write in German without first learning its alphabet is a bit like trying to build a brick house without touching the individual bricks! It is impossible to do a good job that way. So don’t believe language schools and methods that try to teach you otherwise. You will regret it later.
With a language, like with anything you have to learn from scratch, having a few mnemonic devices handy are key to learning it fast. A mnemonic device is basically any method or technique that helps you to retain or commit something to memory more easily.
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