Everyone who has studied German has their favorite way of remembering how to pronounce the words. The most important thing to remember is that German, unlike English or French, uses no extra letters in the words. Every single letter is pronounced. The catch is, that it is not pronounced the way you would think it should be.
I think that German spelling and pronunciation rules are their way at getting back at English speakers for words like thorough, been and bean, red and read. The most important rules for us are as follows:
Pronunciation Guide
- β - called an esszett, or double s and is pronounced as double s. You will also see it interchangeable with “ss” as the Germans are redoing their spelling, but older recipes will contain β.
- ä, ö, ü – the umlaut (two little dots above a, o and u) shortens the vowel sound in the word. The ä sounds as in “Henry”, the ö as in “hurt”, and the ü as in “ew” (yuck)!
- Vowel pairs – “ie” and “ei”. For English-speakers, pronounce the second vowel as an English vowel (gerieben as gerēben, reiben as rīben).
