What Should You Expect From This Lesson?

Aim of the lesson: In this lesson, you are going to learn how to pronounce the letters of the German Alphabet, especially long and short vowels, diphtongs (a combination of 2 vowels together) and grouped consonants.

How To Carry Out This Lesson At Home:

German is a much more phonetically consistent language than English. This means that German words almost always sound the way they are spelled — with consistent sounds for any given spelling. In German, the rare exceptions are usually foreign words from English, French, or other languages. Any student of German should learn the sounds associated with certain spellings as soon as possible. Knowing them, you should be able to correctly pronounce even German words you have never seen before.

Step 1
Watch this presentation to familiarise yourself with the German Alphabet. You will practice German sounds and become aware of particular symbols. You will go through the letters one by one and try to repeat them. (Listening and Speaking)

Step 2
Now you are ready to watch the next presentation and learn the basic rules of pronunciation in German. You will practice further your listening and pronunciation skills: 26 letters of the German Alphabet and words, there is no equivalent for the letter R in German, the letter V in German sounds like F in English, the letter W in German sounds like the letter V in English and the extra letters are ä, ö, ü and β which is the only letter of the Alphabet that will never be at the beginning of a word. You may take notes whilst listening to the presentation. (Listening and Speaking)

Step 3
In this presentation you will learn about different letter combinations and how to pronounce them right: diphtongs (double vowels like ei or ie) and grouped consonants (like ch or ck). You may take notes whilst listening to the presentation. (Listening and Speaking)

Step 4
Previously you have learnt how to correctly pronounce individual letters and letter combinations and where to place accents and now it is time to watch this video and try to pronounce German words correctly. (Listening and Speaking)

Additional Task: You may continue to practice the German Sounds, Symbols and Pronunciation by clicking on the links in sequence which you will find in the document entitled German Sounds, Symbols and Pronunciation (refer to Resources). These 9 links cover the German Alphabet in detail. (Listening and Speaking)