Learn a little about how to write
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| Hi! |
| Welcome to Introduction to German. |
| My name is Alisha and I'm joined by... |
| Hi everyone! I'm Jenni. |
| In this lesson you'll learn the basics of German writing. |
| The German Alphabet |
| German uses the exact same alphabet as English from A to Z. However, it also uses a special character (ß). |
| This character is called “sharp S” or scharfes S in German. It isn't considered a distinct letter in German though. |
| Spaß (= “fun”) |
| Maß (= “measure”) |
| Similarly, some additional markers represented by two dots, can appear over three vowels. We call these "Umlaute.” |
| ä ö ü |
| The Umlaute are used to signal a vowel combination. They are essentially a combination between the vowel, + the vowel E. |
| ä – Äpfel (= “apples”) a + e |
| ö – Öl (= “oil”) o + e |
| ü – über (=“over”) u + e |
| They can also be represented as AE, OE, and UE. These are common alternatives that are understood by every German speaker. |
| Spelling |
| Sometimes, German spelling can be a challenge for English learners. There are a few words that are pronounced the same as English, but are however spelled differently. Let's take a look at some of the most common spelling issues. |
| German uses the same “sh” sound, as in the English "ship.” However, it isn't spelled SH, but SCH in German. |
| Schuh (= “shoe”) |
| Schiff (= “ship”) |
| So whenever you see SCH in German, know that it's pronounced “sh.” |
| Words beginning with ST or SP, are pronounced with the “sh” sound too. But this only applies to words beginning with ST and SP in German. |
| Stein (pronounced Schtein) (= “stone”) |
| Sport (pronounced Schport) (= “sport”) |
| Remember, this only applies to words beginning with ST and SP. |
| The letters V, F, and PH, are all pronounced as an F sound in German. |
| f → laufen (=“to run”) |
| v → vergessen (“to forget”) |
| ph → Philosophie (“philosophy”) |
| Even though they're spelled differently, they're all pronounced with the same “ffff” sound. |
| Capitalization |
| Capitalization in German is similar to that of English, but a lot more. |
| We capitalize at the beginning of each sentence, days of the week, months of the year, names, countries – almost everything that is capitalized in English, is also capitalized in German. |
| One big difference however, is that German capitalizes ALL nouns. |
| Compare the following sentence: |
| Der Hund und die Katze gingen aus dem Haus heraus, den Weg hinunter bis zur Garage. |
| "The dog and cat went out of the house, down the path to the garage." |
| Dog, cat, house, path, and garage aren't capitalized in English. |
| But the equivalent words, Hund, Katze, Haus, Weg and Garage, are capitalized in German because they're all nouns, and all nouns in German are capitalized. |
| German also capitalizes verbs that are used as nouns. Compare the following: |
| Das Zuhören, das Sprechen, das Lesen und das Schreiben sind alle entscheidend beim Lernen. |
| "Listening, speaking, reading, and writing are all important when learning." |
| Notice how the equivalent words, Zuhören, Sprechen, Lesen, Schreiben, and Lernen are all capitalized. So remember, ALL nouns in German are capitalized! |
| There is but one exception to the rule! The word for “I” isn't capitalized in German. |
| Er schenkt mir Rosen, weil ich sie gerne mag. |
| "He gave me roses because I like them." |
| Notice how ich isn't capitalized. |
| All nouns except “I,” are capitalized in German. |
| Compound Words |
| A special quirk of German, is the length of words. German words are, on average, longer than English words due to their tendency of forming compound words. |
| English usually limits compounding to two words, such as "snowman" or "baseball.” |
| There's no such limit in German however. Take the word for speed limit for example. |
| Höchstgeschwindigkeitsbegrenzung. |
| If we break it down we'd get... |
| höchst-, meaning "highest," |
| -geschwindigkeits-, meaning "speed,” |
| and -begrenzung, meaning "limit.” |
| And just for fun, the longest, officially approved word in German is: |
| Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft |
| That's a mouthful. OK. Let's recap what we've learned. |
| In this lesson, you learned that German uses the exact same alphabet as English. |
| There are four additional characters in use, although they aren't recognized as distinct letters. |
| You also learned that there are some tricky consonant and clusters you need to look out for. |
| You then learned that all nouns except for “I” are capitalized in German. |
| And finally, there is no limit to how many words you can compound in German. |
| Umlaute: ä ö ü, and the ß |
| In the next lesson, you'll be entering German boot camp, where you'll learn some useful beginner phrases to get you speaking German right away! |
| See you in the next lesson! Bye! |
| Bye! |
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