Learn how to pronounce the German Umlaut vowels
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| Judith: Hello. [Ich heiße Judith]. |
| Chuck: Hi, I am Chuck. |
| Judith: [Sie hören germanpod101.com]. |
| Chuck: You are listening to germanpod101.com. This is accent improvement series, lesson 4. |
| Judith: [Willkommen]! |
| Chuck: Welcome to another lesson by germanpod101. |
| Judith: This lesson is one part of the accent improvement series. |
| Chuck: You can find the rest of the lessons at |
| Judith: Germanpod101.com |
| Chuck: Our goal in the accent improvement series is to help you improve your pronunciation so that you sound more and more like a native speaker. |
| Judith: However to really improve, it’s not enough that you listen to the lessons. |
| Chuck: You also need to practice the pronunciation of the words and phrases over and over on your own. |
| Judith: To practice the phrases, go to germanpod101.com, access the learning center and use the line by line dialogue tool. |
| Chuck: If you find that you have a lot of trouble with one particular word however, go to the vocabulary section of the learning center and listen to the pronunciation of just that one word over and over. |
| Judith: In the learning center, you can also record your own pronunciation and compare it to mine. |
| Chuck: Today, we will practice the “Umlaut” vowels. Native English speakers typically have a lot of trouble with these, even myself. |
| Judith: Mastering the “Umlaut” vowels will bring you another step closer to a perfect German pronunciation. |
| Chuck: So Judith, please give us an example sentence so that we can hear those vowel sounds. |
| Judith: Alright. [Seine Söhne ärgern sich öfters über Hühner]. |
| Chuck: Okay. That means his sons are often annoyed about chickens. Could you say that sentence again but a bit slower this time? |
| Judith: I will try. [Seine Söhne ärgern sich öfters über Hühner]. |
| Chuck: In German, there are three sounds that can carry the [dieresis] that is the two dots above each of these vowels A, O and U. However, these three vowels give rise to four different sounds. |
| Judith: [Ä] the A with [dieresis] can only be pronounced in one way [ä]. |
| Chuck: By the way, a long drawn out [ä] is the German equivalent of [ehm] when you are searching for a word. |
| Judith: This sound can be long or short but it remains the same sound. To produce it, try to say [a] and then keep your mouth in the same position and say E instead [ae]. As a short vowel, it appears in the word [ärgern]. |
| Chuck: To annoy. |
| Judith: Or as a long vowel, this sound appears in the word [ähnlich]. |
| Chuck: Similar. Note that many Germans may pronounce this as if it were spelled with an E. |
| Judith: [Ähnlich]. |
| Chuck: But that’s not standard and singers practice not to do that. |
| Judith: [Ö] The O with [dieresis] has two possible pronunciations. The more common one is the [ö] as in [Söhne]. |
| Chuck: Sons as in not daughters. This one is always long except in foreign loan words. In a context where the O umlaut has to be short, Germans rely on the other pronunciation. |
| Judith: The other pronunciation appears for example in [öfters]. |
| Chuck: More often. |
| Judith: You may recognize this vowel from French words ending in [eur] like [Chauffeur]. Finally, [ü] is pronounced [ü] no matter if it’s short or long. An example for German word with a long [ü] sound is [Hühner]. |
| Chuck: Chickens. |
| Judith: And the word with a short sound is [über]. |
| Chuck: About. |
| Judith: In other case, you pronounce this sound by pronouncing an [u] and keeping your mouth in the same position and saying E instead. |
| Chuck: Now let’s hear the example sentence again. |
| Judith: [Seine Söhne ärgern sich öfters über Hühner]. |
| Chuck: Judith, can you go through the vowels in that phrase and remind us what they are? |
| Judith: Sure. The first vowel is the [ö] in [Söhne]. This is the O umlaut and then we have [ärgern] which is an A umlaut, [a] the short one. [öfters] is the short [ö] the [o] umlaut [über] a short [u] umlaut and [Hühner] is the long [u] umlaut [ü]. |
| Chuck: Now please go to the learning center at germanpod101.com and practice this sentence until you sound like a native. |
| Judith: If you try to pronounce all German sentences perfectly right from the start, you have set yourself an almost impossible goal. |
| Chuck: However, it’s relatively easy to pronounce one or two sentences perfectly if you practice them often enough. |
| Judith: So the idea is that we show you phrases that contain a lot of stumbling blocks for non-Germans. |
| Chuck: And once you are able to pronounce these perfectly, you will have a working model for everything else you want to say in German. So go to learning center now and start practicing. |
| Judith: Next time, two weeks from now, we will look at diphthongs. |
| Chuck: So be sure to tune in again for the next lesson. See you then. |
| Judith: [Bis dann]. |
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