The German alphabet uses the 26 Latin letters, with ä, ö, ü and ß as additional spelling characters. Letter names help you spell your name; sounds help you read words. They are different skills. Learn German w, v, j and z carefully, and treat umlauts as meaningful vowels rather than decorative dots.
Published 17 July 2026 · Updated 13 October 2026
By Gora Academy · Editorial policy
The familiar alphabet is a useful head start, but familiar shapes can conceal unfamiliar sounds. German w sounds like English v, and j usually sounds like the y in yes. Learn those early and words stop looking more mysterious than they are.
The following are approximate English cues for saying the letters in isolation, not instructions for pronouncing every word containing them. English accents differ, so use a German recording to refine them.
| Letters | Approximate letter names |
|---|---|
| A B C D E | ah; bay; tsay; day; ay |
| F G H I J | eff; gay; hah; ee; yot |
| K L M N O | kah; ell; emm; enn; oh |
| P Q R S T | pay; koo; err; ess; tay |
| U V W X Y Z | oo; fow; vay; iks; üpsilon; tsett |
For Y, the first vowel of Ypsilon is the German ü sound. There is no precise everyday English spelling for it. For R, the consonant also varies across speakers; copying an actual voice is more useful than forcing an English r.
Ä, ö and ü are umlaut vowels. ß, called Eszett or scharfes S, represents an unvoiced s sound, not b. In Germany’s standard spelling it normally follows a long vowel or diphthong, a vowel sound that moves between two positions, as in Straße and heißen. Swiss standard writing uses ss instead.
If you cannot type an umlaut, use ae, oe, ue: Müller → Mueller. Simply deleting the dots is different: schon means already and schön means beautiful. Learn to type the real characters when your keyboard allows it.
You spell Wasser with the letter named We, but pronounce its opening consonant as v. Likewise, the letter name Zett helps you spell Zeit; the word begins with a ts sound. Common combinations matter too: sch is usually sh; ei resembles English eye; ie is usually a long ee.
Loanwords and names can behave differently. German spelling provides useful clues, but “every letter always has one sound” would be a poor rule.
Wie schreibt man das? means How do you spell that? Können Sie das bitte buchstabieren? means Could you spell that, please? Learn the question as well as the alphabet, because a registration desk or phone call rarely announces an alphabet quiz.
Spell Berlin: B–E–R–L–I–N. Then spell your own surname twice, slowly. If someone asks mit ü oder ue?, they are asking which written form you use. Names keep their owners’ spelling; do not silently “correct” someone’s name.