How to Learn ‘German Language’a

helping tutorial after/Before

‘Sprachen Zentrum offered German Language courses’

Part One

Shah Waez©

shah.waez@uni-hohenheim.de

+4917671991718

Institute of Crop Science

University of Hohenheim

Question before Learning Deutsch

# Ich habe eine Frage.

By- Shah Waez

By- Shah Waez

A CB ED GF H

I J K L M N O P

Q R S T

U V W X

Y Z

Ä Ö Ü ß

By- Shah Waez

#Step two

#German vowels and consonant & their

pronunciation.

# a Short, Kamm, Lamm.

Long, like the vowel in English ‘harm’: kam, lahm.

# e It represent the same set of sounds like english

a. Essen.

# ee This is always pronounced long: Tee ([te:] ‘tea’

# j This is pronounced like ‘y’. Juli ([yu:li] ‘July’).

By- Shah Waez

# i Short, like the vowel in English ‘it’: List ([list]

‘cunning’)

# ie As a single syllable, always pronounced long, like

the vowel in English ‘eat’: liest ([li:st] ‘reads’).

# ö Short [o], können ([könen] Long [o:], Söhne ’sons’

# u Short [u], like ‘puli’: Pulli ([puli] ‘pullover’). Long like

Puder ([pu:der] ‘powder’).

# ü/y This produces a front vowel sound with rounded

lips, long in typisch ([tü:pish] ‘typical’); short in Küsse

‘kisses’).

By- Shah Waez

# au Like English ‘ow’. The vowel in German braun is

very like the in English ‘brown’.

# ai/ei Both pronounced like English ‘ice’ (German Eis).

# äu/eu Both these combinations of letters represent

the sound ‘oi’: Europa‘Europe)’. Häuser ‘houses’

# ei is pronounced ‘eye’ and ie is ‘ee’. Wein‘wine’) &

Bier ‘beer’ sounds like‘beer’.

By- Shah Waez

# ß. Called ‘sharp s’ or ‘s-tset’. Pronounced voiceless.

Long: Maße and Short: Masse [mase].

By- Shah Waez

# German consonants and their

pronunciations

# b, d These are pronounced ‘p’ and ‘t’ respectively

when at the end of a word or syllable: ab ([ap] , Rad

([ra:t] .

By- Shah Waez

# ch

(a)This is pronounced hard, midway between ‘k’ and ‘h’

when it follows a back vowel (a, a:, o, o:, u, u: and au):

Bach ([bakh], Loch ([lokh] ‘, Buch ([bu:kh] , Bauch

([baukh].

(b) This is pronounced soft, rather like ‘sh’ when it

follows a consonant or a front vowel [i, i:, e, e:, ä, ä:, ö,

ö:, ü, ü: and äu, eu, ai, ei]: Milch ([milch] , Löcher

([löcher], Bücher.

By- Shah Waez

# ig The g is pronounced like soft ch when at the end of

a word or syllable. In some parts of Germany it is,

however, pronounced ‘k’ in these positions: billig.

# ng The g is never pronounced in German like English

‘singer’.

# st, sp These are pronounced ‘sht’, ‘shp’ at the

beginning of a word or syllable: Stuttgart , Spiel.

By- Shah Waez

# s This is pronounced ‘z’ preceding a vowel: so [zo:],

versammeln [ferzameln] but is pronounced as an ‘s’ in

some words imported from English: sexy [seksi], Suzy

[su:zi].

# z This is pronounced ‘ts’, also at the beginning of a

word or syllable: Skizze ([skitse], zu ([tsu:] ‘to’).

# v This is usually pronounced ‘f’ at the beginning of

words and syllables: viel ([fi:l] ‘a lot’); and at the end of

words: brav ([bra:f] ‘well behaved’).

By- Shah Waez

# w This is pronounced ‘v’ at the beginning of words and

syllables: weil ([vail].

# sch This is pronounced ‘sh’: Schule ([shu:le] ‘school’).

# qu This is pronounced ‘kv’: quer ([kve:r] ‘diagonal’).

# -age At the end of some nouns imported from French,

this has a French Pronunciation and pronounced like

Garage [gara:zhe].

By- Shah Waez

# -tion Extra ‘s’ Inflation [inflatsi-o:n].

# Any consonant clusters not listed above are

pronounced in full. For example: Knie ([kni:] ‘knee’),

Pfad ([pfa:t] ‘path’), Psychologie ([psüchologi:]

‘psychology’).