German Alphabet: Ultimate Guide To 26+4 Letters In German (incl. Ä, Ö, Ü, ß)

MARTINA
Meine Adresse ist Heinle Straße 1.
(My address is Heinle Street 1.)

VANESSA
Kannst du mir das bitte buchstabieren?
(Can you spell that for me please?)

MARTINA
Oh, entschuldige. Ich habe das Alphabet noch nicht gelernt.
(Oh, sorry. I haven’t learned the German alphabet yet.)

To not be in the same situation as Martina, let’s learn the German alphabet together. If you don’t know use yet: we’re Spring German, and teacher Denisa will tell you everything you need to know about the German alphabet.

1. How many letters does the German alphabet have?

The German alphabet has 26 letters, which are the same as the basic Latin alphabet. The German alphabet also includes three umlauts (Ä, Ö, Ü) and the sharp S (ß), which are often considered as additional characters.

So, if you include the umlauts and the sharp S, you could say there are 30 characters in total in the German writing system.

Let’s explore these letters in the German alphabet together!

2. A, B, C, D, E, F, G in the German alphabet

• “A” (A) like Ananas (ananas), Apfel (apple)
• “B” (B) like Banane (banana)
• “C” (C) like Computer (computer). “C” is mostly pronounced like “k” as in “Computer” because we mostly use it for foreign words.
• “D” (D) like Delfin (dolphin) or Denisa
• “E” (E) like Elefant (elephant)
• “F” (F) like Fisch (fish)
• “G” (G) like gehen (to go)

There is a song for children that starts like this: “ABCDEFG” (a-b-c-d-e-f-g) . There are also a lot of German vowels in here, and you can learn how to pronounce German vowels on our blog.

At the end of this lesson, we can sing the whole song together:

Now let’s look at the next letters of the German alphabet.

3. H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P in the German alphabet

• “H” (H) like Haus (house)
• “I” (I) like Insel (island). Now that I think of it. An Island would be nice right now. Anyways, let’s go on.
• “J” (J) like Jäger (hunter)
• “K” (K) like Keller (basement)
• “L” (L) like Land (country)
• “M” (M) like Mama (mum)
• “N” (N) like naiv (naive)
• “O” (O) like Ofen (oven)
• “P” (P) like Papa (dad)

VANESSA
Wie heißt du?
(What’s your name?)

DENISA
Ich heiße Denisa.
(My name is Denisa.)

VANESSA
Kannst du mir das bitte buchstabieren?
(Can you spell that for me please?)

Denisa
D-E-N-I-S-A.
(D-E-N-I-S-A.)

VANESSA
Super. Danke dir.
(Great. Thank you.)

What are chunks you ask?

Chunks are word combinations that natives use all the time and that you can learn by heart as a whole. Get the most important German chunks you need for a conversation in our free German essential chunking kit. The link is in the description, and you can always find more on our Spring German YouTube channel.

✔️ Cheat Sheet with 53 Essential German Chunks: chunks and words you’ll hear and use in every German conversation

✔️ Tips on how to speak German WITHOUT thinking about grammar

✔️ A German Chunking Tutorial showing you the 1 technique that’ll help you make 100% of the German from our videos roll off the tongue in just 5 minutes a day (you’re probably only using 50% of our lessons’ potential right now…)

Yes! Send me my FREE German Chunking Kit

4. Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z in the German alphabet

• “Q” like Qualität (quality). “Q” is only used with an “U” after it. Used in a word, you pronounce it like “K” and “W” together. “Qualität” (quality).
• “R”. Das “R” spricht man in Süddeutschland so aus: “R”. (The “R” is pronounced in the south of Germany like this: “R”) But in most of Germany, it should sound like this: “R”. If you want to practice your “R” sound, you can try to gargle with water or while brushing your teeth.

Check these examples:

• “S” like Sonne (sun)
• “T” like Teller (plate)
• “U” like unten ( )
• “V” like Vogel (bird) or “Vanessa” (Vanessa) . You pronounce it like “F”, “Fisch” (fish) or like “W”, Wal (whale). That brings me to the next letter.
• “W” like Wal (whale)
• “X” like Xylophon (xylophone). We also use this only for foreign words. Just like “C”, “Computer” (computer).
• “Y” . It’s pronounced like “Jäger” (hunter) but an example to write “Y” is as in “Yoga” (yoga)
• “Z” like “Zelt” (tent)

Let’s see how Martina is doing:

MARTINA
Meine Adresse ist Heinle Straße 1.
My address is Heinle Street 1.

VANESSA
Kannst du mir das bitte buchstabieren?
(Can you spell that for me please?)

MARTINA
H – E – I – N – L – E Straße 1.
( H – E – I – N -L- E Street 1 )

VANESSA
Danke dir. Bis später!
(Thank you. See you later!)

5. Umlauts in the German alphabet

Other important letters in German are the so called “Umlaute”. These are vowels with dots on them.

There is:

• Ä like Äpfel (apples)
• Ö like Öfen (ovens) and
• Ü like Übung (exercise)

Ä and Ö are mostly used when nouns are plural.

DENISA
Gibst du mir die Äpfel bitte?
(Can you give me these apples please?)

VANESSA
Du meinst einen Apfel?
(You mean one apple?)

DENISA
Nein, die Äpfel. Mehrere.
(No, apples. More than one.)