There's lots of practice in the second video! Whereas selten was pronounced “zelten”, the actual German word zelten (meaning, camping) is pronounced? Or like the Z’s are pronounced in the word pizza. German Z is actually a very sharp tsss sound. Selten (meaning, seldom) sounds like “zelten”.Īnd a German Z sounds almost like an English S. Sommer (meaning, summer) sound like “zommer” The German S at the beginning of a word sounds like the English Z. There is no difference in how the V in vier is pronounced and the F in fünf. Take the German for the numbers 4 and 5 : vier and fünf. Viel sounds exactly like the English word “feel”. How would you pronounce the German word viel ? If V sounds like an F and IE like EE If you want to quickly and easily get ahead of the competition then here are some insider tips about three consonants that look innocent enough but are not at all pronounced the way you would expect.Ī German V is pronounced like an English F.
There are more tips on how to remember EI and IE in the video. That way your brain will get used to seeing words with EI and it will become automatic to say them as I. Challenge yourself to say them before I do in the video. It’s important to say the words out loud. Watch the video and practice saying the words from 1:30 onwards. There are no exceptions to the “EI makes the sound I” rule!Īnd very very few exceptions to the “IE makes the sound EE” rule. The combinations of these two vowels is always pronounced the way the second letter is pronounced in English. How to easily remember EI and IE in German We’ll get more into that later (see below). It's actually pronounced “vine”.Ī German W is pronounced like an English V. Ish.įor a real demonstration please watch the video below. So the word Name is pronounced “naah-may”. It makes a short sound like you’re starting to say ”Emily” but stop after the initial E.
So if you say the E at the end of a word you're winning. There’s a huge number of German words that end on an E. Pronounce every letter, so pronounced the G as well as the nom part. Which brings me to the second important point:Įven if the word is very long! (Try it with Sehenswürdigkeiten. Go for it.)Ī word has awkward combinations of consonants, like Gnom. When the letter A comes in a word it is pronounced aah, like aber (“aaah-ber”), or Name (“naaah-me”). The first letter in the alphabet is A, pronounced aah (like when the doctor says to you, “open wide and say aah”). If you find other ones, please add them in the comments.All vowels are pronounced the way they are said in the alphabet. There’s also a quick listening exercise at the end.ĭo you know any more examples? I’m sure I haven’t found all of them. If you watch the video, you can hear me pronounce all those words. Furth (town in Austria) – Fürth (town in Germany).