The German alphabet, and the four letters that are different

Good news first: if you can read English, you can already read most of German. The alphabet has the same 26 letters, and spelling is far more regular than in English. Once you know the rules, you can pronounce almost any word you see.

The umlauts: ä, ö, ü

The two dots change the vowel sound. Ä sounds close to the e in bed. Ö is made by saying e while rounding your lips as for o. Ü is made by saying ee while rounding your lips as for oo. They matter: schon means already, schön means beautiful.

The Eszett: ß

ß is a sharp s sound, written after long vowels and diphthongs, as in Straße (street) or heißen (to be called). In Switzerland it is replaced by ss everywhere.

Letters that sound different from English

• W sounds like the English v: Wasser (water).
• V usually sounds like f: Vater (father).
• Z sounds like ts: Zeit (time).
• J sounds like the English y: ja (yes).
• ei sounds like the English eye, ie like the English ee: mein, Liebe.

The fastest way to lock these in is to hear them in real sentences. Every German story on Lingostry has audio, so you can read and listen at the same time.