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German pronunciation · free · with feedback

Practise German pronunciation, with feedback on your own voice

German spelling is regular once you know it, but English speakers stumble on ü and ö, two kinds of ch, an r at the back of the mouth and long vowels that change the word. Read sentences aloud, see what came through, and practise those sounds one at a time.

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What's in Speak for German

Read aloud

Sentences matched to your level. The result lists the words recognised, compares your pitch and pace, and coaches the sounds that need work.

13 mouth maps

ü, ö, long e, long u, long o, ich-Laut, ach-Laut, German r, -er (vocalised r), sch, z, pf, ng: where the tongue and lips go, compared with the nearest English sound.

Vowel lab

Calibrate on three vowels, then place your own 9 vowels (Biene, Mitte, See, Bett, Tür, schön, Tag, rot, gut) on the chart. It shows whether your ü has drifted towards u.

11 sets of minimal pairs

Mutter and Mütter, Stadt and Staat, Kirche and Kirsche, one sound apart.

The sounds to work on

Voices from Germany, Austria and Switzerland

By default you hear the standard German of Germany. Settings has Austrian and Swiss voices too, so you can get used to Grüß Gott and Grüezi before you travel.

What the feedback can't tell you

Final devoicing means Rad (wheel) and Rat (advice) sound the same, so if the recogniser writes one for the other, it counts as correct. The flip side is that it can't tell whether you devoiced the d, as a German speaker would. Recognition works in Chrome, Edge and Safari, not Firefox, and Chrome sends the audio to Google.

11 rules that make German spelling predictable

ie and ei: read the second letter

Ie is a long “ee” (Liebe, vier, Bier) and ei is “eye” (mein, drei, Wein): the sound is the name of the second letter in English. The same goes for ai, ey and ay, which also say “eye” (Mai, Meyer, Bayern). Eu and äu say “oy” (heute, Häuser).

ß or ss

Both are a voiceless s. Write ß after a long vowel or a diphthong (Straße, groß, heißen, Fuß) and ss after a short vowel (Wasser, muss, dass, Fluss). The spelling can change inside one word family as the vowel changes: fließen, floss; essen, aß. In Switzerland ß is not used at all and ss is written everywhere; that's correct there. With capitals only, write SS or ẞ (STRASSE).

h after a vowel and doubled vowels mean long

An h after a vowel is silent and only shows that the vowel is long: fahren, Uhr, sehen, Schuh. A doubled vowel does the same: Boot, Tee, Saal. At the start of a word or syllable, h is a real h (Haus, Hand, woher).

Doubled consonants mean short

A doubled consonant (ff, ll, mm, nn, pp, ss, tt, ck, tz) shows that the vowel before it is short; it is pronounced once, not twice. Compare Ofen (long) with offen (short), Miete with Mitte. Ck is the doubled k and tz the doubled z: Zucker, Katze.

v is f, w is v

In native German words v sounds like f: Vater, viel, von, vergessen. W sounds like English v: Wasser, wie, Wein. In many loanwords v keeps its v sound: Vase, Klavier, Universität, Video. So viel (much) and fiel (fell) sound the same.

sp and st at the start: shp, sht

At the start of a word, or of a word part in a compound or after a prefix, sp and st are said “shp” and “sht”: Sport, sprechen, Stadt, Straße, verstehen, Bahnhofstraße. Elsewhere they are plain s + p and s + t: Wespe, Fenster, ist, Gast. In the far north (Hamburg) you may hear an old-fashioned “s-t”.

b, d, g at the end sound like p, t, k

Final devoicing: at the end of a word or syllable, b, d and g are pronounced p, t and k (gelb, Hund, Tag), and s is always voiceless. The letter shows what the sound becomes when an ending is added: Tag, Tage; Hund, Hunde. So Rad (wheel) and Rat (advice) sound the same.

Final -ig sounds like -ich

In standard German from Germany, -ig at the end of a word or before a consonant is said with the ich-Laut: König (“KÖ-nich”), wenig, richtig, zwanzig. When an ending with a vowel follows, the g is a real g again: Könige, wenige. In southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland -ig is “ik”, and that's correct too.

-er and r after a vowel are not a consonant r

The ending -er (Lehrer, aber, Wasser) is a short open “uh”, and r after a long vowel (hier, Uhr, Tür) becomes a short “uh”-like glide. The consonant r, at the back of the throat, is only heard before a vowel: rot, Brot, Ehre, Lehrerin. So the r comes back when an ending follows: Uhr, Uhren.

Every noun has a capital letter

All nouns start with a capital, wherever they are in the sentence: der Tisch, die Liebe, das Essen. So do words used as nouns: beim Lesen, etwas Neues, das Gute. Formal Sie and its forms (Ihr, Ihnen) are capitalised too. It doesn't change the sound, but it helps you read: a capital in mid-sentence is almost always a noun.

ä, ö, ü can be written ae, oe, ue

When umlauts aren't available (old keyboards, email addresses, some names), ä, ö, ü are written ae, oe, ue: Mueller for Müller, Goethe, Koeln for Köln. They are still pronounced as the umlaut. Don't just drop the dots: Mutter (mother) and Mütter (mothers) are different words.

The first lessons of the course teach this from zero: German pronunciation and spelling.

Questions

How can I practise German pronunciation for free?

In SparkAI's Speak screen, read a German sentence aloud. You'll see which words were recognised, how your rhythm and pitch compare with a native model, and which sound to practise next. It costs nothing.

Which German sounds are hardest for English speakers?

Usually these: long e as in See; long and short o: Ofen, offen; ü as in über; ö as in schön; vocalised r as in Wasser, hier; ich-Laut: ch as in ich; ach-Laut: ch as in Bach; r as in rot; z as in Zeit; s: voiced z or voiceless s; final devoicing: b, d, g at the end. Vowel length matters more than English speakers expect: Staat and Stadt differ only in how long the a is.

How do I pronounce ü and ö?

For ü, say the “ee” of see, then round your lips tightly as if to whistle, without moving your tongue. For ö, do the same from the “ay” of say, with rounded lips. The tongue stays at the front; only the lips change.

How do I say the German ch?

After a, o, u and au it's the rough sound at the back of the throat in Scottish loch: Bach, Buch, auch. Everywhere else, as in ich, Milch and Mädchen, it's a soft hiss made at the roof of the mouth, close to the h of English huge said with more breath. Don't replace either with k or sh.

Should I learn the German, Austrian or Swiss accent?

The course uses the standard pronunciation of Germany. Austrian and Swiss pronunciation is just as correct, and you can switch the app's voices to either in Settings once the standard sounds feel familiar.

How accurate is the feedback?

It is approximate. It relies on what your browser's speech recognition heard plus measurements of your recording, and recognition matches words, not sounds: a ch said as k may still produce the right word. The mouth maps and minimal pairs are the better guide to single sounds.

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