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German Spelling
German Spelling
German Spelling
Spelling
fluentu.com/blog/german/german-spelling/
Letting yourself fall back on automated spelling corrections doesn’t always end well in
English—but, in German, you may not even realize you’ve made a hilariously embarrassing
mistake until it’s far too late and your German-speaking friends are giggling over your
message.
Here’s where I’ve got some good news for you: German spelling is way easier than all that.
But for a non-native speaker like yourself, there are a few rules you should still review. We’ll
talk about eight of the most important ones in this post.
Contents
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When we say “right,” what we mean is “standard.” Some words can have variations in
spelling, but some spellings are considered more standard than others. These are the forms
that you’d see in a dictionary such as the Duden, or in formal printed works such as
newspapers and textbooks.
If you think about it, English does this too. If you’ve ever been shocked to find that your
dictionary says “judgment” has only one <e> in it (but it says “also: judgement” in small
letters elsewhere), or if you’ve pondered the differences between “color” and “colour,” you’ve
encountered different standards.
One reason why English spelling can be so tricky is that we often have different letters that
lead to the same spoken sounds (compare “vain,” “vein” and “vane”) or letter combinations
that lead to different spoken sounds in different contexts (compare “vein,” “weird” and
“atheist”).
German has a lot less of this. Letter combinations usually match directly to one standard
pronunciation. In fancy linguistic terms, this is known as shallow orthography. Languages
with shallow orthography, such as Spanish and German, are easy to read and spell. Deep
orthography languages, such as French and English, are a bit harder.
Personally, watching TV with captioning has been a big help. I was always quite good with
spelling and just overall reading from a young age, and part of that is due to the fact that I
always turned the subtitles on whenever I watched TV (and I still do).
Try this technique with German! One way to do it is with a virtual immersion platform.
FluentU, for example, has expert-edited captions (i.e. not auto-generated) on all of the videos
on its platform. Some YouTube videos have manually-created German subtitles as well,
which is another option.
When we’re describing a written letter, we’ll put it in angle brackets. We already did this to
describe the <e> in “judgment” above.
When we’re describing a spoken sound, we’ll put it in square brackets like this: [x].
Sometimes these look the same as the written letters you already know, but sometimes
they don’t. That’s because we won’t use the German or English alphabets, but rather the
International Phonetic Alphabet.
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If you’ve ever looked up a word’s pronunciation in the dictionary and not understood the
crazy symbols in its entry, it was probably written in IPA. Don’t panic: we’ll walk you through
exactly what you need to know.
The most helpful trick a German teacher ever showed me involves Wein and Bier. The <ei>
combination only ever makes the Wein sound, which happens to be the same as the English
“wine” sound. The <ie> combination only ever makes the Bier sound, which is basically the
same as the English “beer” sound.
So, the next time you need to spell a word and you’re not sure if it’s <ei> or <ie>, just
remember to ask yourself, “Does it sound like wine or beer? (Wein oder Bier?)”
For instance, schon means “already” but schön means “beautiful.” Another classic pitfall
when learning to describe the weather is the difference between schwül and schwul, which
you’ll have to look up on your own.
They also always affect pronunciation. To get these right, learn how each letter with an
umlaut (a, o and u) sounds different from the un-umlauted version. You’ll never forget again!
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4. <Sch> is always three letters
What we write as <sh> in English, the Germans write as <sch>. You can’t forget the <c>.
This is why “English” is not a German word, but “Englisch” is. The IPA symbol for this
sound, by the way, is [ʃ].
Well, it depends on whether or not <s> appears in a consonant cluster at the beginning
of a syllable. This is why Sahne (cream) and Obst (fruit) have the [s] sound,
but Stiefel (boots) and Sprache (language) have the [ʃ] sound. So if you’re trying to spell a
word that starts with [ʃ], remember that there may be no <sch> in there at all!
Any German word with the [v] sound, as in wo (where), wer (who) or wie (how), is spelled
with <w>. Don’t let your English interfere with your German spelling, or you’ll end up
spelling all of these with <v>.
That would be a problem, since German <v> actually sounds like [f]. German <f>,
logically, sounds like [f] too. Compare von (from) and vier (four) with für (for)
and Freund (friend). This sound has some unfortunate spelling ambiguity, but with practice
and memorization you’ll quickly develop a feel for which is which.
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These are just eight of the many German spelling rules you’ll encounter as you go along.
There are plenty more, so I’ve only highlighted ones that are tricky for English speakers in
particular. However, all of these spelling rules will become second nature to you with time,
and they’re all a lot easier to master than the English rules you already know.
Rechtschreibung is all about writing right. Remember these rules and keep practicing, and
you’ll get them all.
One of my favorites is the online dictionary and mobile app from dict.cc. Put in any English
or German word, and you’ll get a ranked list of its possible translations, along with common
phrases in which the word appears. Click on the speaker icon next to any word and you’ll be
able to hear native speakers pronounce the word for you as well.
Writing a paper? Virtually every version of Microsoft Word allows you to install multiple
languages’ versions of spell check. For typing on mobile devices, most forms of autocorrect
offer the same option. Because every program is different, we can’t walk you through the
process here, but a quick Google search can point you in the right direction.
And if you really want to commit this to memory, use the old standby methods.
With a study method like that, stuff like the <w>/<v>/<f> distinction will become a piece of
cake!
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