Reading German Aloud: Spelling-to-Sound Rules

Here is the best news in German pronunciation: the spelling is so regular that a single table of rules lets you read almost any written word aloud correctly — including words you have never seen. This is the opposite of English, where cough, though, through, bough and thorough all spell the -ough differently from how they sound, and where silent letters lurk everywhere. German has almost no silent letters and almost no unpredictable spellings. Once you learn the letter values below, you can trust the spelling. This page is a consolidated reference: the consonants, the digraphs, the vowel-length cues, and the stress default, followed by a worked example of sounding out an unfamiliar word from scratch.

Consonant values

Most German consonants match English, but a handful have values that surprise English readers. These are the ones to memorise.

Digraphs and clusters — the heart of the system

Two- and three-letter combinations are where reading German aloud really pays off. They are fully predictable.

Vowel-length cues: how the spelling tells you

German vowels are long or short, and the spelling reliably signals which. Three cues cover almost everything:

• A doubled vowel (aa, ee, oo) is long: Saal [zaːl], Meer [meːɐ̯], Boot [boːt].
• A vowel followed by a silent h is long — the h is a "lengthening h," not pronounced: Bahn [baːn], Sohn [zoːn], ihm [iːm].
• A vowel before a single consonant is usually long; before a double consonant it is short. This is the workhorse rule: Bahn vs Bann, Miete (long) vs Mitte (short). The doubled consonant is the flag for a short vowel.

Stress: the default and the exceptions

For native German words, stress falls on the first syllable of the stem. Inseparable prefixes (be-, ge-, ver-, ent-, er-, zer-) are unstressed, so the stress lands on the syllable after them. Loanwords are the main exception — they often stress a later syllable (see the loanwords page).

Worked example: sounding out an unfamiliar word

Let's read a word you may never have seen: Vorsichtsmaßnahme ('precautionary measure'). Apply the rules in order:

1. It's a compound — split it: Vor
   • sichts
     • maß
       • nahme.
2. Vor: v = [f], o before r is long-ish → [foːɐ̯].
3. sichts: s before a vowel = [z]; i before ch... but here it's icht with a front vowel i, so ch = soft [ç]; the ts is the genitive-s plus the t → [zɪçts].
4. maß: ß = [s], the a is long (ß after a long vowel) → [maːs].
5. nahme: n, a + silent h = long [aː], m, final -e = schwa [ə] → [ˈnaːmə].
6. Stress: native compound → first element, first syllable: VOR.

Result: [ˈfoːɐ̯zɪçtsˌmaːsnaːmə]. You just pronounced a four-part compound correctly with no prior exposure — that is the power of a regular orthography.

Why this works (and English doesn't)

German spelling was reformed to be phonemic — designed so each sound has a consistent written form. English spelling froze centuries ago and kept pronunciations that have since changed (the silent letters in knight, debt, island), plus it absorbed French and Latin spellings wholesale without adapting them. German, by contrast, adapts even most loanwords (Telefon, Büro) and runs regular reforms (the 1996 Rechtschreibreform). The result: in German, reading a new word aloud is a solved problem. Your only genuine unknowns are vowel length in a few words and the stress of loanwords — everything else is on the page.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• German spelling is near one-to-one: learn one rule table and you can read almost any word aloud.
• Surprising consonants: w=[v], v=[f], z=[ts], j=[j], s+vowel=[z].
• Digraphs are fixed: ei=[aɪ], ie=[iː], au=[aʊ], eu/äu=[ɔʏ], sch=[ʃ], initial sp/st='shp/sht', chs=[ks], qu=[kv], ng=[ŋ], th=[t], ph=[f], -ig=[ɪç], -tion=[tsi̯oːn].
• Vowel length is cued by doubling, a silent h, or single (long) vs double (short) following consonant.
• Stress defaults to the first stem syllable; inseparable prefixes are unstressed; loanwords vary.
• Unlike English, there is no second layer of exceptions — trust the spelling.