German Umlauts: How to Pronounce Ä, Ö and Ü

Umlauts are the most distinctive letters in German, and they matter: schon (already) and schön (beautiful), Mutter (mother) and Mütter (mothers), zahlen (to pay) and zählen (to count) are different words. Two of the three umlaut vowels have no English equivalent, but they are made with a simple trick.

The principle: front tongue, round lips

English pairs front vowels with spread lips (see, say) and back vowels with rounded lips (too, go). German ü and ö break this pattern: the tongue is at the front, as for ee or ay, while the lips are rounded, as for oo or oh. Linguists call these front rounded vowels.

Ä is the easy one: it is not a front rounded vowel at all, just an open e sound. Short ä is identical to short e.

How to say ü

1. Say a long English eeee, as in see.
2. Without moving your tongue, round your lips tightly, as if to whistle or say oo.
3. The sound you hear is long ü: früh, müde, Tür.
4. For short ü, start from the i of sit instead and keep it short: Glück, dünn, Stück.

A mirror helps: lips should be pushed forward and rounded, while the tongue tip stays behind the lower front teeth. If the sound becomes oo, your tongue has slipped back.

How to say ö

1. Say a pure German long e, See, with no glide.
2. Keeping your tongue still, round your lips as for oh.
3. That is long ö: schön, Söhne, böse.
4. For short ö, start from the e of bed and round loosely: Löffel, können, Wörter.

Minimal pairs

Umlauts mark plurals, comparatives, subjunctives and derived words, so pairs are everywhere:

And ü contrasts with i, which is the mistake many learners make once they stop saying oo:

• Kissen (pillow) / küssen (to kiss) · Tier (animal) / Tür (door) · vier (four) / für (for)

Why learning umlauts pays off

Because umlaut is grammatical, getting it right is not just about accent:

• Plurals: Haus → Häuser, Buch → Bücher, Stadt → Städte.
• Comparatives: alt → älter, groß → größer, jung → jünger.
• Verb forms: fahren → er fährt, können, mögen, and the subjunctive hätte, wäre, würde.

In ich würde vs ich wurde ("I would" vs "I became") the umlaut is the only difference between conditional and past.

Frequently asked questions

How do you type umlauts if you do not have them on your keyboard?

The accepted substitutes are ae, oe and ue: Mueller for Müller, schoen for schön. They are used in email addresses, URLs and crossword puzzles.

Is "ä" pronounced the same as "e"?

Short ä is identical to short e: Äpfel and Eltern have the same first vowel. Long ä is traditionally [ɛː], more open than long e [eː], but many speakers, especially in northern Germany, pronounce it as [eː], so Ähre and Ehre sound the same.

Why do umlauts appear in plurals?

Umlaut originally was a sound change in which a vowel moved forward in anticipation of an i in the next syllable. Those i's have since disappeared, but the changed vowels remain as a grammatical marker: Mutter/Mütter, Buch/Bücher.

Sources and further reading

• Kohler, K. (1990). German. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 20(1), 48–50.
• Hall, C. (2003). Modern German Pronunciation (2nd ed.), chapter 3. Manchester University Press.
• Wiese, R. (1996). The Phonology of German, chapter 7 on umlaut. Oxford University Press.

Read More in This Topic

• German Pronunciation for English Speakers: The Complete Sound Guide
• French U vs OU: How to Pronounce Tu, Tout and the Rounded Front Vowels
• German Vowel Length: How to Tell Long and Short Vowels Apart

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