"Umlaut" (m.), noun
The
German alphabet consists of 26 characters plus 3 umlauts: ä, ö and ü.
The two dots above the letters do NOT indicate an accentuation or emphasis of the syllable (as for instance accent-bearing letters in Spanish or
French). Umlauts are used as independent characters in the German language.
Whenever the use of umlauts is not possible (
e.g. for technical reasons, in email addresses or names of websites), umlauts are indicated by the following combinations:
“ae” = ä, “oe”= ö, “ue” = ü.
Note:
some proper names contain the converted form of umlauts
(
e.g. the author is spelled Goethe NOT Göthe)!
Pronunciation:
The letter ä is pronounced like the a in “apple”.
The sound of the letter ö is similar to the sound in “earn” or “bird”.
The letter ü is the most difficult for those who are learning
German. It is the same sound as the u in the
French words “musique”, “chaussure”, “rue”, ... etc.
Umlauts are
used in all types of word categories: nouns (not only, but often in the
plural form), verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prefixes and prepositions.
Ä: Äpfel, Hände, wärmen
Ö: Löwe, Köln, mögen,
Ü: Küsse, Frühling, wünschen