Help:IPA/Standard German

This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Standard German on Wikipedia.

It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Standard German in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here. Some keys are built on consensus more strongly than others; if the conventions of this key are already in wide use, any substantive change to it should be discussed on the talk page first as it would affect a large number of articles. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

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The charts below show the way International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Standard German language pronunciations in Simple Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA letters to Simple Wikipedia articles, see {{IPA-de}} and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.

See Standard German phonology and German orthography § Grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences for a extensive look at the sounds of German.

Consonants
DE	AT	CH	Examples	English approximation
b			bei;^[1] ab (AT, CH)^[2]	ball
	c		China (AT, CH)	cute
ç			ich, durch;^[3] China (DE)	hue
d			dann; Kleid (AT, CH)^[2]	done
f			für, von, Phänomen	fuss
ɡ			gut; Tag (AT, CH)^[2]	guest
h			hat	hut
j			Jahr, Yo-Yo	yard
k			kann, cremen, sechs; Tag (DE);^[2]	cold
l			Leben	last
l̩			Mantel	bottle
m			Mann	must
m̩			großem	rhythm
n			Name	not
n̩			beiden	sudden
ŋ			lang	long
p			Person, ab (DE)^[2]	puck
pf			Pfeffer	cupful
ʁ	r		reden^[4]	DE: French rouge AT, CH: Scottish red
s			lassen, groß, Haus	fast
ʃ			schon, Stadt, spitz, Champagner, Ski	shall
t			Tag, Stadt; Kleid (DE)^[2]	tall
ts			Zeit, Platz, Potsdam, Celle	cats
tʃ			Matsch, Cello	match
v			was, Vase^[1]	vanish
x			nach^[3]	Scottish loch
z			Sie, diese^[1] (in Austrian German sparsely used)	DE: zebra AT, CH: soup
ʔ			beamtet [bəˈʔamtət]^[5]	uh-oh!
Non-native consonants
dʒ			Dschungel, Pidgin^[1]^[6]	jungle
ð			Motherboard^[7]	this
ɹ			Spray^[8]	rice
θ			Thatcherismus^[7]	think
ʒ			Genie, Entourage^[1]^[6]	pleasure
Stress
ˈ			Bahnhofstraße [ˈbaːnhoːfˌʃtʁaːsə]	as in battleship /ˈbætəlˌʃɪp/
ˌ			Bahnhofstraße [ˈbaːnhoːfˌʃtʁaːsə]	as in battleship /ˈbætəlˌʃɪp/

Vowels
DE	AT	CH	Examples	English approximation
Monophthongs
a			alles, Kalender	father, but short
aː			aber, sah, Staat	father
ɛ			Ende, hätte	bet
ɛː			spät, wählen^[9]	RP hair
eː			eben, gehen, Meer	mate
ɪ			ist	sit
iː			liebe, Berlin, ihm	seed
ɔ			kommen	off
oː			oder, hohe, Boot	story
œ			öffnen	somewhat like hurt
øː			Österreich, Möhre, adieu	somewhat like heard
ʊ			und	push
uː			Hut, Kuh	true
ʏ			müssen, Ypsilon	somewhat like cute
yː			über, Mühe, psychisch	somewhat like few
Diphthongs
aɪ			ein, Kaiser, Haydn, Verleih, Speyer	high
aʊ			auf	vow
ɔʏ			Euro, Häuser	choice
Reduced vowels
ɐ		ər	immer^[4]	DE, AT: frustration CH: Scottish letter^[10]
ə			Name	balance (but not sofa)^[10]
Semivowels
ɐ̯		r	Uhr^[4]	DE, AT: sofa CH: Scottish far
i̯			Studie	yard
o̯			Pointe^[11]	quite
u̯			Linguist, Gouache^[11]	would
y̑			Etui^[11]	somewhat like evaluation
Non-native vowels
ãː			Gourmand, Engagement, Restaurant, Chance^[12]	French Provence
ɛ̃ː			Pointe^[12]	French quinze
ɛɪ			Mail^[13]	face
õː			Garçon^[12]	French Le Monde
ɔː			stalken, Motherboard^[14]	American raw
ɔʊ			Code^[13]	American goat
œ̃ː			Parfum^[12]	French emprunte
œːɐ̯		øːr	surfen, Gouverneur^[15]	roughly like RP bird
Shortened vowels
ã			engagieren^[12]	French chanson
ɛ̃			impair^[12]	French vingt-et-un
e			Element^[16]	roughly like dress
i			Italien^[16]	seat
o			originell^[16]	story, but short
õ			foncé^[12]	French Mont Blanc
œ̃			Lundist^[12]	French vingt-et-un
ø			Ökonom^[16]	roughly like hurt
u			Universität, Souvenir^[16]	truth
y			Psychologie^[16]	like meet, but with the lips rounded

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 In Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German, the lenis obstruents /b, d, ɡ, dʒ, ʒ/ are voiceless [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, d̥ʒ̊, ʒ̊] and are distinguished from /p, t, k, tʃ, ʃ/ only by articulatory strength (/v/ is really voiced, and /s/ is the only alveolar fricative). The distinction is also retained word-finally. In German Standard German, voiceless [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, z̥, d̥ʒ̊, ʒ̊] as well as [v̥] occur allophonically after fortis obstruents and, for /b, d, ɡ/, often also word-initially. See fortis and lenis.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 ^2.4 ^2.5 In German Standard German, voiced stops /b, d, ɡ/ are devoiced to [p, t, k] at the end of a syllable.
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 [ç] and [x] belong to one phoneme traditionally transcribed /x/. The velar allophone appears after back vowels and /a, aː/ and it may instead be uvular [χ], depending on the variety and speaker. In this guide, the difference between velar and uvular allophones is ignored and both are written with ⟨x⟩.
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 Pronunciation of /r/ in German varies according to region and speaker. While older prescriptive pronunciation dictionaries allowed only [r], that pronunciation is now found mainly in Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria. In other regions, the uvular pronunciation prevails, mainly as a fricative/approximant [ʁ]. In many regions except for most parts of Switzerland, the /r/ in the syllable coda is vocalized to [ɐ̯] after long vowels or after all vowels (in this guide [ɐ̯] is used only after long vowels, following the pronunciation dictionaries), and /ər/ is pronounced as [ɐ].
↑ The glottal stop occurs in German Standard German. It is not transcribed phrase-initially, where it is just as likely to be used in English as it is in German. Word- and phrase-internal glottal stops are transcribed. Austrian or Swiss Standard German do not have glottal stops (Krech et al. 2009, pp. 236, 262).
↑ ^6.0 ^6.1 Many speakers lack the lenis /ʒ/ and replace it with its fortis counterpart /ʃ/ (Hall 2003, p. 42). The same applies to the corresponding lenis /dʒ/, which also tends to be replaced with its fortis counterpart /tʃ/. According to the prescriptive standard, such pronunciations are not correct.
↑ ^7.0 ^7.1 /ð, θ/, occurring in English loans, may be substituted with any of /d, z, v/ and /t, s, f/, respectively.
↑ Used in some loanwords from English, especially by younger speakers.
↑ In Northern Germany, /ɛː/ often merges with /eː/ to [eː].
↑ ^10.0 ^10.1 As several other Germanic languages, Standard German has mid [ə] and open [ɐ] schwas. Care must be taken to clearly distinguish between the two. In English, the former appears in words such as balance, cannon and chairman and the latter variably in sofa, China (especially at the very end of utterance) and, in some dialects, also in ago and again, but one needs to remember that Standard German [ɐ] has no such free variation and is always open, just as [ə] is always mid. In some English dialects, an unstressed /ʌ/ in words such as frustration and justiciable is a perfect replacement for Standard German [ɐ].
↑ ^11.0 ^11.1 ^11.2 /o̯, u̯, y̑/ only occur in certain unadapted or partly unadapted loanwords.
↑ ^12.0 ^12.1 ^12.2 ^12.3 ^12.4 ^12.5 ^12.6 ^12.7 The nasal vowels occur in French loans. They are long [ãː, ɛ̃ː, õː, œ̃ː] when stressed and short [ã, ɛ̃, õ, œ̃] when unstressed. In colloquial speech they may be replaced with [aŋ, ɛŋ, ɔŋ, œŋ] irrespective of length, and the [ŋ] in these sequences may optionally be assimilated to the place of articulation of a following consonant, e.g. Ensemble [aŋˈsaŋbl̩] or [anˈsambl̩] for [ãˈsãːbl̩] (Mangold 2005, p. 65).
↑ ^13.0 ^13.1 The diphthongs /ɛɪ, ɔʊ/ occur only in loanwords (mostly from English), such as okay. Depending on the speaker and the region, they may be monophthongized to [eː, oː] (or [e, o] in an unstressed syllable-final position). Thus, the aforementioned word okay can be pronounced as either [ɔʊˈkɛɪ] or [oˈkeː].
↑ The long vowel /ɔː/ occurs only in English loanwords, and is often replaced with the native short /ɔ/ or long /oː/, according to the speaker and where it occurs in a word.
↑ [œːɐ̯] or [øːr] is the German rendering of the English NURSE vowel /ɜːr/ and the French stressed [œʁ] (Krech et al. 2009, pp. 64, 142).
↑ ^16.0 ^16.1 ^16.2 ^16.3 ^16.4 ^16.5 [e, i, o, ø, u, y], the short versions of the long vowels [eː, iː, oː, øː, uː, yː], are used at the end of unstressed syllables before the accented syllable and occur mainly in loanwords. In native words, the accent is generally on the first syllable, and syllables before the accent other than prepositional prefixes are rare but occasionally occur, e.g. in jedoch [jeˈdɔx], soeben [zoˈʔeːbn̩], vielleicht [fiˈlaɪçt] etc. In casual speech short [e, i, o, ø, u, y] preceding a phonemic consonant (i.e., not a [ʔ]) may be replaced with [ɛ, ɪ, ɔ, œ, ʊ, ʏ], e.g. [jɛˈdɔx], [fɪˈlaɪçt] (Mangold 2005, p. 65).

Bibliography

Hall, Christopher (2003) [First published 1992], Modern German pronunciation: An introduction for speakers of English (2nd ed.), Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 0-7190-6689-1
Krech, Eva Maria; Stock, Eberhard; Hirschfeld, Ursula; Anders, Lutz-Christian (2009), Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch, Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-018202-6
Mangold, Max (2005), Das Aussprachewörterbuch (6th ed.), Duden, ISBN 978-3411040667

[fortislenis-1] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 In Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German, the lenis obstruents /b, d, ɡ, dʒ, ʒ/ are voiceless [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, d̥ʒ̊, ʒ̊] and are distinguished from /p, t, k, tʃ, ʃ/ only by articulatory strength (/v/ is really voiced, and /s/ is the only alveolar fricative). The distinction is also retained word-finally. In German Standard German, voiceless [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, z̥, d̥ʒ̊, ʒ̊] as well as [v̥] occur allophonically after fortis obstruents and, for /b, d, ɡ/, often also word-initially. See fortis and lenis.

[devoicing-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 ^2.4 ^2.5 In German Standard German, voiced stops /b, d, ɡ/ are devoiced to [p, t, k] at the end of a syllable.

[dorsalfricatives-3] 3.0 ^3.1 [ç] and [x] belong to one phoneme traditionally transcribed /x/. The velar allophone appears after back vowels and /a, aː/ and it may instead be uvular [χ], depending on the variety and speaker. In this guide, the difference between velar and uvular allophones is ignored and both are written with ⟨x⟩.

[r-allophones-4] 4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 Pronunciation of /r/ in German varies according to region and speaker. While older prescriptive pronunciation dictionaries allowed only [r], that pronunciation is now found mainly in Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria. In other regions, the uvular pronunciation prevails, mainly as a fricative/approximant [ʁ]. In many regions except for most parts of Switzerland, the /r/ in the syllable coda is vocalized to [ɐ̯] after long vowels or after all vowels (in this guide [ɐ̯] is used only after long vowels, following the pronunciation dictionaries), and /ər/ is pronounced as [ɐ].

[5] The glottal stop occurs in German Standard German. It is not transcribed phrase-initially, where it is just as likely to be used in English as it is in German. Word- and phrase-internal glottal stops are transcribed. Austrian or Swiss Standard German do not have glottal stops (Krech et al. 2009, pp. 236, 262).

[postalveolarlenis-6] 6.0 ^6.1 Many speakers lack the lenis /ʒ/ and replace it with its fortis counterpart /ʃ/ (Hall 2003, p. 42). The same applies to the corresponding lenis /dʒ/, which also tends to be replaced with its fortis counterpart /tʃ/. According to the prescriptive standard, such pronunciations are not correct.

[th-7] 7.0 ^7.1 /ð, θ/, occurring in English loans, may be substituted with any of /d, z, v/ and /t, s, f/, respectively.

[8] Used in some loanwords from English, especially by younger speakers.

[9] In Northern Germany, /ɛː/ often merges with /eː/ to [eː].

[schwas-10] 10.0 ^10.1 As several other Germanic languages, Standard German has mid [ə] and open [ɐ] schwas. Care must be taken to clearly distinguish between the two. In English, the former appears in words such as balance, cannon and chairman and the latter variably in sofa, China (especially at the very end of utterance) and, in some dialects, also in ago and again, but one needs to remember that Standard German [ɐ] has no such free variation and is always open, just as [ə] is always mid. In some English dialects, an unstressed /ʌ/ in words such as frustration and justiciable is a perfect replacement for Standard German [ɐ].

[semivowels-11] 11.0 ^11.1 ^11.2 /o̯, u̯, y̑/ only occur in certain unadapted or partly unadapted loanwords.

[nasalV-12] 12.0 ^12.1 ^12.2 ^12.3 ^12.4 ^12.5 ^12.6 ^12.7 The nasal vowels occur in French loans. They are long [ãː, ɛ̃ː, õː, œ̃ː] when stressed and short [ã, ɛ̃, õ, œ̃] when unstressed. In colloquial speech they may be replaced with [aŋ, ɛŋ, ɔŋ, œŋ] irrespective of length, and the [ŋ] in these sequences may optionally be assimilated to the place of articulation of a following consonant, e.g. Ensemble [aŋˈsaŋbl̩] or [anˈsambl̩] for [ãˈsãːbl̩] (Mangold 2005, p. 65).

[middiphthongs-13] 13.0 ^13.1 The diphthongs /ɛɪ, ɔʊ/ occur only in loanwords (mostly from English), such as okay. Depending on the speaker and the region, they may be monophthongized to [eː, oː] (or [e, o] in an unstressed syllable-final position). Thus, the aforementioned word okay can be pronounced as either [ɔʊˈkɛɪ] or [oˈkeː].

[14] The long vowel /ɔː/ occurs only in English loanwords, and is often replaced with the native short /ɔ/ or long /oː/, according to the speaker and where it occurs in a word.

[15] [œːɐ̯] or [øːr] is the German rendering of the English NURSE vowel /ɜːr/ and the French stressed [œʁ] (Krech et al. 2009, pp. 64, 142).

[shorttense-16] 16.0 ^16.1 ^16.2 ^16.3 ^16.4 ^16.5 [e, i, o, ø, u, y], the short versions of the long vowels [eː, iː, oː, øː, uː, yː], are used at the end of unstressed syllables before the accented syllable and occur mainly in loanwords. In native words, the accent is generally on the first syllable, and syllables before the accent other than prepositional prefixes are rare but occasionally occur, e.g. in jedoch [jeˈdɔx], soeben [zoˈʔeːbn̩], vielleicht [fiˈlaɪçt] etc. In casual speech short [e, i, o, ø, u, y] preceding a phonemic consonant (i.e., not a [ʔ]) may be replaced with [ɛ, ɪ, ɔ, œ, ʊ, ʏ], e.g. [jɛˈdɔx], [fɪˈlaɪçt] (Mangold 2005, p. 65).

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