How many letters does the German alphabet have?

Twenty-six, like English, plus ä, ö, ü and ß. The umlauts and ß are not counted as separate letters of the alphabet – in a dictionary ä is filed with a – but they are separate sounds, and a missing umlaut is a spelling mistake that can change the word.

What do I do without ä, ö, ü or ß on my keyboard?

Write ae, oe, ue and ss: Muenchen, Strasse. It is the standard fallback, understood everywhere, and the course accepts it in typed answers.

Which German does the course teach?

Standard German as written and spoken in Germany, with ß; the differences in Austria and Switzerland are pointed out where they matter – for example that Swiss spelling writes ss where Germany writes ß.

The German alphabet: 26 letters, three umlauts and ß

The letters you already know, four you do not – and a spelling that, once learned, tells you how to say almost every word.

German uses the twenty-six letters of English plus the three umlauts – ä, ö and ü – and ß, the sharp s. The umlauts are separate vowels, not decorated ones: schon (already) and schön (beautiful), Mutter (mother) and Mütter (mothers) are different words. ß stands for a sharp s after a long vowel or a diphthong (Straße, heißen), while ss follows a short vowel (Wasser). Switzerland does not use ß and writes ss throughout.

German is spelled far more regularly than English. A few letters sound different from what an English speaker expects – w is English v (Wasser), v is usually f (Vater), z is ts (Zeit), j is y (ja) – and a handful of groups stand for single sounds: sch (Schule), ch (ich, Bach), ei (like English eye: mein), ie (a long ee: Liebe), eu and äu (oy: heute). At the start of a word st and sp are said as scht and schp (Straße, Sport). And every noun begins with a capital letter, wherever it stands in the sentence.

Handwriting follows the same stroke order as English; the umlaut dots and ß are the only new movements. Tap a letter below to see it written and to trace it. The A0 level of the course covers the alphabet, the umlauts, ß and the letter groups with audio, for free; A1 opens with greetings and the first verbs.

The chart

Tap a character to watch it being written and to trace it yourself.

Letters

Accents and ligatures

Learn the umlauts in pairs that change meaning: schon/schön, Mutter/Mütter, zahlen/zählen. Hearing the difference comes before saying it.
In ei and ie the second letter gives the sound away: mein rhymes with English mine, Liebe has the long ee of English see.
Learn every noun with its article and its capital letter: der Tisch, die Lampe, das Buch. The article is part of the word.

The lessons that teach it

The A0 level of the course, free: the letters, their sounds and the first words, with the same stroke animations and tracing exercises.

The German Alphabet

Twenty-six letters you know, three umlauts and ß – how each one is written and how it sounds.

Sounds and First Words

Ei, ie, sch, ch – the letter groups that make German readable, and your first words.

The whole course: Learn German together

Questions

How many letters does the German alphabet have?: Twenty-six, like English, plus ä, ö, ü and ß. The umlauts and ß are not counted as separate letters of the alphabet – in a dictionary ä is filed with a – but they are separate sounds, and a missing umlaut is a spelling mistake that can change the word.
What do I do without ä, ö, ü or ß on my keyboard?: Write ae, oe, ue and ss: Muenchen, Strasse. It is the standard fallback, understood everywhere, and the course accepts it in typed answers.
Which German does the course teach?: Standard German as written and spoken in Germany, with ß; the differences in Austria and Switzerland are pointed out where they matter – for example that Swiss spelling writes ss where Germany writes ß.