German Alphabet Letter Names Made Simple: A Fun Beginner’s Guide
Learning German can feel a little funny at first.
You see a familiar letter like W, and your English-speaking brain thinks, “Easy! Double-u.”
Then German says, “Not so fast.” 😄
As a native German speaker, I know that some of the smallest differences in pronunciation can make German feel much more complicated than it really is. The good news? Learning the names of the German letters is a simple place to start.
This guide will help you learn how the letters are actually called when you say the alphabet or spell something in German.
One important note before we begin: these are letter names, not a complete guide to every sound a letter can make inside German words. German pronunciation has its own rules, and we can tackle those separately.
Wait… German Has the Same Alphabet, Right?
Mostly!
German uses the same 26 basic letters that English uses, but you’ll also see:
Ä, Ö, Ü and ß
And even though many of the letters look familiar, their names are not always pronounced the way an English speaker might expect.
That’s where things get interesting.
For example, the German letter B is called Be and pronounced /beː/. An English-friendly approximation is “beh.”
Not “bee.”
And German W?
It’s called We and pronounced /veː/ — approximately “veh.”
That one surprises a lot of beginners!
A Few German Letter Names That May Surprise You
Some letter names are especially useful to practice because they differ quite a bit from English.
B — Be /beː/
Approximately: beh
C — Ce /t͡seː/
Approximately: tseh
D — De /deː/
Approximately: deh
G — Ge /ɡeː/
Approximately: geh
J — Jott /jɔt/
Approximately: yot
V — Vau /faʊ̯/
Think f + “ow”, with the “ow” sounding like the vowel in cow.
W — We /veː/
Approximately: veh
Z — Zett /t͡sɛt/
Approximately: tset
Once you hear these a few times, they start to feel much more natural.
Why I Don’t Just Write Everything “The English Way”
You’ll notice that my chart includes both IPA pronunciation and English-friendly pronunciation cues.
There’s a reason for that.
English pronunciation spellings can be helpful for beginners, but they’re never perfectly exact. German has sounds that simply don’t line up neatly with English.
For example, the vowel at the end of Be, De, Ge, Pe, Te, and We is a pure German /eː/ sound. Writing “bay,” “day,” or “gay” can actually teach an English speaker the wrong sound because English adds a glide that German does not.
So in the guide, I use forms such as:
beh, deh, geh, peh, teh, veh
They’re still approximations, but they point you in a better direction.
And Then There Are Ä, Ö and Ü…
Ah, the umlauts. 🇩🇪
These are some of the sounds that make German sound distinctly German.
Ä /ɛː/ is similar to a long eh sound.
Ö /øː/ doesn’t have an exact English equivalent. One way to begin practicing it is to make a long eh sound while rounding your lips.
Ü /yː/ also has no exact English equivalent. Try saying ee while keeping your tongue where it is and rounding your lips.
It may feel ridiculous the first few times.
That’s normal.
Language learning occasionally requires making strange faces at yourself in a mirror. 😂
What About ß?
The letter ß is called Eszett:
Eszett /ɛsˈt͡sɛt/
Approximately: ess-TSET
You’ll see ß in German words, although exactly where it appears depends on German spelling rules.
For now, simply recognizing it and knowing its name is a great start.
Letter Names Are NOT the Same as Letter Sounds
This is really important.
If German W is called We, that does not mean you pronounce every W in a German word by saying the name of the letter.
The alphabet chart teaches you what the letters are called when you say or spell them.
Think about English: the letter W is called “double-u,” but you obviously don’t say “double-u” every time you see W inside a word.
German works the same way.
Later, we can get into the fun part: how German letters and letter combinations actually sound inside words.
Free German Alphabet Letter Names Chart
I made a printable German alphabet guide you can keep nearby while you practice.
It includes:
German letter names + exact IPA pronunciation + simple English-friendly cues
Use it while practicing the alphabet, spelling your name, learning new vocabulary, or getting more comfortable with German pronunciation.
And yes — practice really does help. After a while, Jott, Vau, We and Zett stop sounding unusual and simply become… the alphabet.
Click here to download your free German Alphabet Letter Names Chart
German Can Be Fun, Too
I also want this German section to include more than grammar rules and pronunciation charts.
German has some wonderfully strange expressions.
One of my favorites?
Ach du grüne Neune!
Literally, it sounds like you’re talking about a green nine. 😄
But it’s actually an old-fashioned, playful expression of surprise or disbelief — more like:
“Oh my goodness!”
or
“Good heavens!”
So yes, that large smiling green number 9 is exactly what “Ach du grüne Neune!” inspired. 😄
Learning German should be useful, but it can also be fun.
Bis bald!
See you soon! 🇩🇪