Starter grammers in German
Today we are going to provide you with the Starter grammers in German so you can stay communicated with other people.
Read and listen to the following dialogue between two students: Franz and Greta. You don’t have to understand anything! You should rather try to find out how each word is pronounced.
Franz: Hallo, ich bin Franz. Wie heißt du?
Greta: Hallo, Franz. Ich heiße Greta. Wie geht’s?
Franz: Es geht mir gut. Kennst du den Lehrer?
Greta: Ja, er heißt Herr Weiß.
Franz: Oh, danke, Greta. Bis dann!
Greta: Wiedersehen!
The German pronunciation of many letters is similar to the English pronunciation, but there are also many differences.
| Questions | Answers |
| 1. How is the “a” in “Hallo”, “Franz”, “Greta”, “ja”, “danke”, and “dann” pronounced? | 1. Similar to the “a” in “hard”. |
| 2. How is the “i” in “ich” and “bis” pronounced? | 2. Similar to the “i” in “hit” |
| 3. How is the “ch” in “ich” pronounced? | 3. Similar to the “ch” in the Scottish word “Loch”. |
| 4. How is the “z” in “Franz” pronounced? | 4. “z” is pronounced like “ts”. |
| 5. How is the “w” in “wie”, “Weiß” and “wiedersehen” pronounced? | 5. Similar to the “v” in “vat”. |
| 6. How is the “ie” in “wie” and “Wiedersehen” pronounced? | 6. Similar to the “ee” in “meet”. |
| 7. How is the “ei” in “heißt”, “heiße” and “Weiß” pronounced? | 7. “ei” is pronounced like “ai” in German or like the “i” in the English word “time”. |
| 8. How is the “ß” in “heißt”, “heiße” and “Weiß” pronounced? | 8. “ß” is pronounced like “s”. |
| 9. How is the “e” in “es”, “kennst”, “er” and “Herr” pronounced? | 9. Similar to “e” in “pet”. |
| 10. How is the first “e” in “gehen”, “Greta”, and “geht” pronounced? | 10. This is a long German “e”; the sound doesn’t exist in English. It is between the “i” in “hit” and the “e” in “pet”. |
Words you can use it everyday:
| English | German |
| Hello! | Hallo! |
| I | ich |
| Iam…. | Ich bin … |
| how | wie |
| you | du |
| What is your name? | Wie heißt du? |
| My name is… | Ich heiße … |
| How is it going? | Wie geht’s? (Longer: Wie geht es?) |
| I’m good. | Es geht mir gut. (Shorter: Mir geht’s gut. Even shorter: Gut.) |
