German is spoken by around 95 million people, mostly across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. German pronunciation rules, once learned, apply consistently — there are relatively few of the spelling exceptions that make English tricky for learners, which makes phrases easy to repeat back correctly after only a few listens.
This course works through the same six themes as every language here, from a first greeting to a line for winding down at the end of the day. Every phrase is spoken aloud, shown with a phonetic guide, and listed in full underneath the player — read along, listen with your eyes closed, or both.
German is written with the Latin alphabet, plus umlauts (ä, ö, ü) and the letter ß. If it looks unfamiliar, that's normal — the phonetic guide under every phrase on this page (and in the word list below the player) exists specifically so you never have to guess.
A frequent stumble is English speakers under-committing to the umlaut sounds (ö, ü) — they're distinct vowels, not decoration.
German is spoken by around 95 million people, mostly across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
German is written with the Latin alphabet, plus umlauts (ä, ö, ü) and the letter ß. Every phrase on this page is shown in that script alongside a plain-English phonetic guide, so you're never stuck if the characters feel unfamiliar.
A frequent stumble is English speakers under-committing to the umlaut sounds (ö, ü) — they're distinct vowels, not decoration.