German Umlaut – What are they and how are they used?

What is a German Umlaut?

The German umlaut is recognisable by 2 little dots above a letter. The German umlaut is found on 3 letters, Ä, Ö and Ü.

What does the German Umlaut do?

When you see a German umlaut above one of the 3 letters, you will know that this is pronounced differently. It is quite simple to remember how to pronounce them as from an English point of view, you just add a letter E afterwards as follows:

Ä = AE

Ö = OE

Ü = UE

It is actually common to see words written without the German umlaut, but with an E afterwards instead. This is because many programs across the World are written for the English language only. They won’t accept any characters with a German umlaut. You would therefore see Muenchen instead of München for example.

Examples of the German Umlaut

der Mülleimer – the rubbish bin

die Äpfel – the apples

das Wörterbuch – the dictionary

When would you see a German Umlaut?

There is no simple rule to tell you exactly when you would see a German umlaut. However there are some situations where you will see them appear. It is best to learn them as you encounter them because any rule related to this would be too complicated to worry about.

There are 2 main situations where you are likely to encounter a German umlaut:

1. With some strong verbs where the stem changes in the du and er/sie/es forms.e.g. ich schlage, du schlägst, er/sie/es schlägt
   ich laufe, du läufst, er/sie/es läuft

   Remember this is not a rule, it is just a situation that you may encounter the German Umlaut.

2. The plural of some nouns:
   e.g. der Apfel – die Äpfel
   das Wort – die Wörter
   der Hafen – die Häfen

Extra Note: When a U follows an Ä, it is pronounced like OY in English

e.g. die Häuser – the houses – pronounced “die Hoyser”