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Hello and welcome.
Today I'm thinking of starting an
account on youtube that can help people
get into introductory German.
But before we get into words, we have to get the letters down; so the alphabet.
So I'm just gonna run you through the German alphabet and the pronunciations.
And after that, I'll start posting videos of words and simple sentences and
it'll get more complex, and more complex.
So I hope that you can learn some from my videos.
I don't know how often I'm gonna post things, but
that's enough of me talking. I'll get into teaching.
So... so, the Germans use the Latin alphabet like English. I hope you know
that.
Uh... so that the first letter which in English is "a" but is pronounced "ah",
then "b", "beh",
seh, deh,
eh, ef
geh,
ha, ee, yot, kah
el, em, en, oh, peh,
koo,
air, es,
teh, oo, fow,
veh,
eeks, upsilon, tsett.
Now I'm just gonna look through
a few of these. Now,"j" in particular is "yot".
"J" doesn't usually could make a "jah" sound like it does in English, unless if it's a loan-word.
Like if they used the word "jeans," they say "jeans," not "yeans".
But some words like
"jubeln" which means "to jubilate" in
English
uh... has a "y" sound like
"jubeln".
And then
some of these... uh...
then you got the "v".
Be careful, because "v" does not make a "vee" sound kind of like it does in English, it makes
more of a "ef" sound.
So "fow".
And then "w" doesn't make a "wa" sound in German, it makes a "vee" sound, as it does in
English.
So it's "veh".
Then "y" has a weird
thing, it's "upsilon". I don't know what that's about. Then
"z" is "tsett".
Now, "z" makes a really weird sound in German. It makes a "ts" sound, like a "t_s," so
it's like "tseh".
Uh...it kinda sounds like the British pronunciation of "z" which is "zed".
Now, these are the twenty-six regular letters that we have in English...
...but over here we have four special letters. Now, um...
they have these little dots over them,
and you may know them from metal bands. A lot of metal bands like to use them because
they
look cool and everything, but these are actually german accent marks,
and are called "umlauts". Not "umlots"; "umlauts".
And
you got...
...they only appear on "a"s.
on "a"s or "ah"s.
*stuttering*
"o"s and "u"s. So, um... yeah...
so they make, the umlaut here makes an "ay" or an "eh" sound,
but the way you'd pronounce that to a German would be, "ah umlaut". And...
"o"
would be, "oh umlaut".
And then "u" would be, "oo umlaut".
and then you got this
fa.. like weird-looking letter down here, that looks like a "B" or something. But no, that's called an
"eszett".
And an "eszett"
is a weird, special letter.
And it could be replaced with two "s"s.
Uh... oh yeah... all the umlauts up here,
if you... if let's say you're typing on the keyboard or something, and you just don't
have access to these characters with the umlauts,
you can just put an "e" after the letter.
so...um...
I'm trying to see, like the German word...
here like...
"spät",
which means "late" in English.
Let's say you're typing on a keyboard and you just didn't have access to that
umlaut right here,
than you could just write it like this,
"spaet".
These two things are equal to one another.
And then...
...um...
what's another word
with an "ß" up here?
Um...
I guess I could i use the word
"heiß".
Sorry, that's a bad-looking "ß". But
that means
"hot" in German.
Well let's say that you didn't have access to the "ß,"
you could write it,
"heiss".
These two are the same thing.
So...
yup uh... just try to get that memorized.
uh... and then I'll post a video later
on how to
like say simple words and pronunciation when you put these letters together.
Uh...
thanks for watching. Bye.