German is not difficult to pronounce and spell

German is a phonetic language. This means that words are generally pronounced as they are spelled and spelled as they are pronounced. There are no silent letters except e in the combination of ie, and h, which is silent when used after a vowel to indicate that it has a long sound. This is so much simpler that in English, where such words as height, weight, cough, rough, dough, knight, could, etc make English spelling & pronounciation a difficult task for the foreigner.

Each German vowel has a long and a short sound. Thus: German is either long, like a in father, or short, like a in what. German a is never like a in hate, a in tall, a in mare, or a in back.

Most German words are stresssed (accented) on the first syllable. Thus: Gar-ten, On-kel. When the first syllable is not stressed is not stressed, an accent mark will be used in the vocabularies to show the stressed syllable. Thus: papier (pa-peer) paper. You can improve your pronounciation and understanding of the spoken word by listening to German radio broadcasts and CDs, by attending German movies wherever possible, and by watching German DVDs.

Verbs in the Deutsch language

As we learn more about Deutsch (German), we will note many resemblances to English in vocabulary, idioms and grammatical structure. This is not strange, for German and English belong to the great Germanic family of languages. They are in fact language cousins.

Some frequently used verbs

The infinitive of all German verbs ends in -en or -n. Remove these endings from the following Deutsch verbs and note the remarkable resemblance to English verbs of the same meaning:

• Beginnen - to begin
• Binden - to bind
• Bringen - to bring
• Fallen - to fall
• Finden - to find
• Hasben - to have
• Helfen - to help
• Kommen - to come
• Sehen - to see
• Senden - to send
• Singen - to sing
• Springen - to spring
• Waschen - to wash
• Wundern - to wonder, be surprised
  

Some of the related Deutsch & English words

Some of the most common Deutsch (German) words, often repeated in everyday speech, closely resemble English words of the same meaning, though the pronounciation differs. Some common nouns in Deutsch and their English counterparts are below:

• Ball - ball
• Butter - butter
• Finger - finger
• Garten - garden
• Gras - grass
• Hand - hand
• Haus - house
• Hut - hat
• Mann - man
• Mutter - mother
• Onkel - uncle
• Park - park
• Schule - school
• Sohn - son
• Sommer - summer
• Vater - father
• Wind - wind
• Winter - winter

Some of the frequently used adjectives are:

• Alt - old
• Braun - brown
• Blau - blue
• Gut - good
• Kalt - cold
• Lang - long
• New - new
• Rund - round
• Voll - full
• Warm - warm