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.