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Pronunciation | |
Phonetic Script | |
Vowel Mutations |
Phonetic Script: |
Here you learn about the phonetic script used for the German vowel mutations. To listen to the pronunciation, click on the little button in front of the respective word.
| Script | Letter | Vowel Mutation Type | German | English | ||||||
| Height | Backness | Roundedness | ||||||||
| [ɛ:] | ä or äh | (long) | open-mid (the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel and a mid vowel) |
front (the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant) |
unrounded (the lips are not rounded) |
Ära |
era | |||
 |
ähnlich | similar | ||||||||
| [ɛ] | ä | (short) | open-mid (the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel and a mid vowel) |
front (the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant) |
unrounded (the lips are not rounded) |
kämmen |
to comb | |||
| ätzend | corrosive | |||||||||
| [ø, ø:] | ö or öh | (long) | close-mid (the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and a mid vowel) |
front (the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant) |
rounded (its roundedness is compressed, which means that the margins of the lips approach one another, so that the inner surfaces are not exposed) |
schön |
beautiful, nice | |||
|
mögen | to like | ||||||||
| [œ] | ö | (short) | open-mid (the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel and a mid vowel) |
front (the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant) |
rounded (its roundedness is compressed, which means that the margins of the lips approach one another, so that the inner surfaces are not exposed) |
zwölf |
twelve | |||
|
können | to be able to do sth. | ||||||||
| [y, y:] | ü, üh or y | (long) | close (the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant) |
front (the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant) |
rounded (its roundedness is compressed, which means that the margins of the lips approach one another, so that the inner surfaces are not exposed) |
grün |
green | |||
|
Xylofon | xylophone | ||||||||
| [ʏ] | ü or y | (short) | near-close (the tongue is positioned similarly to a close vowel, but slightly less constricted) |
near-front (the tongue is positioned similarly to a front vowel, but slightly further back in the mouth) |
rounded (its roundedness is compressed, which means that the margins of the lips approach one another, so that the inner surfaces are not exposed) |
fünf |
five | |||
|
Ypsilon | upsilon | ||||||||