For most of the people
who don't have German as a mother tongue these three
sounds might be the most difficult. How to pronounce
something that is not even found on most of the keyboards.
The ä is still not
too difficult. In normal spoken language, it cannot be differentiated between ä and e. They have both the same IPA-sign, which are [ε] for a short ä and [ε:] for a long ä. The short ä sounds like in the English words let, men or gender.
The ö is a sound
similar to an o, but the lips are put a bit more together,
it's actually the sound that is in murder, burden, fur.
The ü might be the most difficult one because there
is nothing alike in the English language. Imagine that
u meets a long ee, lips formed like you would like to
whistle and then instead of whistling put some voice
into it.
That's about the theory here have some examples:
 |
ähnlich |
 |
similar |
|
| |
Ärger |
|
trouble |
|
| |
sägen |
|
to saw |
|
|
 |
öffentlich |
 |
public |
|
| |
Öl |
|
oil |
|
| |
Möbel |
|
furniture |
|
|
| |
(this
sound also exist ins French: survivre (to
survive), sur (sure), curer (to cure)) |
 |
über |
 |
over |
|
| |
merkwürdig |
|
weird |
|
| |
Lüge |
|
lie |
|
|
Since it's always the question what is the difference
between the normal vowel and the umlaut, have an ear
at the following examples.
|