Foreign imports retain their original stress: dasMenü (menu, set meal), die Nation (nation)

Inseparable prefixes move the stress to the following syllable: sprechen (to speak), versprechen (to promise); schließen (to close), entschließen (to decide). There are ten inseparable prefixes: be- ge- emp- ent- er- ver- zer- and miß- hinter- wider- .

Double particles : these are words consisting of two indeclinable words such as adverbs or prepositions. These are stressed on the second syllable e.g. herunter (down), herauf (upwards).

This stress pattern is retained within complex words. Complex words are common in German which tends to build larger words by putting shorter ones together. When you come across compound words you need to recognize their building blocks in order to get stress and pronunciation right, because both are affected. The component words have to be kept separate when the words are spoken, and some consonants behave differently according to whether their position is at the beginning or end of a word. So der Handschuh (glove) sounds <hunt shoe> with both Hand and Schuh retaining a separate identity. The ‘d’ sounds like an English ‘t’ because it comes at the end of the word – it retains this ‘t’ sound whether Hand stands on its own or forms part of a compound word. A similar change, i.e. from ‘voiced’ to ‘voiceless’, affects the German ‘b’, which sounds like an English ‘p’ at the end of a word.

Listen to das Rindfleisch (beef) and das Kalbfleisch (veal) in Linguata Words to do with food. Meat.

The tables below list some of the important sounds in German with English equivalents:

German	Example	English equivalent
b b in final position*	Ball Kalbfleisch	as English ‘b’. as English ‘p’
d d in final position*	Danke (thanks) Rindfleisch	as English ‘d’ as English ‘t’
g final -g final –ig	Garten (garden) gegen (against) Berg (mountain) König (king)	as ‘g’ in ‘garden’ as English ’k‘ like –ich in German Ich (see below)
h- -h	vorher (before) zehn (ten)	sounded initially (see remarks above about compound words), but not sounded after a vowel
-ch after a,o,u,au -ch after other vowels	doch (yet) Dächer, welcher, Ich	As in Scottish ’loch’ A softer sound towards the front of the mouth – listen to Linguata. Key words and phrases. 1
sch	Schiff (ship)	As ‘sh- in ‘ship
tsch	Deutsch	As ‘tch‘ in ‘fetch’
r- (initial) -r (final)	rund (round) hier (here)	Scottish ‘r’ or ‘throaty’ French ‘r’ Not emphasized/swallowed
s- (initial), before vowels -s (final) -sz/ß (beta s, ligature beta)	sein (to be) Haus (house) Straße (street)	As ‘z’ in ‘fanzine’ As ‘se’ in ‘house’ As ‘ss’ in ‘stress’
v	Vogel (bird)	As ‘f’ in ‘finch’
w	Wasser (water)	As ‘v’ in ‘van’
y: words from ancient Greek	typisch (typical) psycho-	Pronounce as ü (see below)
* See note above on	stress pattern