German Vowel Phonology

A simplified overview of the Standard German vowel system, with interactive audio samples.

IPA Vowel Chart

Overview of the sixteen German vowels, comprising fourteen different qualities, two of them with long/short distinction:

	Front			Near-front		Central	Near back	Back
	Unrounded		Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded	Central	Rounded	Rounded
Close	iː Mieter		yː Mühle					uː Mut
Near-close				ɪ Mitte	ʏ Müller		ʊ Mutter
Close-mid	eː stehlen		øː Höhle					oː Ofen
Mid						ə bitte
Open-mid	ɛ Stelle	ɛː Käse	œ Hölle					ɔ offen
Open	a Kamm	aː kam

Note: The single vowel [ɐ] (near-open central vowel, like [ə] but more open) may be considered an allophone of the sequence /ər/.

Long/Short Distinction

Comparison of the eight long/short vowel pairs:

Long	Short	Change	Roundedness
aː kam	a Kamm	-	unrounded
ɛː Käse	ɛ Stelle	-	unrounded
eː stehlen	ə bitte	↓ open, → back	unrounded
iː Mieter	ɪ Mitte	↓ open, → back	unrounded
yː Mühle	ʏ Müller	↓ open, → back	rounded
uː Mut	ʊ Mutter	↓ open, ← front ⚠️	rounded
oː Ofen	ɔ offen	↓ open	rounded
øː Höhle	œ Hölle	↓ open	rounded

Note that the roundedness quality does not change with the long/short distinction.

Orthography

How vowels are written and pronounced in the German alphabet:

German letter	Long pronunciation	Short pronunciation	Roundedness
a	aː kam	a Kamm	unrounded
ä	ɛː Käse	ɛ Stelle	unrounded
e	eː stehlen	ɛ Stelle ⚠️ / ə bitte	unrounded
i	iː Mieter	ɪ Mitte	unrounded
o	oː Ofen	ɔ offen	rounded
ö	øː Höhle	œ Hölle	rounded
u	uː Mut	ʊ Mutter	rounded
ü	yː Mühle	ʏ Müller	rounded

Note: The letter "y" is considered a consonant that is pronounced the same as "j", but in some loanwoards it is pronounced like the vowels "i" or "ü".

Umlauts

How vowel quality of the three umlaut letters differs:

Letter	Long p.	Short p.	Umlaut	Long p.	Short p.	Change	Roundedness
a	aː kam	a Kamm	ä	ɛː Käse	ɛ Stelle	↑ close	unrounded
o	oː Ofen	ɔ offen	ö	øː Höhle	œ Hölle	← front	rounded
u	uː Mut	ʊ Mutter	ü	yː Mühle	ʏ Müller	← front	rounded

Note that the roundedness quality does not change with umlauts.

Copyright Notice

This "German Vowel Phonology" page is based on information from the German Wikipedia article Aussprache der deutschen Sprache and therefore released under the same "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported" license.

"Höhle", "Hölle", "kam", "Kamm", "Mitte", "Mut", "Mühle", "Müller", "offen", and "Stelle" were created by Jeuwre and released unter the "Namensnennung – Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 4.0 international" license.
"bitte" was created by Timwi and released into the public domain.
"Käse" wasj created by Bleibein and released unter the "Namensnennung – Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 3.0 nicht portiert" license.
"Mieter", "Mutter", and "stehlen" were created by Kampy and released unter the "Namensnennung – Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 3.0 nicht portiert" license.
"Ofen" was created by Dr. Thomas Braun and released into the public domain.