Learning German

German and English are both Germanic languages and closely related to each other. Since they share the majority of their alphabets with similar pronunciation rules, it's easy for an English speaker to start learning German!

There are only a few key differences from English at the typographic level.

• German has three more vowels: ä, ö and ü. The little hat is called an umlaut.
• The additional letter ß known as the Eszett or "sharp S".
• Nouns in German are always written with a Capital.

Much German vocabulary will also be recognizable to English speakers. Consider phrases like der grüne Apfel (the green apple) or die graue Maus (the gray mouse). This is increasingly true as the languages continue to borrow new words from each other, as in das Baby or der Computer.

Diese Welt ist sehr grün.

Sprachy exercises will often ask you to make a reasonable guess at the meaning of things when it's possible to do so!