Note: these combinations are
not always used as diphthongs. At syllable boundaries and sometimes even
in a syllable, they are spoken as separate vowels (e.g. soeben —
zoh-AY-ben)
au
like 'ow' in "how"
ae
transcription for 'ä' if not available
on a keyboard or in URLs
ah
like 'a' in "bar", longer than 'a'
äu
like 'oy' in "boy"
ei
like 'i' in "wine"
eu
like 'oy' in "boy"
eh
long 'e'
ie
like 'ee' in "week", longer than 'i'
ieh
like 'ee' in "week", longer than 'i',
fundamentally no difference to 'ie'
oe
transcription for 'ö' if not available
on a keyboard or in URLs
oh
like 'oo' in "door", longer than 'o'
ue
transcription for 'ü' if not available
on a keyboard or in URLs
uh
like 'ou' in "youth", longer than
'u'
ch after 'a', 'o' and 'u'
like 'ch' in Scottish "loch", spoken
in the throat, like 'j' in Spanish
ch after 'i' and 'e'
like 'h' in "huge"
ch at the beginning of a word
like 'ch' in "character"
ck
like 'ck' in "blocking"
ng
like both 'ng' in "singing", never
like 'ng' in "finger"
ph
like 'f' in "fish"
sch
like 'sh' in "sheep"
sp at the beginning of a word
like 'shp' in "fish pool"
ss
like 'ss' in "hiss", in contrast to
'ß', makes the preceding vowel shorter. Also used as transcription
for 'ß' in URL or on foreign keyboards.
st at the beginning of a word
like 'sht' in "ashtray"
