The German Alphabet and Spelling Your Name Aloud

"Wie schreibt man das?" (How do you write that?) is a question you'll hear often, especially with names and addresses. Knowing the letter names makes you understand and be understood.

Letter names

German uses the same 26 letters as English, plus ä, ö, ü and ß. The names sound different:

Letter	Sounds like	Letter	Sounds like
A	ah	N	enn
B	beh	O	oh
C	tseh	P	peh
D	deh	Q	koo
E	eh	R	err
F	eff	S	ess
G	geh	T	teh
H	hah	U	oo
I	ee	V	fow
J	yot	W	veh
K	kah	X	iks
L	ell	Y	ÜP-si-lon
M	emm	Z	tsett

Trouble spots: E is "eh", I is "ee", J is "yot", V is "fow" (rhymes with "cow"), W is "veh", Z is "tsett", Y is "Ypsilon" and C is "tseh".

Umlauts are said as Ä ("eh" with an umlaut, or A-Umlaut), Ö (O-Umlaut) and Ü (U-Umlaut), and ß is Eszett or scharfes S.

Asking how to spell

• Wie schreibt man das? — How do you write that?
• Wie buchstabiert man das? — How do you spell that?
• Können Sie das buchstabieren? — Can you spell that?
• Können Sie das bitte aufschreiben? — Can you write that down?
• Wie schreibt man Ihren Namen? — How do you spell your name?

Spelling your name

Say the letters one by one: Schmidt is "ess, tseh, ha, em, ee, deh, teh". Double letters are indicated with doppel: Doppel-M, Doppel-T, so Müller is "Emm, Ü, ell, ell" or "M, Ü, Doppel-L, E, R".

Phone spelling alphabets

For clarity on the phone, Germans use a spelling alphabet. The traditional version used first names: Anton, Berta, Cäsar, Dora, Emil, Friedrich, Gustav, Heinrich, Ida, Julius, Kaufmann, Ludwig, Martha, Nordpol, Otto, Paula, Quelle, Richard, Samuel, Theodor, Ulrich, Viktor, Wilhelm, Xanthippe, Ypsilon, Zacharias. A revision of the standard in 2022 replaced these with place names, such as Aachen, Berlin, Chemnitz and so on. You may hear either, and many people simply use their own examples ("B wie Berta").

Symbols for emails and web addresses

• @ — at (colloquially Klammeraffe)
• . — Punkt
• - — Bindestrich
• _ — Unterstrich
• / — Schrägstrich
• : — Doppelpunkt
• www — w w w (weh weh weh)
• .de — Punkt de
• groß / klein — capital / lower case (großgeschrieben / kleingeschrieben)

Example: "anna.mueller@beispiel.de" is "anna Punkt mueller at beispiel Punkt de".

Numbers in phone numbers

Phone numbers are read in pairs or single digits. Zwo is sometimes used for zwei to avoid confusion with drei on a poor line.

Useful phrases

• Das schreibt sich mit ... — It's written with...
• Mit Ü. — With a Ü.
• Mit Bindestrich. — With a hyphen.
• Zusammengeschrieben. — Written as one word.
• Getrennt geschrieben. — Written as separate words.
• Mit scharfem S. — With ß.

Capital letters

All German nouns are capitalised, and this is a spelling requirement, not decoration. When you spell a word aloud, mention groß if needed.

Practice

Spell your name, email address and address aloud in German, using both letter names and the "wie" method.

Check spellings with English German Dictionary →