German uses the same 26 Latin letters as English — but almost every letter is named differently out loud. This matters more than it sounds: Germans spell things aloud constantly (on the phone, at the doctor's, at a hotel check-in), so knowing what each letter is actually called is one of the most useful things a total beginner can learn first. The table below is checked against real German letter names, not English lookalikes — notice how different B, G, J, V, W, Y and Z sound from what an English speaker would guess.
| Letter | Sounds like | Example word | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | ah | Apfel | |
| B | bay | Banane | |
| C | tsay | Computer | |
| D | day | Dose | |
| E | eh (as in "bed") | Ei | |
| F | eff | Fisch | |
| G | gay | Garten | |
| H | hah | Haus | |
| I | ee | Insel | |
| J | yot | Jacke | |
| K | kah | Katze | |
| L | ell | Lampe | |
| M | emm | Maus | |
| N | enn | Nase | |
| O | oh | Ofen | |
| P | pay | Papier | |
| Q | koo | Qualität | |
| R | air (throaty) | Radio | |
| S | ess | Sonne | |
| T | tay | Tisch | |
| U | oo | Uhr | |
| V | fow (rhymes with "how") | Vogel | |
| W | vay | Wasser | |
| X | iks | Xylophon | |
| Y | ip-see-lon | Yoga | |
| Z | tset | Zug |
How do you say the letter "W" when spelling a German word aloud?