Go to the homepage of our German Course The German Consonant 'f' University of Portsmouth
The German Consonant 'f' Includes sound files!

The German consonant 'f' should cause relatively few difficulties for native English speakers. In both languages, the upper front teeth and the lower lip come together to form a narrowing through which the air passes with a trace of a hiss. It is called a 'fricative' consonant, which means that is articulated by forcing air through a narrow gap in the vocal tract in such a way that friction is audible.

The /f/ phoneme is thus formed in the same manner and the same place as the German /v/. The difference is that you use your vocal cords to make the /v/ sound, but not when you articulate /f/. To feel the difference between the two consonants, place your hands over your ears and repeat the German words fein and Wein (which begins with the /v/ phoneme, despite its spelling). When you say fein, the only thing that should hear is the airstream passing out through your mouth. But when you say Wein, you should be able to feel your entire head vibrate.

Click here to listen to the soundsClick either here or on the sound icon on the left to hear a native speaker say six German words all beginning with the letter 'f'. The words themselves are given in the box below along with an English translation:

Familie
(family)
   Fahrrad
(bicycle)
Fernseher
(television set)
   fünf
(five)
Fuß
(foot)
   Fehler
(mistake)


Click here to listen to the soundsNow click either here or on the sound icon on the left to hear five German words in which the letter 'f' appears in medial position. The words themselves are supplied in the box below along with an English translation:

Seife
(soap)
   Telefon
(telephone)
hoffen
(to hope)
   kaufen
(to buy)
Prüfung
(examination)


Click here to listen to the soundsFinally, click either here or on the sound icon on the left to hear four German words in which the letter 'f' appears at the end of a word. The words themselves are supplied in the box below along with their English translation:

Einkauf
(purchase)
   Schlaf
(sleep)
doof
(stupid)
   tief
(deep)



The German 'ph' sound Includes sound files!

Click here to listen to the soundsAs in English, the letters 'ph' are pronounced as an /f/ phoneme in German. In fact, many words that originally contained the letters 'ph' have now been Germanified such that they are now spelled with an 'f'. You would now write Telefon, for example, rather than Telephon, and Fotografie rather than Photographie. Even after the recent German spelling reforms however, a number of 'ph' words remain, sometimes as the sole acceptable spelling of a lexical item, sometimes as an accepted variant to the spelling with 'f'. Click either here or on the sound icon on the left to hear the correct pronunciation of four words with the /ph/ spelling:

Philosophie
(philosophy)
   Phrase
(phrase)
Physik
(physics)
   Phonetik
(phonetics)


Weiter! How to pronounce the German consonant 'g'


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