Umlaut: What Ä, Ö and Ü Mean in German
An umlaut is the two-dot mark German places over a, o and u to create the letters ä, ö and ü. It shows a shifted, fronted vowel sound and often changes meaning (schon “already” vs schön “beautiful”). The dots began as a small e written above the vowel, which is why ae, oe and ue are the accepted substitutes.
An umlaut is the pair of dots placed over a vowel in German to show that its sound has shifted: a becomes ä, o becomes ö and u becomes ü. The German word Umlaut literally means “changed sound,” and it names both the two-dot mark and the sound change behind it. Those three letters, plus ß, are what turn the 26-letter Latin alphabet into the 30-letter German one.
If you only need to type or convert one, use the converter above. If you want to know what the dots actually do, read on.
What an umlaut does to a German vowel
The umlaut moves a vowel forward in the mouth. Plain a, o and u are “back” vowels: the tongue sits low or pulled back. Their umlauted partners are “front” vowels, made with the tongue pushed toward the teeth. The change is small for your mouth but big for meaning, because German treats each pair as different letters.
| Base vowel | With umlaut | Example pair | Meaning | Hear |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mann | Männer | Mann → Männer | man → men | |
| schon | schön | schon / schön | already / beautiful | |
| Mutter | Mütter | Mutter → Mütter | mother → mothers | |
| Buch | Bücher | Buch → Bücher | book → books |
Each of the three umlauts has its own page with IPA, mouth positions and word lists: Ä, Ö and Ü. In short: ä sounds like the e in “bed” [ɛ], ö is an e said with rounded lips [ø], and ü is an ee said with rounded lips [y]. English has no true match for ö or ü, so expect to practice them.
Where the umlaut came from: a tiny letter e
The two dots started life as a small letter e. In Middle High German, scribes sometimes wrote an e after a vowel, or above it, to mark the fronted sound. Over time the raised e shrank. In German handwriting such as Kurrent, a lowercase e was written as two short strokes side by side, so a miniature e over a vowel already looked like two marks.
By the late Middle Ages those marks could appear as dots, and from the 16th century the two-dot form shows up in print as well. That history explains the modern fallback spelling: when you write ae, oe or ue, you are restoring the original e, not inventing a workaround.
Umlaut vs diaeresis: same dots, different job
English readers meet the same two dots in words like naïve, Noël or the name Brontë. There the mark is called a diaeresis (or trema). It tells you to pronounce a vowel separately from its neighbor, not to change its quality.
Digitally the two look identical. Unicode has a single combining mark for both, U+0308 COMBINING DIAERESIS, and the precomposed German letters reuse the “diaeresis” names: Ä is U+00C4 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS. The difference is purely about function:
- German umlaut: changes the vowel itself (Bruder vs Brüder).
- Diaeresis: splits two vowels into separate syllables (French Noël, Spanish pingüino, where it makes the u audible).
- Branding: names such as Motörhead or Häagen-Dazs use the dots for effect, with no sound change intended. A German reader, though, hears a changed vowel.
Ä, Ö and Ü in the alphabet and the dictionary
When Germans recite the ABC, they usually stop at Z and add ä, ö, ü and ß afterward. That is why you will read both “26 letters” and “30 letters”; our page on how many letters are in the German alphabet covers the debate. Each letter is named by its sound: ä is said [ɛː], ö [øː] and ü [yː], never “a umlaut” in German speech.
Sorting works differently from Swedish or Finnish, where ä and ö come at the end of the alphabet. The German standard DIN 5007 files an umlauted word as if it had no dots; only when two words differ solely by the umlaut does the umlauted one come second, giving schon, schön, schonen. A second variant, used for name lists such as phone books, treats ä as ae, so Müller sits among names starting “Mue.”
Umlauts in German grammar
The two dots are not decoration. It is one of the main ways German builds new word forms, so you will see the same stem switch between a plain and an umlauted vowel constantly. The official spelling rules even use this link: for a short [ɛ] sound you write ä rather than e when a related form with a exists, as in Bänder from Band, according to the Council for German Orthography’s official rules.
| Pattern | Without umlaut | With umlaut | English | Hear |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plural | Apfel | Äpfel | apple → apples | |
| Comparative | groß | größer | big → bigger | |
| Verb (he/she/it) | fahren | fährt | to drive → drives | |
| Diminutive | Haus | Häuschen | house → little house | |
| Past subjunctive | war | wäre | was → would be |
Spotting these patterns helps with spelling. If you hear an [ɛ] sound and know a related word with a, the letter is almost certainly ä. Browse more examples in our list of German words with umlauts.
Writing ä, ö and ü without the dots: ae, oe, ue
When a keyboard, form or system cannot produce ä, ö or ü, the accepted replacement is the base vowel plus e: ä → ae, ö → oe, ü → ue. That is why the surname Schröder is also written Schroeder, and why German email addresses and older web domains are full of “ue” and “oe.” The capital forms follow the same rule: Ä → Ae, or AE in all caps.
What you should never do is drop the dots and leave the bare vowel. Schon (already) and schön (beautiful) are different words, and Mutter means one mother while Mütter means several. Practical options for typing the real thing on Windows, Mac and phones are on our how to type umlauts page.
Reverse conversion is not always safe. Not every “ue” stands for ü: Feuer (fire), Steuer (tax) and Quelle (source) contain a genuine u followed by e. The converter above handles the common cases, but check names and words where e follows a vowel by nature.
Common mistakes with the umlaut
- Dropping the dots. Writing “Munchen” or “schon” for München or schön changes or breaks the word. Use ue/oe/ae instead.
- Adding dots where none belong. Diphthongs like eu and äu are separate spellings; Häuser is spelled with äu, heute with eu.
- Saying “a umlaut” aloud in German. Native speakers name the letter by its sound, so spell Bär as “beh, äh, er.”
- Reading ü like English “oo.” Für (for) and fuhr (drove) are different words. Round your lips but keep the tongue forward.
- Confusing the umlaut with a diaeresis. In German the dots never split syllables; they always change the vowel.
Frequently asked questions
What does umlaut mean in German?
Umlaut means “changed sound.” It names both the two-dot mark on ä, ö and ü and the historical sound shift that fronted those vowels.
Is an umlaut the same as a diaeresis?
They look identical and share one Unicode combining mark (U+0308), but they do different jobs. A German umlaut changes the vowel’s sound; a diaeresis, as in naïve, tells you to pronounce two vowels separately.
How do you write an umlaut without the dots?
Add an e after the vowel: ä becomes ae, ö becomes oe and ü becomes ue. Just dropping the dots is wrong because it can create a different word.
Are Ä, Ö and Ü separate letters in German?
Germans usually list them after Z as extra letters, giving 30 letters with ß. Dictionaries, however, sort them with a, o and u rather than at the end of the alphabet.
Which languages besides German use umlauts?
Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Turkish and Hungarian use similar dotted letters, and Swedish, Finnish, Estonian and Turkish treat them as independent letters. Their sounds and alphabet positions differ from German.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Umlaut (diacritic)
- Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung: Amtliches Regelwerk 2024 (PDF)
- Unicode code chart: Latin-1 Supplement (PDF)