Umlauts or to be specific, Germanic umlauts are the fronting of vowels in the German language caused by assimilation to an original front vowel. The vowels in Germanic language appear as: Ä, Ö and Ü.
Ä is pronounced similar to the e of the English language as in the word “bed”. This is the short form of pronouncing this vowel. The long form is similar to how the English word their /eir/ is pronounced. Ö is similar to how you pronounce “bird” /ir/ in the English language. And lastly, Ü is similar to the French language u and the English way of pronouncing the words “mule” or “music” /yu/ and the German place Munich.
Germanic Umlauts are just a small bit of the German language. But the way you memorize German words doesn’t require special classification; just a method to help you remember them. Figure how the sentence below can help you remember it.
The man who throws confetti each town festival has extremely big hands that can hold any huge object in one grip and uses jam to help him hold any object in his hand.
So what is the relevance of the story to the example words given? The German word selected for this sentence is Konfiture which means “jam” in English. The English word used to represent Konfiture is confetti. You can also locate the word “jam” somewhere in the sentence. The purpose is to choose a similar sounding word to link to the English translation of Konfitur. Also, the example appears ludicrous, but it’s meant to appear that way so the reader (and the human brain) can easily recognize the difference above other sentences and remember the sentence easier.
even easier.
Five chunky hotdogs didn’t make it on time for packaging because there were humors about them that they should be on the chicken dog section because of their cream color instead of juicy red.
Italian word = cinque
English translation = five
The Italian word for five has been replaced with an English word “chunky” because of the similar sound the two words have in common. This method is usually use for easier memorization even with plain items within the English language, but it has been proven to work good also with foreign languages.
