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I'm looking for a list of the alphabetic letters in the Deutsche language (DE), each letter translated into English (EN) by hearing.

For example lets take a word, presented in Deutsche & English:

Anthropology ; Anthropologie

I don't speak German, but I can clearly notice that the letter n is the same, th is the same, etc.

Another important thing is that the list should NOT contain any vowels (letters that are translated by hearing to a, e, i, u, o)

My goal is to create a list (De->En) that looks like this:








This is for a University project, I will appreciate if anyone could help me with this, I hope that this is a simple task for someone who speaks the language.


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closed as not a real question by looper, Eugene Seidel, Takkat Feb 11 '13 at 21:46


German "th" is pronounced like "t", not like English "th". Such a list would also have to leave out most consonants (e.g. "g" in your example). –  Philipp Feb 10 '13 at 21:52
This could be one of those trick questions that SE throws at reviewers. They call this "review audit". If you fail the audit you get review banned, a clunky forerunner to the SE-branded wristband that either injects sugar into your bloodstream or administers a mild electric shock, depending on your action. –  Eugene Seidel Feb 11 '13 at 17:10
@EugeneSeidel: only that this question was not in the review queue. See more background on the purpose of the review test. –  Takkat Feb 12 '13 at 9:38
This is what IPA is for. German has nothing like the th/þ/ð sound from English and languages which have that sound. However, there are some tables like what you ask for on each Wikipedia page where the alphabet is listed in the context of a particular language. –  0xC0000022L Feb 14 '13 at 20:59

1 Answer 1

This "question" has been posted on at least three different sections of Stack Exchange (Spanish and French as well as German). I'm not sure whether it's a joke or a serious project. If it's intended seriously, then I must say that in my opinion it's hopeless.

To try to give the reason in one sentence: letters are not phonetically consistent in different languages, nor in different regions, nor even in different words in the same language.

A single example from English: 'c' has different sounds in face, cape and chase. How would you identify the sound of 'c' in your list?

I suppose this is exactly the reason why phonetic alphabets like the IPA were invented.

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