German Pronunciation Generator. IPA Transcription Translator (2024)

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How to use this German IPA translator and pronunciation generator

Introduction

This phonetic translator will help you obtain very accurate phonetic transcription of your German text.

It uses the symbols of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) — the most popular phonetic transcription system in the world.

There's more than 120,000 German words in our database. Note that the support for compound words is not yet fully implemented.

If you need to copy the phonetic transcription into another program or print it, please read our FAQ.

Watch a tutorial "How to convert text to phonetic transcription and listen to audio recordings of words"

High-quality computer-generated audio

You can easily create audio for your text using this pronunciation generator. Listen to the voice samples below.

Text-to-speech service is provided by the following companies:

• Google
• Amazon
• Microsoft

Each time you generate an audio, we have to pay one of these companies.

Text-to-speech service is only available with the subscription Premium.

Multiple pronunciations of German words

Some German words are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently and have different meanings. They are called hom*ographs. Compare:

The phonetic translator will highlight hom*ographs in green. If you hover your cursor over these words or tap them on your mobile device, you will see all possible pronunciations.

At the moment this phonetic translator cannot yet decide which pronunciation is correct for such words. You will need to choose the correct pronunciation yourself depending on the context.

Pronunciation variants (when native speakers from different regions pronounce a word differently, or when the pronunciation changes in rapid speech) are highlighted in blue. Just like with hom*ographs, you can also hover your cursor over the word to see all possible variants or click/tap it to select the right pronunciation.

Translation to your native language

This pronunciation generator allows you to obtain an automatic translation of your text to your native language.

Automatic translation service is provided by a third-party company (Google). Each time you translate text into another language, we have to pay Google a small fee.

Translation service is only available with the subscription Premium.

Create your own custom word lists

You can create your own custom word lists using this phonetic translator. Here's how you can do it:

1. For the setting Transcription display options select the option "transcription above each word".
2. In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option " to word list".
3. After submitting your text, click on the word you want to add to the word list and then click the button " to word list".
4. You will be prompted to select the transcription and enter the meaning/translation of the word (the latter for most languages is optional).
5. Once you finished adding words to your word list, click on My Account at the top of the page and then on My word lists. You will see the list of all your word lists.

There are so many things you can do with your word list:

1. export it to a file (Word, Excel, plain text),
2. print it from your browser,
3. share it with other people (for example, your students),
4. practice pronunciation of every word using the audio recordings of real people (if available) or high-quality text-to-speech voices.

Watch a tutorial "How to create custom word lists"

Case-sensitive converter

We wanted to create a very precise tool, so we decided to make this phonetic converter case-sensitive. For some words, it makes a difference. For example, the German words Major and major mean different things and may be pronounced differently depending on the context.

If you want to obtain the best results, please submit the German text which is spelled correctly. Misspelling the words (augen, GLAUBE) may give unpredictable results.

Before you submit your text we suggest you use this free online German spell checker by Duden to make sure all German words are spelled correctly.

How to use the setting "Edit transcription"

Sometimes you may encounter one of the following situations:

1. A very rare word was not converted at all.
2. You want to suggest a better transcription for a word.

In either case here's what you can do:

1. For the setting Transcription display options select the option "transcription above each word".
2. In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option "Edit transcription".
3. After submitting your text, click on the word which transcription you want to correct and then click the button Edit transcription.
4. If you are suggesting a different transcription for a word that can already be converted, there's one additional step. Go to My Account. Click on Customize my experience and turn on the option I want to suggest changes in the transcription for the words that can already be converted.

In any case, the new transcription will only be visible to yourself. We will add an option to see the transcriptions submitted by other users later.

How to use the setting "Hide transcription"

Some people prefer to hide the phonetic transcription of the most common words in order to make the text less cluttered. Here's how you can do it:

1. For the setting Transcription display options select the option "transcription above each word".
2. In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option "Hide transcription".
3. After submitting your text, click on the word which transcription you want to hide and then click the button Hide transcription.

Next time you submit the text, the transcription of this word will not be displayed.

If you want to undo this action, go to My Account. Click on Customize my experience and go to the section Undo the action Hide transcription.

Highlighting of high-frequency German words

In the section Advanced options you will find a special option that allows you to highlight high-frequency German words. The words from different frequency intervals will be highlighted in the following colors:

If you want to make the frequency analysis of your text and obtain the detailed statistics, please use German word frequency counter.

Learning German as second language: phonetic transcription can help you improve your German pronunciation

German pronunciation may present a difficulty to people starting to learn German. The pronunciation rules in the German language are very complicated. There are a lot of German letters that can be pronounced in different ways.

This tool will serve you as an German pronunciation guide and will help you save time. You will no longer need to look up the pronunciation of words in a dictionary.

If you use the phonetic transcription regularly in combination with German audio and video recordings, your pronunciation and listening skills in the German language will improve.

German pronunciation dictionaries that we recommend

If you are interested in German pronunciation, we highly recommend purchasing Das Aussprachewörterbuch - German pronunciation dictionary by Duden. It contains 132,000 words and has a brilliant introduction that explains all the pronunciation rules in German. The dictionary will also help you with hom*ographs and personal names. Our translator doesn't convert them very well.

Another very good dictionary on German pronunciation is Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch. It contains even more German words - 150,000. The introductory part explaining the pronunciation rules is also pretty good. The hardcover edition comes with an audio CD.

Check our German phonetic subtitle converter and obtain something like this:

Greetings from the developer Timur

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Timur Baytukalov. A Complete Guide to Language Learning. Part 1: Learning Pronunciation

Free Webinar "Phonetic transcription for fast language learning" (20 min.)

To develop this translator, we used information from different sources mentioned on this page. The phonetic transcription was taken from these sources in accordance with the Copyright Act of Canada (Paragraph 29, Fair Dealing for the purpose of education).