In German, Ö (o-umlaut) is a vowel representing a distinct sound, similar to the French 'eu' or the sound in "blur" or "fern," made by saying "ee" while rounding your lips as if to say "oo". It's one of the special German letters (umlauts) used for vowel changes, often substituted as "oe" (e.g., in websites) and signifies a different sound than a regular 'o' or 'u'.
The letter o with umlaut (ö) appears in the German alphabet. It represents the umlauted form of o, resulting in [œ] or [ø]. The letter is often collated together with o in the German alphabet, but there are exceptions which collate it like oe or OE.
Umlaut (literally "changed sound") is the German name of the sound shift phenomenon also known as i-mutation. In German, this term is also used for the corresponding letters ä, ö, and ü (and the diphthong äu) and the sounds that these letters represent.
Long a, o and u sounds are usually written with macrons as ā, ō and ū. The notation "ou" or "oo" is sometimes used for a long "ō", following kana spelling practices. Long e and i sounds are usually written ei /ee and ii, but in neologisms are instead written with macrons as ē and ī.
In German, 777,777 is written as one long compound word: Siebenhundertsiebenundsiebzigtausendsiebenhundertsiebenundsiebzig, meaning "seven hundred seventy-seven thousand, seven hundred seventy-seven," showcasing German's ability to create huge words by joining smaller ones.
Ö is one of the 4 extra letters used in German. It can be replaced by using the digraph oe. In English language newspapers, ö is often written as "o", but this is not correct.
The "ß", also called "Eszett" (sz) or "scharfes S" (sharp s) is not an Umlaut, but it deserves to be mentioned since it's the only letter that is completely unique to the German language. It's only used in the middle of words, so there is no upper case form of it.
You can learn to produce this sound with practice. Here is a tip to help you produce the Ö sound: Whenever you see the two dots over the O, think – not OH!/surprised, but instead, disgusted. Think of being disgusted by something, and try making that sound.
The German "Nein" as the Simple "No"
The translation of the English "no" is "nein" in German. It might be simple to remember for English speakers because it begins with the same letter "n” - however, to use it effectively, you should also devote some time to pronunciation.
The symbol "Ø" is used in mathematics to denote the empty set and in linguistics to represent zero morphemes or null elements.
Symbol. (NAPA, UPA) a high front rounded vowel (IPA [y]). (superscript ⟨ᵘ̈⟩, UPA) an extremely short or fleeting ü. An emoticon representing a face with a big smile.
The 190,000-letter "word" is the full chemical name for the protein titin (also called connectin), starting with Methionylthreonylthreonyl... and ending with ...isoleucine, detailing its immense chain of amino acids. While technically a word, it's a systematic scientific name (not in dictionaries) that's impractically long, taking hours to pronounce, and scientists use the short name "titin" instead.
"Backpfeifengesicht" isn't a bad word per se, but it's a colloquial and somewhat humorous insult. It translates to “a face that needs a slap” and is used to describe someone with an annoying or smug face. It's offensive but more cheeky than outright vulgar.
World War I origins
That routine quickly got boring and started seeming meaningless to them. Another origin theory is that the 08/15 guns had a low quality due to their mass production in World War I – therefore nowadays, 08/15 can also be used to describe something that is lacking in quality or substance.
The hiragana character ぢ (di) sounds the same as じ (ji) in modern Japanese, both typically pronounced as "ji," but ぢ historically represented a "di" sound and is still used for specific words (like hanaji for nosebleed) or due to sound changes (rendaku), while typing it often uses 'di'.
While people in some regions like Ehime may still pronounce it as /wo/, the Japanese education system teaches children to pronounce 「を」 as /o/. This standardized pronunciation is used in schools, media, and everyday formal speech.
The letter "ó" (uppercase Ó) is called an "o with an acute accent," representing a distinct vowel sound or emphasis in many languages like Spanish, Irish, Polish, Portuguese, and Hungarian, often signaling a longer, different, or stressed "o" sound, but it's crucial to know it's just one of several "o" diacritics (like ò, ô, õ, ö, ø) with varied meanings across languages.