German uses the same 26 Latin letters as English, plus a small set of additions: three umlauted vowels (ä, ö, ü) and one special consonant, the eszett (ß, also called scharfes S).
An umlaut isn't a stylistic accent — ä, ö, and ü represent genuinely distinct vowel sounds from their unmarked counterparts a, o, and u, and can change a word's meaning entirely (schon, "already," vs. schön, "beautiful").
ß represents a sharp "s" sound, historically written as a combination of two other letters. It's used only in specific spelling contexts (largely after long vowels), and Swiss German spelling conventions typically avoid it entirely in favor of "ss" — a real, standard regional variation rather than an error.
Unlike English, German capitalizes every noun, not just proper nouns and sentence starts — a genuinely distinctive spelling convention among major world languages that, once familiar, actually helps readers quickly identify which words in a sentence are nouns.
Ä, ö, and ü represent distinct vowel sounds from a, o, and u — not a stylistic accent — and can completely change a word's meaning (schon vs. schön).
It represents a sharp "s" sound in specific spelling contexts, mostly after long vowels; Swiss German typically uses "ss" instead as a standard regional variation.
It's a distinctive German spelling convention, unlike English or French — every noun is capitalized, not just proper nouns, which helps readers quickly spot nouns in a sentence.
Not yet — German is planned for a future course. Contact Tarc to be notified when it launches.
See also: German Pronunciation · Learn German · English Alphabet